next, a discussion about whether china has gone too far in trying to become the world's number one superpower. with a senior contributor of the federalist, arguing in her book "backlash," reaction from the rest of the world will hinder china's plans. this was hosted by the steamboat institute in colorado. >> host: helen raleigh is the epitome of the american dream, born and raised in communist china, she came to the u.s. as a college student. she didn't know anybody and she had less than a hundred dollars in her pocket. like millions of immigrants with a craving for freedom, helen's pocket was light, but her dreams were rich. through a combination of hard work and scholarships, she earned her masters degree in business economics from the state university of new york and an mba from the university of

wyoming. the author of several books including her first book, confucius never said, which if you haven't read it i highly recommend, which describes her families struggle to survive under the socialist regime. she's a senior contributor to the federalist and her writings have also appeared in "the wall street journal," fox news, national review, "newsweek" and other national media. helen has also served on several boards and commissions in metro denver where she lives with her husband. those include the colorado state advisory committee to the u.s. commission on civil rights and several others. but what impresses me most is her courage and her love of america and our precious freedom. helen became a citizen in 2013. and she takes her oath to protect and defend the united states of america very seriously. by publishing her latest book which is of course for sale out here in the lobby and she will

be signing after tonight's event, her book "backlash how china's aggression has backfired." helen is shining a spotlight on the repressive tactics of the chinese communist party and is providing a wake-up call to americans who embrace socialist ideologies like those she and her families 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 helena says in "backlash, i 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]

>> i'm going to move this down. good evening, everyone. can you hear me okay? it's so nice to be back at the steamboat institute. thank you jennifer and the steamboat institute. i'm an admirer of all the work steamboat has done over the years. for those of you that are here as supporters of this great institute, thank you. for those of you who are not yet, especially for those of you who are going to watch this someday on the internet or social media, i really encourage you to check this great institution out. give your support to help the institution continue with events for freedom for all americans. i want to keep my remarks short, because one thing i love about the steamboat institute is that steamboat institute always attracts the most educated audience.

so every time i've spoken here, i get the most interesting and thoughtful questions. especially after we have been in our homes more than a year, i want the interaction. i'm hungry for interaction. so i want to keep my remarks brief. but i want to know what is on your mind with the china policy and what you think we should do. so, i am only going to focus on three questions. i want to ask three questions in my remarks. those will be why did i write this book. the second question will be what other aggressions -- it talks about china's aggression's, so what are the aggressions i'm talking about? and also the title of the book is called "backlash." i get a lot of questions like really, is there backlash because i don't see it. so where does backlash come from? so the first question, why did i write this book? well, a short answer is like all of you, i had a ton of time.

i 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, for four decades the u.s. foreign policy through china was largely a failure. it was largely a failure because it was based on illusion, based on this need to understand -- misunderstanding of what the communist party really is. okay? i'm going to explain that. so, the misunderstanding is as long as we economically engage the party based on this hamburger series, it means if there is a mcdonald's, then people will change, the regime will change. so, for the longest time, it's not just the united states. it's for all western

democracies. this illusion that to gauge it economically, eventually it's going to become more like us. it will become more open. it's going to embrace the democracy. well, by now we realize that that's an illusion. it's part of the frustration not over the decision-makers some of them continue advocating for the wrong policy. i'm not saying economic engagement was a bad idea because i myself was a beneficiary of such engagement. i grew up with food rations and i remember everything was rationed, there was limited to supply. parents use to get up at three or 4:00 in the morning to stand in long lines at the grocery store to get some cooking oil or

sugar in the opening and regime i remember the only thing i got was an apple pie and it took me 20 minutes to eat this apple pie that was only this big. i savored every bite. i never had something so sweet and tasty. now i stay away from them because i want to be fit. but back then i didn't care. to me it wasn't the freedom of liberty. it was apple pie. you could eat as much sugar as you want. so, i'm a beneficiary of that economic engagement. it is not a wrong policy. what we did wrong and when i say we, i mean, the american government and business what we did wrong is we are still that

unconditioned economic engagement where we somehow change behaviors. we forgot who we begin with, the true communist party so let me explain a little bit about the true character of the communist party. the party is a party that believes in power the only justification for what it would do so that's why the communist party has been deeply hostile to democratic values since the funding from 1949 because it is a way to embrace such as free and open elections, rule of law, have opposition parties, open debate on ideas.

all those democratic values as a challenge to the party's ability to take power at the state power. so that's why the party has never been friendly. they will never change. i wrote this book not meaning for the policymakers or although they will come to read it but when i wrote this book i keep all of you in mind because i think we need to become educated. their incentive is how to get reelected so we need to be smart when we look at a candidate and check on their policies because of our constitutional the people

that represent us to make the laws and policy decisions so i think it's time we educate ourselves to say here's the issues we should care about when it comes to foreign policy dealing with china and then we can say okay let's look past the rhetoric to say what is the foreign policy that you advocate and is that the right policy for america. we need to do that because for the last four decades there's this unconditional economic engagement at the same time we didn't take a national security consideration. we didn't -- also we are willing to compromise our democratic values because again we think we can make it as a compromise eventually they will change.

that was especially obvious after 1989 in the tiananmen square massacre. china was a weak state and we had a lot of economic leverage to have political change in the communist party, some confession. we didn't do that instead the u.s. and our allies look past the states and pretend we don't see them continuing the engagement and hopefully something will change. guess what, four decades later and now because of our unconditional economic engagement now we are dealing with an authoritarian state that is enriched in power by our technologies, our investment at the expense of our own economic decline and now they challenge us at every friend and seek

power for how can they build an alternative different than we enjoy that would guarantee the peace and prosperity so that's why i have you in mind and even though there's a lot of companion books that was easy to understand so that's the first question why did i write this book. the second question is what are the aggressions we are talking about so the way i approach it i like to describe it as peeling an onion. so there are different layers. the first layer of aggression i focused on the massacre of aggression so i focused on the human rights violations against the muslims and the persecution as well as mass surveillance

assistance and its ability to keep it at 1.4 billion under its control so that's layer number one. there's a lot of historical content about how they target and what the persecutions and how they built this digital fortress. i want you to also focus on the soft tactic because too often we are focused on hard tactics and it's true there's a lot of brutalities like imprisonment, forced abortion, organ harvesting in some instants but i also want you to focus on the soft tactic.

it's about this social contract nobody else agrees with that in today's communist party as long as i can guarantee it's going to go up, you can have material wealth then you shouldn't demand for freedom or political wealth. i can share with you in this interview that i read. he said my standard of living has improved. i have two cars, several houses, i do not lack anything materially but here is the challenge. i cannot worship whoever i want. i'm not able to issue a display. my children do not know how to speak because the children only teach them mandarin in the

culture. and he also said i applied for a passport but i've been rejected multiple times. he said i have everything except freedom. that's why i say it's important that we besides caring about what's going on in the hard tactics we should focus what's going on in the soft tactics. i describe the soft tactics because it is basically to think we should be happy you have a roof over your head, food on the table, don't think about anything else. that isn't who we are as human beings. we want more. we want the agency to make a decision. we want to focus on the hard tactic and soft tactic.

layer number two is a hot spot near mainland china so it's about what's happened in hong kong and taiwan and out of the south china seas. i would be glad to answer questions about hong kong and taiwan but i want to direct your attention to the south china sea because we don't pay enough attention to what's going on although it is important. to reflect a new tactic that's the thing dealing with the communist party. they have new tactics so what's happening at the south china sea is a trial run of the tactic. it means that it's without using military. basically it enables the country

to expand its territories without having to fight a traditional war that's what they call the gray zone tactic when it expanded in the south china sea. so it is a very strategic body of water in southeast asia. it's a major trade route so 90% of the trade going into china goes through that and china and several countries including malaysia, philippines and vietnam share claims of this body of water. sometimes the claimant overlaps. so there are historical disputes over what area is yours versus mine. this is also the area with huge mineral and gas deposits. it's a huge deposit of natural resources. so you can understand why all the countries share this body of water and economic interest as

well as national security interest to maintain the claim or expand it. so, what china did under the first obama administration, they came up with this idea at first to build an island, use the reef and one of the south china seas and the united states did not object. they were not sure what china is doing and they want to make sure that we can help when a fisherman gets into trouble or there's a report about whether. so people are like okay that's fine. so within three years, china reclaimed 3,000 acres of land through building artificial islands. with these three years. once they built of the island,

there's hangers and radars and china also declared a claim not all of them are china because they built it but also the surrounding water is now the territory so by doing that, the claim to generate that international body of water now is china's own backyard and now any of that access it or exploration trips china will send its aggressive coast guard and to protect china's

territory. so it's my strategy. that's what we call the gray zone tactic. it's important we understand that because now based on its success, it's using the same strategy on the land to expand the land border dispute with other countries. so, the foreign policy last month published stunning discoveries. basically china built three villages inside the border, small country with shared borders with china and for the longest time, it claimed they belonged but there were three villages there so once we build

it, it's affairs and the reason china did that is not the territory, it's basically it's also with india and they've been fighting the border wars for the last several decades. so in those three villages which strategically in an area that is close to a holy land so they do this to make a land exchange to basically say if you give me this other area right next to india. so far it is a small country and it didn't know it happened but the foreign policy investigation report would totally shock you

and the fact that this whole expansion of the gray zone that so far has received no objection that adds to my frustration so those are the things we need to know. so that is near china's mainland. the third layer is about the global expansion and this is a big area because it uncovers so many things from the economic standpoint they launched this massive infrastructure some of you may have heard about it for

the infrastructure like building roads and ports and airports with other countries using china's own suppliers. for many of them it is a death trap so they are going to have to lease their land or let china use their resources, so it is a genius idea and the obama administration a thought about it. like so many other things we thought about it. we shift our attention and china grabbed it like that for the resources so that's the economic front.

and about the thousand pattern a program which is recruiting the science researchers and technology areas. i'm going to pay you, give you tenure in the research institute or university. all you have to do is bring your research that you are currently doing, share that but keep it quiet from your employers. and so, last year if you read "the wall street journal" for the first time the department charged a chemistry professor with the chinese university and without letting his employers know. by the way he's researching not only founded by harvard but also by the department of defense so

he's basically using our tax dollars to do his research and sharing the result with the university so that's something we do not know very well. also, there's the information front. information that happens especially over social media and about a 50% as well as the chinese diplomats favorable to china and the spread of misinformation. about 50% came from troll accounts.

but the thing is our company has been very slow to respond to that so even though they are gradually finding what comes out and closing them, but before they close them, all of these give the impression that this may be something you will be influenced by the misinformation you don't know because twitter doesn't always identify the account owners and affiliated with the states, the chinese states. so especially they see the misinformation through the last year of the pandemic. that is especially huge in terms of that information between the united states and china. so that is the third layer. a segway obviously you cannot write a book in the pandemic

without a chapter about the pandemic. it is a wake-up call not for all of us, but a lot of us and it's more so kind of the icing on the cake of the aggression together to explain why we should care about the chinese aggression especially its aggression in the domestic audience because when we look at the pandemic we look at the parties in the pandemic there was a lot of cover-up in the early days. now we knew that they suppressed the scientists and the doctors, whistleblowers and to prevent the media from reporting about it and journalists from interviewing citizens to talk about what's going on.

and so, the university basically had a study last year that showed first of all, for a pandemic, the early days of the pandemic was the most crucial time. the sooner you can take action in the early days, the sooner you can prevent the spread and limit the scope. ..

>> so china actually because

of the pandemic we had a jolt at 75 percent without political isolation because of the pandemic and the impact so for me that is the biggest backlash that those that are not familiar with the trump administration we have to give him credit the form policy was

one of his brightest spots he did not talk about it as often was a failure of his campaign for reelection because i mention in my book the first american administration you will have secretary pompeo to talk at the freedom conference and he is my favorite from the trump administration. it was the first american administration with the true nature of the communist party. you heard secretary pompeo talk many times how they treated the communist party who they really is so for the first time they brought that back to foreign policy. not only that they were the first administration for those

challenges because today one of the most powerful armies the second most powerful economy so too many of the governments especially with the administration because they do not want to bear the cost but it was the first so if they sign a human rights act for hong kong and they blacklist chinese companies and they targeted and sanctioned senior communist party officials this had never happened before. i would call that a backlash.

the trump foreign policy is always about going along that's not entirely true. many of you heard about 5g networks so that the chinese company called huawai the state —- it is a state-sponsored it's not really private. they have very deep tie with the chinese government and military it is one of the national champions and then to build the 5g network and the trump administration say do

not use it with your 5g networks because it's a huge security risk by the way it has been proved this year by fellow allies especially austria. of the closest allies was united kingdom but boris johnson even last year said we will use huawai it's cheap because it was subsidized by the government know business could really sustain that. so boris johnson said were going to do their because they are cheap even after pompeo

visited the united kingdom last january and said if you do this we will start sharing with you because we don't feel comfortable. johnson said no we're going to do it because it is cheap and it's something that we can afford. guess what? the pandemic happened and then we see what's happening in hong kong is tragic but by may the johnson ministration else they would not use huawai to build the 5g network. and the biden administration united kingdom to join together against a few chinese officials.

then you see the backlash continued. and then i will and after my comments. but the general approach that they are for them they are against. and with those communist party officials. and they are accompanied with chinese military. so the biden administration it

demonstrates just like the previous obama administration biden leaves the gap between what they say and what they do. trump had the same problem but it was opposite. he made us cringe when he spoke to say oh he is great and he is my friend but he actually surrounded himself with people who are really strong the national security. but the biden administration wears like the opposite. like china and russia but then had a policy so even though it continued the policy on china

and it was with what happened to be back in march and the chinese diplomats came in our invitation and if you read any reports of what happened with that meeting that basically use the talking points to have no right in a position but dealing with your own failures dealing with racial injustice.

and that is not surprising for chinese people with those talking points but what is disappointing is the biden administration could not mount a strong powerful defense of our country because those were the talking points during the campaign and actually talk about america. so when they stole those numbers in that same language about whether america is truly greater not. they couldn't do that on the diplomatic front how can they

do it any other front? that is what troubles me the most. so winston churchill americans always do the right thing after they tried everything else. [laughter] we are probably at the state trying everything else but i think there is a lot of effort to do the right thing. thank you. [applause]

>> the china foreign ministry announced china is providing free vaccine to 69 countries in commercially exporting to 28 more. china's competitors are concerned with the covid-19 vaccines go influence will follow what are your thoughts on that vaccine diplomacy efforts? >> that's a good question to use the vaccine that i can tell you so far the vaccination is not very successful because the chinese vaccine really enough that is accurate. so just to be like pfizer or

modernity and as a booster shot to increase the efficiency of the vaccine. so it does show the relentless of the communist party and with that political influence. >> do you think it's accurate to say china use the covid crisis to gain influence across the globe quick. >> i think the communist party definitely tried. especially on social media. because china controls the who and then investigation in

china so the us military brought it we've done enough research in china for what the countries look for anywhere else. because now it is a credible scenario. it is truly amazing story. and with that scientific establishment because they

thought if trump said it must be a lie. not only stop talking about it but actively censor anyone any scientist or researcher to talk about it. here is the free market the power of free market they never met before this is a wonderful piece from newsweek a couple of weeks ago a group of individuals basically open source information. of course none of them have classified access. and through their research could find credible evidence to show it is very likely the viruses from the lab. and with that scientific establishment basically brought the whole lab theory back to life.

that this group of individuals but it back to life and because of that i don't think china is winning the pr war because now even countries hesitate to challenge china. and with that origin of the coronavirus so they are not winning the pr war are not. >> what should the us be doing on vaccination to reinforce allies? >> the donation program is a really good way that president biden to share the patents to

me to share the patent would not only violate their property rights but the thing is it is very difficult to make a vaccine. many other countries do not have the facilities to make a vaccine if we just force them to share the patent and what would happen? the communist party will have it for free and use it for their vaccine diplomacy. i think it's a much better options i am so glad the president i hope somebody talks him out of it that maybe we can donate i think that's the right thing to do. and like a country like india that is our ally and a very important ally in the geopolitical as many of you

have heard facing a very serious challenge from covid so we should help our allies make it available to countries. >> the chinese communist party is made up of a number of factions trying to control the party between 202,012 each had a different agenda. which group controls it. >> i would not call it faction because going back to the true nature of the communist party the ultimate goal is how to remain empowered so maybe a little more liberal on the economic french.

that they will never embrace democracy to present a serious challenge but i do have to say president xi before he came to power in 2012 with the previous two leaders of the communist party they were tolerant so basically they follow the guidance of their successor of mao on —- of now the pragmatic leader so this

is traditional guidance that says we need western money and technology to help us view the states. so wait for your time and do not stick your head out and be addressed one —- aggressive on the international stage. so that is how the three successors follow the guidance. but also the chinese people experience a little more open. then china but that has all changed he modeled himself his

book is the bestseller. [laughter] and getting people to buy a copy and also he controlled all the power he was called the chairman of everything under him. so that is china actually going back to more and that honeymoon of that short period of more political openness is gone. and the leader is relatively young so he will be there for a long time so china will not go back to open this is going the other way much more totalitarian compared to the past.

host: there are 92 million communist party members out of one.5 billion people in china. is there a backlash against any of these programs from their own citizens? but especially during a pandemic there was anger about why didn't the communist party members even of their more in terms of the population they are the elite. so then my first book of confusion never sets but in day young pioneer program and

then you move from that to another program that is for teenagers and young people. when i get to demonstrate if you have good grades you have to be smart and come from a good family so once you're in the party you will be put into the key position of the economy and education every key position throughout the country so you were groomed to be the leader of that successor so there was some backlash with the communist party members during the pandemic there was a story

about a hospital in shanghai overridden by patients the chief doctor was mad about the communist party member so it's very rare for anybody to speak up and press conference in china but he spoke up at the press conference and said where the communist party members and want them to report to me right now because we need anybody who can trace patients to be on the frontlines. of course that was taken down quickly so i believe there is definitely some people are generally afraid including the wall street journal for that

purpose so it is very difficult to get the first ten information of china. >> how can we expect to have the ambitions of china if we don't want that supply a stopped? >> i'm so glad somebody asked about that. the short answer is it can be done except we don't have the will to do it so how media heard of rare earth minerals? so if you do not know what this is it is a group of 17 minerals that are crucial to the digital economy for electronic cars, crucial. even for solar panels.

crucial. and we, the united states had huge deposits of rare earth minerals back in the eighties we know how to get the minerals out of the ground and process it we had that technology. then what happens? than the rare earth minerals says to go to china but telling the china the chinese how to process the rare earth minerals but none of them have that but then hear back home there are environmental laws it becomes very expensive with that extraction so china controlled 90 percent of the rare earth minerals supply.

not because it has the biggest deposit that has the monopoly of how to extract the minerals. because they play such a critical role in the digital economy they have to coerce other countries and then as you know japan is very short all kinds of natural resources. so i use this example so japan if that is their goal to use that monopoly japan realized it cannot depend on china so

the japanese government to form a task force because many other countries that have rare earth minerals deposits and have that technology or the money to extract so that task force have been few factories to extract minerals so that's the one thing they did was to diversify the suppliers so it was true innovation solar panel companies and then to refuse the dependency on rare earth minerals so with those true efforts it was painful

because of the japanese efforts so this example just shows you what can be done but the businesses are show so shortsighted there is simply a lack of will to do this we need to have financial pay to change environmental laws or whatever it takes because it is a national security issue we need to reduce our dependency because we are so polar opposite it takes all of us and that's what we will do

that is how we reduce our dependency. host: what has to happen with corporations or sports leagues cannot even happen? >> i don't know. so we understand the hypocrisy on the one hand they are all for social justice now biden administration makes juneteenth a federal holiday and all companies say slavery is terrible which it is true but at the same time but they

use the supply chain from china so there is a huge hypocrisy so how could we influence the chinese government or convince the chinese people that value is good and we don't even support that? so our behavior will only have done two things. if you empower a regime and then the communist party says look literally believe the things they try to sell us why should we embrace this?

i would be writing a lot of articles criticizing that i think as consumers, that's where we can then. because the business community is dominated by woke capital so with difficult to say we cannot breakout all of them but that so many live and die through social media but then to expose the hypocrisy and to challenge them anywhere with that we can and that is really the only thing that i can think of to let them know that

we are not happy with their hypocrisies. host: describe how the chinese communist party monitors and controls the average chinese citizens by monitoring the activity with a personal score to determine what a person can do quick. >> and how china builds our digital fortress so one of them is the facial recognition technology. so they have about 6 million cameras throughout the country. so there's nowhere that you can hide. so that is one component and

what the question refers to is what they call social chronic system. to think did i pay my bill on time? this is part of the system. and with those chinese citizens. and then putting out your trash correctly because again cameras everywhere. and then all feeds into the system. and some of those data points say maybe that's not so bad.

maybe that's not a good idea but many of them are not. if you complain about the ccp or say something about coronavirus that is different from the government narrative, then points would be deducted. if you're behaviors good what the government likes, you can get a promotion or a better rate if you apply for a mortgage or kids can go to a better school. but if your behavior is that, although that depends on the government definition then you find out maybe you don't get the promotion even you are the best employee. were somehow your kids were rejected or if you go to the bank and apply for a loan they will not give you a good rate. the worst part is you cannot

travel anywhere. you cannot buy train tickets or airline tickets the license to drive will be stopped. losing the ability to travel that has happened to many when they found out they couldn't go attend a conference because they are not allowed to travel. so this 1984 or welling in to bring it to reality. but the really sad part is a lot of the technologies and how it builds the surveillance

system. so those authoritarian countries so what have we done? just like the coronavirus. we actually founded the wuhan lab to do those researches. where is the accountability? we need to educators thousand know what's going on and who was telling the truth and transparency and accountability and businesses before we pointed fingers. host: final question is a good one to wrap up on, alluding to

our own culpability and with a gain of function research, it appears there has been a cover-up. do you believe our allies would essentially come in together for backlash our response against china? what is the ultimate endgame when the truth finally comes out? >> first of all i and pessimistic with the origin of the coronavirus because the chinese government has destroyed the evidence of the scientist in the lab to take down the database and the investigation team in china to send out one week quarantine

so in the wuhan lab reading the report from the lab and then they didn't really walk around the lab and it's a longer time i asked between the this first happened the longer the gap is the harder it is to find out. so i and pessimistic about what we really find out. but i do think this is a wake-up call and then to go back to business as usual then we deserve that crisis in our government cover up will happen all over again so this

needs to be a wake-up call for all of us as long as we keep pressure to continually investigate and hold accountable with the coronavirus this is a worldwide event very few people can claim so we need to keep that going we mean politician in our country? so we as the public as the pressure to demand an answer as the g7 community to make

the announcement of the coronavirus but the problem is with their own government is that gap of what they say and what they do. and then to put actions and then with that take away the coronavirus. the biggest take away is we should never never surrender our liberty what individual freedom and one of the founding fathers you could end up with neither.

it is not a fair trade. and this whole experience of how that was brought back to life shows the power of the individual. and how many walk around today don't really know that. they like to us. so never surrender. host: it's a great note to and on. can we have a round of applause? [applause] i would like to remind all of you her book backlash is for sale.

please also watch for announcements about today's presentation on c-span booktv. we would appreciate you going to steamboat institute.org. and we do depend on your support to reach people all across colorado with important messages twitter and facebook and always promoting great things like her work please go out enjoy the reception and book signing. thank you for coming. [inaudible conversations]

david stewart is to practice law in washington dc. he gave that up over 15 years ago to write history and his first book was all about the constitutional convention in philadelphia called the summer of 1787 that was 2008. one year later he wrote about the trial of andrew johnson then focused on ehrenberg and then james madison. now in 2021 looking at george washington and his mastery of politics any time on booktv.org. >> welcome. it is good to >> welcome. it's good to be here with