>> helen raleigh is a. me of the american dream born economist china came to the u.s. as a college student. she didn't know anybody and she had less than $100 in her pocket. like millions of immigrants with a craving for freedom in his pocket was like that her dreams were rich. through a combination of hard work and -- in current her economics degree from the university of new york and her

nba from the university of wyoming kuchis the author of several books including her first book which if you haven't read it i highly recommend it which describes her family struggle to survive under china's socialist regime. she's a contributor to the federalist and her writings have appeared in "the wall street journal" "fox news" national review "newsweek" and other national media. helen is served on several boards and commissions in metro denver where she lives with her husband mike and those include the colorado state advisory committee for the u.s. commission on civil rights and several others. but what impresses me the most about helen is her courage and her love of america and our precious freedom. helen became a u.s. citizen in 2013 and she takes her oath to protect and defend the united states of america. seriously. by publishing her latest book which is for sale out in the lobby and she will be signing after tonight's event, her book

"backlash" how china's aggression has backfired in a shining spotlight on her impressive tech except the chinese communist party and its providing a wake-up call to americans to embrace socialist ideologies like those she and her family painfully endured in china. for this display of courage helen has been ruthlessly attacked on social media and regularly receives hate mail in her inbox even including death threats yet as helen says in "backlash" i simply can't remain silent on things that matter because as martin luther king jr. once said our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. let's give a warm welcome to helen raleigh. [applause]

>> good evening everyone. can you hear me okay? is so nice to be back to steamboat institute and thank you jennifer. emigrated mirer of what you've done over the years and for those of you who are here who are supporters of this great institute, thank you and thank you and for those of you who are not yet in especially for those of you who will watch this on the internet or social media i encourage you to check this great institution out and give them support to continue advance freedom for all americans. i want to keep my remarks short because the steamboat institute always attracts the most agitated audience so every time i've spoken here i get the most

interesting and thoughtful questions so especially after we have all been stuck in her homes for a year and love the interaction and i'm hungry for interaction so i want to keep my remarks brief but i want to know what's on your mind about china policies and what you think we should do. i'm only going to focus on three questions. i want to keep three questions in my remarks. the questions will be why did i write this book and the second question would the this book talks about china's aggression but what are the questions i'm talking about and also the title of the book is called "backlash" and i get a lot of questions about backlash and is there really backlash? i don't see it. the first question, why did i write this book wakes the short answer is like all of you i had a lot of time for they couldn't

go anywhere for more than a year. so the real serious question is i wrote this book mostly out of frustration. i was frustrated because for four decades since president nixon visited china for four decades the u.s. foreign-policy to china was largely a failure. it was based on illusion based on this misunderstanding of what the communist party really is. i'm going to explain that. the understanding is as long as we economically engaged with the communist party basically means if there's some donaldson people will change in the regime will change. for the longest time it's not just the united states it's almost all western democracies.

we have a solution that as long as we engage with the communist party economically eventually they are going to become more like us and they will be more open and people are going to embrace this democracy. by now we realize that part of my frustration is not all of our decision-makers recognize that. some of them continue with the wrong policies. i'm not saying economic engagement was a bad idea because i myself was a man a fishery of economic engagement. i grew up with food rations are their member everything was rationed and there were limited supplies and my parents used to have to get up at 4:00 in the morning to stand in long lines outside the grocery store in order to get some oil or sugar. the first time i went to mcdonald's thanks to economic

engagement, the first mcdonald's opened in beijing i remember the first thing i got was an apple pie. took 20 minutes to e the apple pie. the reason it took me 20 minutes as i savored every bite. i've never had anything so sweet and tasty and now i stay away from them because i want to stay fit but back then i didn't care. to me it was not freedom of liberty, it was apple pie and i said someday want to go to the places where you can eat as much sugar as you want. i'm a beneficiary of that economic engagement. economic engagement itself is not wrong. it's not a wrong policy. when i say we i say american government in business, what we did wrong is we assumed that

unconditioned economic engagement was somehow changing behaviors. we forgot who we were dealing with, the troop character of the come -- caricature of the communist party. no one talked about the true caricature of the communist party to the communist party as a party that leaves an raw power. it will do anything to obtain power and it will do anything to remain in power. power is the only justification. that's why communist party has been hostile to democratic values since its founding in 1949. because you see every democrat embraces free and open elections and rule of law and the opposition parties and open ideas.

it's all the democratic values that challenged the parties deity to take power and stay in power. that's why the communist party has never changed or they will never change and they will never embrace democracy. we need to treat them as who they really are not who we wish them to be. so i wrote up look not meaning for policymakers and they are welcome to read it but when i broke this book i kept all of you in mind because i say we the people need to become educated. because politicians their incentive is how to be reelected and so we need to be smart. when we look at a candidate and we check out their policies you like the people to be present in

making laws and policy decisions. i think it's time that we say to ourselves here are the issues that we should care about when it comes to foreign policy in dealing with china and then in time for the election we can say okay we have the rhetoric to say what is foreign-policy that you advocate? is that the right policy for america? we need to do that because in the last four decades we have had unconditional economic engagement and the same time we didn't take nasa secured into consideration and also we are compromising our democratic values. if we make it as a compromise eventually it will change.

that change that tiananmen square in china in 1989. gdp per-capita was about $40 per person so we have a lot of economic leverage to give some concessions. we didn't do that. instead the u.s.. we don't see them continuing engagement and hopefully somebody will change. guess what? because of our economic engagement now we are dealing with an authoritarian state that has been abridged and empowered by her technology and our investments and are owned economic decline and now we are challenged on every front and they are seeking power.

not just in china and asia but the nation and how they can obtain world order that the different than a world order that we enjoy. that's why i have even though there is a lot of -- it was very easy to understand. that's the first question why did i write this though? a second question is what aggressions are we talking about with china? i'd like to describe it as -- there are different layers. the first layer of aggression i focus on domestic aggression. i focus on human rights violations against the uyghurs and muscles and persecution of christians surveillance systems

and i call it the digital prison by the communist party with surveillance keeping 1.4 million people and its tight control. my book has historical content about why the party targets the uyghur muslims and what institutions and how they view this digital fortress. we are focused on hard tactics in its true there is a lot of brutality like imprisonment forced abortion but i also want to focus on the soft tactics and when i say soft tactics it's about the social contract.

in today's communist party as long as i can guarantee -- you can have material wealth than you should not demand freedom or political wealth. this interview i read of the tibetan businessman he is pretty wealthy so he targeted foreign journalists. he said yes i have two cars and i have several houses and i do not lack anything material wise but here's the challenge. i cannot worship whoever i wanted and not allowed to openly show a picture of -- because it's not in our tibetan culture.

i applied for passports but i've been rejected multiple times because government won't let me travel abroad. he said i have everything except freedom. that's why i'm saying it's very important that we care about what's going on with hard tactics and we should also focus on the soft that takes. i describe soft tab x. as basically sedating you to think you should be happy that you have a roof over your head and you have food on the table. that's not who we are as human beings. we want more. they want the agency to make a decision. we need to focus on hard tactics as well as soft tactics when it comes to oppression domestically so that's layer one. layer two are hotspots in mainland china.

it's about what's happening in hong kong in what's happening in taiwan and in what's happening at the south china sea. i will be glad to talk about and answer questions about hong kong and taiwan because there a lot of comment in the book but i want to draw your attention to the south china sea. it's extremely important and it reflects a new tack tick. that's the thing we did is the communist party. the communists invented a new -- so what's happening with the south china sea is it's a trial run of what they call gray zone tab pics. what is the gray zone tactic? gray zone tab that means it's about territorial -- without using the military so basically enables the country to extend

its territory without a traditional war. this is how it works when china takes bended the south china sea. the body of water in southeast asia. it's the major trade route so 90% of the trade going to china goes through that route in china in several countries including malaysia the philippines and vietnam share claims of this body of water could sometimes there are historical disputes as to what area is yours and mine. this is the area with huge oil and gas deposits. it's a huge deposit of natural resources. there is a huge economic interest and its inventors to

maintain their claim are extended. what china did was under the first obama administration china had this idea to use the reef in the south china sea. the united states is not in checked. they were not sure what china believed in china just said we want to make sure we have the station here to help when a fisherman gets in trouble so paperlike okay, that's fine. within three years china reclaimed 3000 acres of land in building artificial islands. once they have built this island

this island has runways and hangars and china declared this new administration claims not only the islands are china's because they built them but also the surrounding waters are china's territory too. by doing that china expanded its claims of the south china sea to 90%. generally it's supposed to be a shared international body of water now it's in china's own backyard. now any one from our country needs to access it or ship china would send its coast guard. sometimes the chinese navy drives them out as high-risk territory. it is my strategy and that is a

gray zone tactic. if you want to understand that now based on the success in the south china sea by using the exact same strategy on the land to and the border dispute with other countries. so foreign-policy there was a stunning discovery. basically china built three villages inside the border of the todd a small country that shares borders with china. historically and for the longest time during the 80s china claimed this land.

the reason china did that is not for the baton territory. the tatís adjacent indian china and india have been fighting for the last several decades. china is in the long game. they want to use these three villages in an area that is connected to holy land. china wants to use this to make a land exchange. if you give me this outer area i will -- that other area. so far it's a small country and all it can do is to -- the investigation was totally shocking and the fact that this

whole china is expanding these gray zone's tactics that so far have received no objections to the united states or the western democracies but again that's frustrating and shocking to those of the things we need to know. we don't currently have a good strategy to push back. so that is the second layer, the hotspots in china's mainland. the third layer is more close to all of us, it's about china's global expansion. this is a big area because it covers so many things. there's economics from the economic standpoint. china launched this huge massive infrastructure plan called

one -- one road. the chinese bank will finance infrastructure for building roads in ports and airports in other countries using china's own suppliers and using china's own workers. the hosting country just borrows money from the chinese bank is very cheap rate that for many of them if they can't pay it back it's a death trap. so they could not pay it back they will have to let china please their support were lisa landor let china used your resources so it's really a genius idea. this idea the obama administration thought about it not in an aggressive way but the obama at mr. sheen call that the new silk road but like so many of the things we thought about it and we came up with an idea and we couldn't focus and we shifted our attention and we put

in huge resources behind it. that's economic front friend of theirs and education front. the confucius institute and the program which is china's recruiting foreign scientists as well as researchers and technological areas. china says hey i'm going to pay you and give you money if the chinese research institute or universities. all you have to do is bring your research that you are currently doing and share with us. keep it quiet from your employers. last year if you read the "washington journal" last year for the first time the u.s. department of justice actually charged the harvard chemistry professor, haiti is sharing his leading-edge technology with the chinese university secretly and

not letting his employer know. by the way he's researching. he is basically using our tax dollars to do his research and share the results with the chinese universities and got paid that way too. we'd do not know that very well so that's on the education front. there's also an information front. it happens in the media especially on social media. the research basically shows about 50% of twitter does read to eat -- read tweets as well as the likes of chinese diplomats and they spread information that's favorable and spread misinformation about the coronavirus. about 50% of their re-tweets and likes came from paid troll

accounts that originated from china. so our technology company has been very slow to respond to that so even though we are gradually finding these accounts and closing them, the four they close them all their re-tweets and likes give the impression to foreigners that hey this may be something legitimate. you being influenced by misinformation you don't even know echinus twitter doesn't always identify the account owners whether they are affiliated with the chinese state so the information especially we see the misinformation throughout last year during a pandemic, that's especially huge in terms of the information wars between the united states and china. so that is the third layer.

and this is a greater segue to obviously you cannot write a book during a pandemic without a chapter about the pandemic so yes there's a chapter about the pandemic. i think the pandemic really is a wake-up call for a lot of us not for all of us but a lot of us. it's really also the icing on the cake to tie all of these aggressions to get it to explain why we should care about chinese aggression especially this aggression in a domestic audience. if you look at how we the chinese government the party who reacted to the pandemic there was a lot of covering up in the early days. now we knew that they suppress the scientists and they suppress the doctors and the whistleblowers and prevented the media from reporting about it

and citizen journalists interviewing citizens to talk about what's really going on. the hampton university came out with a study last year that shows first of all for a pandemic the early days of the pandemic was the most crucial time. the sooner you can take action in those early days the sooner you can prevent the spread and limit this go. so basically according to the south hensing university study half of the chinese government disclosed all the information it knew about, they know about six weeks earlier. the pandemic, the scope of the pandemic would be reduced by 90%, 90%, not 19, 90% which means that is why when people

ask me why should i care about what did beijing due to the uyghurs and why should we care about what you did to the christians but i say well the pandemic. now you realize that your government doesn't care about the well-being of its own people. if it's waiting to do anything to sustain power and the pandemic showed you that eventually it's going to impact you and it's going to impact our house and our world being too. that's why you should care. that's about aggression. now let's talk about the backlash. is there backlash? i believe there is. i finish writing this book last year around september and i see more backlash now compared to the time when i was writing about it. even back then i saw several

sources of backlash. first, was public opinion. pew research did a word right research last fall and public opinion of china as well as china's communist leaders xi jinping drop 75%. so china because of the pandemic as well as china and hong kong it dropped 75%. the communist party known as communist china is facing unprecedented political isolation because of what has happened with the pandemic because it has impacted so many for so to me that's the biggest backlash. ..

he is my favorite from the trump administration. the trump administration was the first american administration the true nature of the communist party and you heard secretary pompeo talk about it many times that the trump administration treated the communist party of who it really is not who it wish them to be, for the first time it's an active foreign policy, not only that the trump administration was a first administration that are not afraid to bear cost and the challenges to come from a china domestic illegal aggression

china has one of the most powerful armies the second largest economy in the cost in china anything is very high, there is a cost of free approach, or government with the use of administration is our ally and so afraid to come from china because they do whatever that cost the trump administration was the first one to bear the cost and made it known that we bear that cost the company china i don't think this is any other administration that would do to sign the human rights act for the uighurs in the chinese companies in the chinese military and seniors communist party this is never happened before. i would call that backlash in

the usa administration standpoint you heard a lot from media last year that the term policy of going alone and nobody follows him, that's not entirely true, many of you heard about bidens network something that's been pushing really hard and big on chinese companies called huawei in the private companies have a very deep military and the government, anyway huawei is one of the national champions of the chinese government and it really wanted to see huawei 5g network throughout the world and the trump administration had to be warning of these allies of the 5g network because it

provided huge security risks, the trump administration has proved this year of fellow allies especially in australia. the trump administration has been telling our allies about 5g, one of our allies was the united kingdom and under conservative administration boris johnson even last january said were going to use while we because they're cheap, the reason there cheap because they were backed by the federal government and i can tell you the beaten price was unreasonable no business could sustain that if there stated along businesses. so boris johnson said were going to use ally because they are cheap even after pompeo said

using it will stop sharing because you don't feel comfortable and johnson said no mortgagor because it's cheap it is something we can afford. and guess what the pandemic happens in the chinese government increased on hong kong, was happening in hong kong is really tragic anyway by may the johnson announced he will not use it to build the 5g network. so again the pay down big became a wake-up call and it continued through the sheer that the biden administration and the eu in the united kingdom with canada joined together to target the chinese officials over the human rights violations. you see the backlash continue, it is not become a big wave yet

that's where you're coming from because the general administration i will end after my comments dividing the administration came in and the general approach was anything the trump administration is against except in china the biden administration continued to fuel the trump policies not just the targeted sanctions against them the communist party officials as well as chinese companies affiliated with the military. it was the biden administration biggest concern, the biden administration demonstrated to think the most one is a previous

obama administration, there is a gap between what they say versus what they do. trump had the same problem but the exact opposite with trump he would make a range when he spoke about the dictators like she's my friend prudence great, no they're not great, but you look at policies and he surrounded himself with people who are really strong with national security entrance policy was tough on russia and really tough on china. the biden administration is the opposite, the biden administration will talk about china and russia but the policies are the exact opposite they were really soft, the biden administration continues the policy on china but i think were

relating events between what happened diplomatic meetings between chinese people and american diplomats in alaska back in march, keep in mind alaska had soil and they became an invitation and i don't know few red what happened, basically they use the talking point in our diplomats on u.s. soil in talking about america has no life to talk to china because it's a racial injustice. nothing was surprising for

chinese diplomat intermedia in the talking points, what's disappointing and surprising the biden administration diplomat come out her strong powerful defend of our country because we use as a talking point and for years, that's why they talk about it so the diplomats go to them with the same language because our diplomats have the same doubts about americans and they announced a defense. the difference is art of double maddock approach, how could they do it in any other form, that's

what really troubles me the most. i don't one leave you swim going to end with a quote about winston churchill, winston churchill said i boys wanted to know, americans will always do the right thing after they tried everything else. , were probably at estate were trying everything else but i hope our efforts that we would educate herself enough will go back to doing the right thing, thank you. >> we receive some good questions let's dive right in. earlier this year the china foreign ministry announced china

is providing free vaccines to 69 countries and exporting them to 28 more chinese competitors are concerned for china's covid-19 vaccine is influence will follow, what are your thoughts on china's vaccine diplomacy efforts, that's a really good question and how you view the vaccine to basically, like i mentioned the jobs last year, i can tell you that the vaccination diplomats is very successful because the chinese vaccine and the efficiency is only about 60% and we don't even know if that's accurate. even though china's own cdc announced they can only use pfizer or moderna or the one invented in france as a booster

shot for their own citizens in china to increase the efficiency of the vaccines. so far it is not successful but it does show the relentless of the commonest party that is willing to do anything and has the power of the world's resources and the influence. mike: do you think it's accurate to say china has used the covid crisis to gain a vote. >> i think the party tried to do that that's what you see all the misinformation especially in social media from china's diplomat as well because china control the population, the population of the investigation in china and the origin of the

coronavirus was not very successful they came back with nothing. basically. so china tried to blame the frozen food, the u.s. military who brought it and said we don't enough research in china but we destroyed all the evidence they want them to look for anywhere else. but because the lab leak theory is no longer theory because thanks to the research by individuals around the world it's an amazing story, with our media are established media as well as scientists scientific establishment basically rejected the lab leak theory because trump said it it might be a life so they can't stop talking about

it they actually censor any scientist and researcher who wants to talk about, guess what it's a free market the power of the individual and free market. there is a group of individuals that never met before there's a wonderful piece out of newsweek a couple of weeks ago there's a group of individuals that call themselves drastic and researchers through open source information because none of them have classified access so the research through this information in a posted everything they found online and through research they were able to find edible evidence that is very likely for viruses to escape from the lab and they were able to convince some scientist from the establishment which was a possibility that brought the lab leaking theory back to life that this group of

individuals brought it back to life. because of that i don't think china is winning the pr work, now even countries hesitate to challenge china even organizations that have control, even he said we need to do more investigation to find the origins of the coronavirus. so there is definitely china is not in on that. >> what do you think the u.s. should do diplomatically on vaccine distributions to reinforce our allies and counter china. >> i think the donation program of the biden administration announced was good and i'm so glad president biden decided donation instead of sharing the patent, forcing them to share the patent not only violated

property rights but the thing is it's very difficult to make vaccines so many other countries do not have the facilities to make a vaccine and we forced our companies that this is what happened the communist party are going to have it for free and use it to invent their vaccine diplomacy. i think it's a much better option and i'm glad president biden and hopefully somebody talk them out of it and now he announced we will make a bigger donation, i think it's a right thing to do, we have extra we should donate to make sure especially a country like india which is our ally in a very important ally in the geopolitical conflict in china and many of you heard india is facing a very serious challenge

from covid. we should help our allies and make our extras available to countries. >> as you know the chinese commonest party is made up a number of fractions the two major fractions trading control of the party between 2002 mark 2012, six years each, each one had a different agenda what group now controls the party today and why? >> i would not call it a fraction, going back to the true nature of the communist party even the liberal of the party their ultimate goal is about power and how to remain in power through anything it takes. so maybe they're more liberal on the economic side and open aftermarket and a little more tolerant but the bottom line

even the legal way they will never embrace democracy because the element of democracy prevent a serious challenge to the communist party survival and hold the power, before the current president, xi jinping before he came to power in 2012 as the previous two leaders of the commonest party they were radically tolerant and ambitious that way. and they follow xi jinping's order that he was problematic and he launched economical reform and problematic in this

particular set that we need western money technology for our states, do not be aggressive in international states that's how we came to three successes with forward guidance and that gives china time to not only build economically with the chinese people relatively are more open politically in china but that is all changed when this leader came into power, he modeled himself so if you go to china you will see portraits everywhere in whatever he says, his book is the best seller and

they try to get people to buy a copy and also he controlled all the power so he was called the chairman of everything because he controlled everything under him. that is why china's going back to more totalitarian and more political and because xi jinping is only in his 60s, he's going to be there and make him president alike, he'll be there for a long time so china is not going back, it's essentially going the other way and looking inward is much more totalitarian compared to the past. >> this is my segue to the next question 92 million communist party members out of one and a half billion people in china, is

there a backlash against any of these government programs from their own citizens customer. >> i guess if there is it's not been reported. exposure to pandemic there was a lot of anger avoid the communist party angers even though their small in terms of the population, less than 7% into during the commonest party and you have to first join and imagine my first book this is been selected and the young pioneer program.

>> in another program for teenagers and young people and one you have the program then you really have to understand the communism and you have to have come from a good family, very leaders and once the party you will be put in a key position the economy, education, and throughout the country you are groomed to be the leaders, the successor to carry the communism forward. so there was backlash there were certain leaders during the pin number and there was a story about one of them the hospital

in shanghai, the chief doctor was really mad about the communist party member who did not show up and it's very rare for anybody to speak up and press conferences in china. , he was so frustrated, this doctor he spoke up in a press conference, he said where are the communist party members i wanted to report to you right now because we need anybody to be on the front line and of course that story was taken down quickly. so nobody talks about that anymore. i believe there is definitely some but it doesn't get reported and people are afraid of the foreign press and for that purpose is very difficult to get this information out of china.

>> how can we expect to control the ambitions of china if they control the raw materials for renewable energy and we don't want that supply to stop. >> i'm so glad to be asked about that. the short answer it can be done except we don't have the will to do it. let me give you an example is not exactly renewable energy but it's related did you hear about the rare earth minerals, a lot of you heard about that for those of you who do not know what that is it's 17 minerals that are crucial to the economy you can use batteries electronically cars, they are crucial and we, the united

states have huge deposits of rare-earth minerals back in the 1980s we were the ones who knew how to get the minerals out of the ground and processor, we have the technology that would happen and we tried opening up so many other businesses and they said we should go to china so will be cheaper to produce over there, basically our business and went to china top the chinese how to process the rare-earth minerals and let them have it and then here back home because environmental laws and is difficult to get mineral extraction so we graduated out of the industry so china has 90%, in recent years china controlled 90% of the worldwide rare-earth minerals supply not because china has the biggest

deposit, china has a monopoly of the technology of how to extract the minerals. so china has been using his control of those minerals and they play such an important role, china has been using those to coerce other countries, destroy you and japan in japan is very short all kinds of natural resources. i wrote this article and i gave this example, that is their goal when china used the monopoly of readers minerals to threaten japan japan realized that it cannot depend on china for supply on the rarest minerals so they did two things, one

japanese government and the japanese industry form the tax force and they spent their supply sources for china but many other countries that have rare earth minerals deposit they did not have the technology or money to extract it so the task force and the other countries to help them view to extract minerals to bring them off the market, then they diversified their suppliers with true innovation and car companies the solar panel companies to innovate three innovations to refuse the dependency on the rarest minerals like finding an alternative, so through those efforts it was painful because

the japanese asked the now china controls 75% worldwide rarest mineral market, it's not 90 right, this example shows you they can be done, the thing is we are so shortsighted even our government they simply lack the will to say that we need to do this we need financial pay as well as change the laws or do whatever it takes because this is a national security issue and we need to reduce our dependency. on the regime that is ideologically so different, polar opposite from us, we are not there, it is on us to select a representative who will put their foot down to say that's

what they're going to do and not worry about the backlashes they were going to do this because that's how it will reduce our dependency. >> what do you think has to happen to have corporations, sports leagues like the nba and the media join the backlash, can that even happen? >> i don't know, we are understanding the hypocrisy of our companies and sports leagues, on the one hand they offer social justice, for example today the biden administration is making juneteenth of federal holiday and you have all the companies that come on say slavery is terrible we should choose and celebrate the freeness of slaves, at the same time they use the supply chain from china

and the problem with the supply chain was enforced by slave laborers of the uighurs and they were fine on that, the huge hypocrisy and speaking of influence how could we influence the chinese government or convince the chinese people when we don't even want to support it. there always would ask our behavior and our corporations behavior and they've only done two things. . . . i don't know what he and terry is. you can write an article

criticizing him about it. as consumers that's where we come in. our business community is dominated by the woke capitalists, woke companies so it's difficult for me to actually oh let why can't all of them. you can't boycott all of them but i think because they are so trading conscious it's important that we expose the hypocrisy. challenge them in any way we can. we can buy alternative products and services. let's use alternate products and services and try not to support them. vote with our daughters and

that's really the only thing i can think of that we can use the power of our wallet to let them no we are not happy with their hypocrisy. >> describe if you can how the chinese communist party directly monitors and controls the average chinese citizen by monitoring essentially all of their activities laker lead applying a personal score that determines what a person can do. >> yes. i talk about how china built digital fortress and call it a digital risen enchanted to watch over 1.4 billion people. it did digital prison. one of them is a facial recognition technology facial recognition cameras. china has 600 million cameras surrounding the country so you can even tell who you are when you wear a mask. they know where you are.

they can use the camera to see who you are. another component is what they call social credit system. the social credit system when you think about credit here he think about it's about did i pay my bill on time? that is just a small part of the system. the social credit system assigns about $1000.. stage chinese citizen. it measures everything. it measures your activities and are shopping at to the senate measures what you put in the trash and have you ever crossed a red light because cameras are everywhere so it all feeds into the internet companies and they all feed into this giant credit system. so there is a lot of data about you.

some of those are innocent enough. you think maybe that's not so bad if you cross a red light at a time he shouldn't write that's probably not a good idea. for example if you complain about the chinese communist party or if you say something about coronavirus at the government that is different from the government's narrative than your points will be deduct did. what are the consequences? if your behavior is good and what the government likes you can probably get a promotion and you will maybe get a better rate when you apply for a mortgage and your kids maybe we'll be able to go to a better school but if your behavior is bad again bad by big governments information someday we'll find out that maybe you aren't getting that promotion with that company are somehow your kids will be rejected from the buddhist school or if you go to

the bank and apply for a loan you are going to get a good rate. the worst part is you won't be able to travel anywhere. you can have a train ticket you cannot buy an airline ticket. the license plate you have to have your own license plate. you just can't go anywhere. you lost your ability to travel. it's happened to many chinese dissidents. they found out they couldn't attend the conference or meeting because they aren't allowed to travel. so they social credit system is 1984 you know a description being brought to reality. the really sad part is that a lot of these technologies that china is using now ford's digital -- were provided by our technology companies. that technology companies helped

china held its digital surveillance system. now china's exporting those digital systems to audit other countries but again it's coming back to what have we done just like the coronavirus. now we have learned we funded the wuhan lab to do this research. where is the accountability? it's easy for us to blame the communist party but it's like every time it traces back to us. again we need to educate ourselves. we need to know what's going on. we need to know who is telling the truth and we demand transparency and accountability from our own politicians and businesses before you point their fingers to the other side.

>> the final question this would be a good one to wrap up on, you are just alluding to our own culpability in some of this as we have learned with dr. fauci in the funding of the research. it appears that there has been a cover-up. do you believe the world, countries the united states are allies and other countries will eventually come together for some type of effective response and backlash if you want to call it that against china? where do you see the ultimate endgame of the truth finally coming out and hopefully it will. >> first of all i am pessimistic about all the truth will come out especially related to the origin of the coronavirus because the chinese government has destroyed evidence and they told the scientist in the lab to take down their database.

when the investigation team was in china, they were in china for two weeks and they spent one week in quarantine in another week they spent sightseeing. when they worked in the wuhan lab all they did was read the report. they didn't get to examine the database and walk around a lot. those longer time-lapse between when this first happened versus our research investigation now the longer the gap is the harder it is for us to find out what actually happened. i'm pessimistic about whether we will really find out what truly happened but i do think this is a wake-up call. it has to become a wake-up call for all of us. you can't go back to business as usual. i hate to say this but we deserve it. our government and the cover-up

is going to happen all over again and none of us are going to surrender liberty gimmick change for safety that doesn't exist. this needs to be a wake-up call for all of us and i think about as long as we keep pressure to continue to investigate to continue to hold them accountable for what happened with the coronavirus the cake can't -- because again this is such a worldwide event very few people can claim this didn't even happen at all. there is a public pressure to keep this up in the news and to keep the investigation going so we need to keep that going really can't write it off. politicians in our country would want it just to go away and we wouldn't have to investigate. if we investigated points back to so we at the keep the pressure on to demand answers

that are difficult to find. we have two in the positive side is that the g7 they did make an announcement on the coronavirus origin that they demand an answer from china. the problem is how much is the gap between what they say versus what they do prevent it going to put actions behind those demands? again they will he put actions behind those demands because all of us demand it. my biggest take away from the coronavirus is our biggest take away from the coronavirus is we should have never, never surrendered our liberty, our individual freedom to demand that the truth seeking answers. for those of you who exchange or

liberty for safety you are going to end up with neither. you don't deserve either because it's not a fair. and it's a very painful lesson of the last 12 months. this whole experience of how the lab leaking was brought back to life and it shows the power of individuals and you can also show how many of our emperors have been walking around with no clothing on. they don't really know more than we do or they pretend to know more than we do. they lied to us so never, never surrender our freedom again when a crisis hits. we have to take responsibility and keep our focus on our politicians. >> a great note and done. can we have a round of applause for helen? [applause] i would like to my ability that

helen's book "backlash" is for sale in the foyer bridge you will signing copies of her book. please also watch for announcements in tonight's presentation of c-span's booktv series in the coming days and weeks but if you enjoyed tonight's presentation we would appreciate your going to steamboat institute.org to support us with your charitable contributions. as a nonprofit organization we depend on your support to reach people all across colorado and throughout the country with important messages like helen's here tonight in promoting individual liberty and free enterprise. be sure to follow the steamboat institute on instagram twitter and facebook could we are always promoting great things like helen's work and thank you and now please go out and enjoy the reception and book signing. thank you for coming. [applause]

>> i'm really excited. i've gotten into a lot of amazing people over the last 12 years and it's always a little bit intimidating when you interview an interview. i've interviewed rachel maddow and don lemon and a lot of amazing jourst