scheduling information or to stream video live and on-demand demand at any time. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. ♪ >> " washington journal" continues. host: we are back with way fangs along we -- weifang zhong.

thank you for being here. now, we know that the united states and china are two of the world's superpowers. what is the best way we can measure the economic competition between the u.s. and china today? guest: that is a great question and i think that is the question that will be confronting policymakers for years to come. in my view, this question gets to the core of the u.s.-china relations which is that we are facing this challenge in the united states about how to continue to keep china engaged in the free world, in the world, all not compromising our values, because that is the problem that we have after 20 years since china's accession to the wto. we have seen the economy rise, but we have also seen a lot of

unwanted authoritarian influence that the china has in the united states and among allies. how to confront that problem while preserving are economical and political freedom at home is the biggest challenge and how well we do not respect will be determining the success of u.s.-china competition. host: should we be looking at imports and exports to measure how united states is doing against china economically? guest: that is a great example because it talks to the good import from china that may have been made with forced labor. that is driving conversations about why we should diplomat -- boycott the olympic games, because that was seen as a way to counter china's human rights abuses. if you go to walmart or pick up a cheap god made up china,

chances are it might be -- a cheap good made in china chances are it is made with forced labor because there is no way to check where it was made from. that is the information problem we have because we have imported goods from china which have been good for u.s. consumers and for u.s. businesses but realizes that -- but we realize that that compromises our values because if we knew it had been made with forced labor we would not have consumed as many goods. that is the challenge from the import-export area. host: what about manufacturing capacity? anecdotally we hear people saying all the time that nothing is actually made in the united states anymore, we are exporting things from other countries, particularly to china that is manufactured there and sold here. does not show where we are when

it comes economically against china? guest: now we have seen a lot of goods made in china but that does not necessarily mean that it is not good for the u.s. economy because the u.s. economy has advanced, if you look at what happened decades ago versus what is happening now. the u.s. is not manufacturing a lot of goods, and one of the areas is the semi can dr. -- semi conductor industry. as a science and technology advances, the u.s. advantage has moved from making semi conductor chips to designing them and dividing more -- designing more people danced -- advanced champs and we have moved it to other countries and regions like if you think taiwan and south korea, they are good chip manufacturers. what ended up in terms of the market of specialization,

american companies are designing them and then the taiwanese semi conductor manufacturing company makes the championship setback. -- the champs and sends it back. the semi conductor industry is facing challenges but that does not mean we move manufacturing jobs back to united states. we should not be taking about what we did decades ago in terms of making the champs because it is not cost effective or efficient. so countering china will involve a lot of these problems where you make everything at home, that is maybe a way to build up interference with china but that will hurt our freedom as well. host: here are some specific -- statistics speaking of the semi conductor industry, these are sobering. in 1990, the u.s. share of global semi conductor manufacturing was at 37%. last year, it had dropped to

12%. that is according to the semi conductor industry association. now, not me ask your opinion of this. who is winning the competition between united states and china economically? guest: now, i think the united states in terms of economic power is still dominating china. but the trend is what concerns me. if you look at current proposed policies and how to counter china, i see a lot of warning signs because many times politicians -- oftentimes policymakers will come up with solutions that are basically saying that in order to compete with china we need to be more like china. i am not going to even mention the forced labor issue here. being more like china does not mean that we will be better competing.

but the proposals in congress, lawmakers are coming up with ways to make us manufacture like semiconductor chips at home and a lot of protectionist measures that are basically asking the government to be more involved in the economy because that is what china has been doing. china has been doing pretty well. if you ask how well can the government do while messing with the economy, china has done well. but is -- but that is not the recipe for success for america and that is what concerns me because policymakers are thinking about asking the government to be more involved and that will hurt american competitiveness. host: i want to stick to that point for my next question, but before we get to that next question i want to remind our viewers that they can take part in this conversation. we are going to open up our

regular lines, that means that republicans can call in at 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents, 202-748-8002. keep in mind that you can always text us at 202-748-8003. and, we are always reading on social media on twitter at c-spanwj and facebook.com/c-span. now, getting back to what you just said, comparing the economies of china and the united states is almost like comparing apples and oranges because of the two different forms of government. what advantages and disadvantages does china have because of its state directed economic policies? guest: the model of success for china's economy for decades has been basically stealing its way

up in terms of the value chain in terms of manufacturing. china has succeeded -- i grew up in an environment, in china, and when i was growing up in china, when i went to school, all we learned is that the west is the best, and so the focus has always been to learn from the best, even textbooks in universities and high school, sometimes, and they are basically photocopies of textbooks heavily used in u.s. and american campuses. obviously, in violation of copyright. but the education system in china has been focused on trying to learn from the best and steal from the best. when you have a target to hit, meaning you have something to imitate, using government to intervene in the economy sometimes might work well because you can coordinate resources when you know what you learn and steal from, but the u.s. economy is already on the

frontiers -- in terms of science and technology. there is nobody else on the frontier to steal a lot from and catch up with. so, when you were already on the frontier the model needs to be different. we need a freer environment for enterprises and individuals to thrive and innovate without asking government permission. my colleague at the mercatus center calls it permissionless innovation. we do not have to ask for permission to innovate, but in china you do to have direction. that is the core difference driving the different models. host: congress is currently debating a bill called -- currently debating a bill. let us see what this does and i want you to respond to what this bill claims that it will do for

our competition with china. under that competes act, there would be 5.2 billion aimed towards u.s. semiconductor manufacturing. funding for science research, and funding to help the domestic supply chain. it would prevent u.s. foreign -- firms from offshore in production to adversarial nations such as russia and china and expand the trade adjustment assistance program which can -- which provides aid to american workers who lose jobs or whose wages are reduced as a result of increased imports. tell us what you think about the act, is not something that congress should be doing? guest: that proposed policy contains many things, because the bill itself is almost 3000 pages and asking the government to fund hundreds of billions of dollars in the private sector. so there are too many things to comment on.

but when it gets to china among the other things we mentioned, funding the semiconductor sector to may have the manufacturing back home, i think it is a misguided policy, because if you ask the private semiconductor companies what they are thinking, everybody knows that we need to diversify in terms of supply chains away from china, but that does not imply that we need to bring things all the way back home. you can have the manufacturing done somewhere else that is close in terms of security, countries like japan, south korea, or taiwan that are more allies to the united states than adversaries or competitors like china. but that does not mean you need to bring those companies home and bring those manufacturing jobs home. another example is also what is called the regional innovation hub which is like what china does because the chinese

government has been so used to pointing fingers and saying we need to make that and this and we should do certain jobs here and there. and so, that is where the imitation comes in, and it is trying to imitate china's strategy and i get back to the question on whether we are on the same model and the answer is no. host: there are lawmakers who were on both sides of compete act. i want you to react to some of their praise and criticism. let us start with representative tim ryan who on wednesday came out to the house floor to support the competes act, and the economic competition with china. here is what he had to say. [video clip] >> quite frankly i am stunned to hear some of the rhetoric coming from the other side around a bill that finally, after decades recognize is that we are in a very staff competition s --

stiff competition with china and for a lot of time america did not know it. china was in this competition and doing everything that they could to dump steel in our country, spending seven to 9% on infrastructure every year they have islands in the south china sea, they told us that they were not military -- that they would not militarize them and now they have. they have bases in africa and long-term raw material contracts to celebrity -- solidify their control of precious metals. so that our phones, weapon systems and computers, they have a plan. this is not complicated. it is being seen through the prism of our current broken, and sane political system. and so, what we are trying to do here is recognize that they are winning.

70% of ship manufacturing comes out of china. the cargo ships along the california ports, those are not coming from kansas. they are coming from china. over 50% of the electric vehicle market is dominated by china. and so, the thoughtful thing, the smart, strategic thing for us to do in the united states is recognized this, and make sure that we reinvest back into the united states. [end video clip] host: i want you to respond to what representative ryan said. guest: one misguided view in my opinion is that when we have goods manufactured from another country or in another country does not necessarily mean that that is to our disadvantage. if you look at all industry a

lot of americans are buying japanese made cars and that does not necessarily mean that it is a problem. in fact in the u.s. people used to have the same fear when the japanese economy was rising. i do not see the fact that the chinese economy rising per se is a problem. it is a problem because when we engage with china in terms of the economic relations, we are simultaneously compromising our values, and that is where the problem is. when we buy a t-shirt from walmart made in china, that t-shirt is going to be cheap and that is not a problem. the problem is that it might be made with forced labor and we have not seen policy that has tried to, so far, to deal with the problem. so, i agree with what the lawmaker just said that we have this problem, because we do not have a plants and the chinese have a plan. that does not necessarily that

we need the planet congress comes up with. we need to agree with that 100% because sometimes the policies are not achieving the goals they said that they wanted. host: let us let some of our viewers take part. we will start with bob from oxford, pennsylvania on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning, and thank you for c-span. i enjoy it very much. sometimes i wish you would have an opportunity to talk about the trade bills with china and they had few concerns about slave labor and all of the china -- the problems they had. they had no problem moving things over there and putting our people out of work. i remember when our community

walked to work, and now it is all about the money, and i wish you would say when you talk about the manufacturing coming from china, let us know, is that a chinese company, or is it an american company that moved out of here to go there so that they could get the slave labor and they gave them everything they wanted so that they could have the cheap labor, and now all of a sudden china does not need us anymore because they got our money, and that is what they are using. we are own worst enemies. we sent things over there and sure, you can have a dollar store, with a bunch of junk in it. we used to manufacture good products and now everything that you buy from china is a throwaway product. host: do we -- what type -- what has it meant for us that so many

u.s. companies are liens on china has that caller was saying? guest: i think that is one side of the phenomenon because as the chinese economy is integrated into the global community, that is what has happened in the past 20 years, especially since china joined the wto. we have seen in the u.s. markets more and more goods made in china. if you look at the chinese market, and things in china we have seen a lot of elements, goods and services coming from the western world as well. if you look at the opening ceremony that just happened in beijing, and if you listen to the tunes, a lot of them were western music. so china and the rest of the world as they get more integrated, we would see more elements on the others, whatever country we are looking at. that per se is not a problem. i have a lot a concern about the

policies to resolve this problem because they seem to suggest that we need to isolate and alienate each other and close our economy even more in trade, if you look back in the past few years we have this tariff war with china. has it achieved anything? that was a policy intention if you look a few years ago, we had this deal with china and by hypothesis -- the hypothesis was that if we had this economic pressure perhaps china would change unfair trade practices or change behavior in general. we tried to do that, even though it hurt american businesses and consumers every single day for the past two years. has it achieved the goal? it has not. i do not think we should continue this kind of policy that hurts us without achieving our goals, and any policy that tries to close ourselves up

would have the same effects. host: pat from keyport, new jersey on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning, my question for you is that you say we should not necessarily move all of these jobs back to the u.s.. so, if we shut ourselves off from manufacturing and limiter -- and limit ourselves, are we hampering our own advancement? thank you. guest: that is a great question. i think moving all the manufacturing jobs, let us just sit take with the semiconductor industry. you say let us move all of the manufacturing back so he asked companies like intel to make all these chips from design to physically making them, that

will actually hurt our competitiveness because that is not what the market has found out to be the most effective way of innovation. and, it is correct that if you look at the shares of semiconductor chips now made in the u.s., it has been declining for years. that is true. it is declining because the share of chips designed in the united states have drastically increased in the past few decades. and that is where the industrial -- the specialized station happens because it is a division of labor in a sense when u.s. companies have been good with coming up with new designs on chips that make the devices that are so small and yet they can do many jobs. and perform many new tasks. and that is because of the advancement of making smaller and smaller chips that can run fast. that is to the credit of

designing. and so, if you ask your company's have to also be physically making those chips, i think that would hope that hurt though -- there focus in terms of designing more chaps. host: rob from buie, maryland on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. i just wanted to chime in this morning and just say i listens to the gentleman and it is good to have us design something but not manufacture something. and so, this is what i want to say. does the correlation between the quality of education, and these jobs in the manufacturing going offshore, going to china. now what we have is that we just have a daycare center and public schools where we just are warehousing kids. we do not teach them high level

math and science, and so there is no reward. yes, i am saying and what i am hitting around, let us design and bring the manufacturing back, and i'm thinking -- and some the right now is thinking, i can start a chip manufacturing company, do it. do it and do it in america. and bring back american-made products. host: go ahead and respond. guest: i think the caller pointed out a very important question which is the education policy, and something that i think the american people have focused not as much on or they have had a more heated debate in washington. and i think that is unfortunate because in the end, the reason we have all of these secondary problems often times i come down to the education system and whether we are educating our next generation in the right way.

i am not education policy expert so i would defer that to others who are. if you think about campuses now, not only in high school but especially in a university, we have seen that when it comes to china a lot of inference -- interference as well. that is the problem when we have engagement with china. one thing that people talked about was the confucius institutes, over 100 of them across the u.s. in on different campuses and often times that his education engagement with china. oftentimes we have seen examples where they are putting pressure on the host universities to stand down on the human rights issues. and that has been happening for years. they put pressure on campuses so they do not speak about hong kong and the uighur forced labor issue.

and those are concerning because we do not want to have an engagement in china while compromising our values, so i think there is a lot to be discussed in a lot of discussion to be had in terms of the education policies in the united states. host: greg from parker heights, texas on the grid -- on the democrat line. caller: good morning, i am so glad that you give us time, we need to give these people time to speak and what they have to say is as much as important as what is going on in america. i minute -- let me explain some stuff to you. do you know what the belt road means in china? explain what it means. my point is what is going on in china, china got connected with the belt road and in africa, china went over there and made a deal with africa that we were going to build and finance your

country and then they went in there and took those people's countries. they financed crooked politicians and they financed those people and now they own the country and took that country. they are doing it in mexico, they are going through every country and seizing it by building. they are bringing their own construction and their own equipment in their own tools and it has to do with the belt road. it has a history thing that is going on in the united states is not china focus. the china sold all of the steel over there for cheap labor and hurt the american see -- citizen. the chip factories in austin check -- texas and the chinese own it. they do not employed -- they did not employ american people and the belt road has a lot to do with this. shut china down and i got them a new president and they may renegotiate the pricing. host: go ahead and respond to

him. guest: i share the concern that the caller has and one way i think -- one way to understand the belt and love -- the belt and love -- the belton road initiative is china's program of doing infrastructure building in other countries by investing in them. and so, that one easy way to understand that is oftentimes the bill is -- the deal is if you do not take the road that we will deal with you, you will take the belt. that is the co-we are shown -- coercion on other countries and we do not have that engagement with china. china has been doing that for a lot of developing countries. annette has a lot to do with the trade-off that i started off at with the very beginning, because if you look at any country in terms of engagement with china,

when you engage with china economically you have benefit but oftentimes that becomes a leverage by beijing and beijing has been known for using this leverage and a lot of developing countries, and the reason that we see that in africa who are happily taking news deals because their calculation between economic benefits and not compromising their values are different than in the united states. then that is the problem because i do not think the problem in the u.s. is because we do not have enough highways. the problem in the u.s. is because we are sacrificing our values and economic engagement. so diagnosing that wrong will lead to a wrong solution. host: one of the things we talked about briefly during our conversation is the fact that china has been known to use forced labor to build materials and products to ship over to the

united states. we know which u.s. imports are mainly made with forced labor? guest: that is a hard question to answer, but what you pointed out is that the scale is very concerning. a good way to understand that, let me ask you, like in a typical holiday gathering for your family, what is the most number of families and friends that you will see in a thanksgiving gathering before covid? host: i have a big family so let us guess somewhere around 10 to 12 people. guest: 10 to 12 people, so if a uighur family were to hold a family gathering like that about one or two of their family members would be missing because they are in concentration or labor camps. that is how widespread of concern the problem is. what makes policymaking really

hard is that forced labor, they do not really just exist in that region. and a bill that just became lost year, the uighur forced labor prevention act, the goal of that act passed by congress and signed by the president was to ban imports to assume that you are -- if you're coming from that province, you are probably made with forced labor. importers can read about that because they say if we prove it is not really made with forced labor then they can be imported into the united states, but that does not solve all the problems because a lot of forced laborers were transferred somewhere else, so they ended up working in factories out of that region. so those would not be put under the presumption of being made with forced labor.

there are a lot of complications when it comes to forced labor because it is so widespread. and we do not have good information. and the reason you do not know is that oftentimes even the u.s. company could not really figure it out because you would read about the audits inground in china to figure out all of the connections and all of the pointing's of the supply chain whether anyone has employed forced labor. and that is something very hard to find out, even if you want to, the chinese authorities might not allow you to do a good audit. host: let us talk to ron from wilmington, illinois on the independent line. good morning. caller: hello, could you address the influence that corporate america has side -- has had on tax policy in the united states

by contributing to different politicians in conjunction with competitive advantage to export jobs. thank you. guest: i am not a tax policy expert, and i would rather not comment on how companies lobby lawmakers because that is not where my work is focused. but i do recognize even in the issues that we talked about, many of them have businesses in china and many are sponsoring the olympic games. the problem about that is that it is unacceptable for the american public, for us that american corporations are turning a blind eye on the forced labor issue. in the end the problem comes to us meeting individual consumers,

whether we are aware or care about this enough to take action. host: is the chinese government or companies spending money to lobby the u.s. government on economic competition areas? guest: china has been known for starting to try and influence policymaking in washington, they are not very good at it because they are not very experienced. if you look at washington, d.c. or all of the offices are, in terms of lobbying efforts by other countries like japan, they have interest in terms of trying to influence policymaking as well, that they have been doing it longer than china, so china is relatively green in that area, but we have seen china not want in some just wanting certain bills to pass such as a uighur forced labor bill. passing that would hurt chinese exporters and they have been

known to having tried to prevent that bill from becoming law, and fortunately some -- some version of it was law and now the problem is how do you implement it. how why do you want to ban chinese goods? it is a problem that the department of homeland security is coming up with a list. host: let us talk to chris from san francisco, california on the republican line. caller: hello, i think that one of the problems that mr. zhong plans comes from that as an economist and he mentioned that the market has found that producing goods in china is better than and more efficient than producing in america. i think he does not look at the whole big picture because when we manufacture in america we are jobs to our country and we have more people working and people

who do not have a college education can work in manufacturing jobs. host: i think we lost chris. can you go ahead and respond. guest: absolutely. one thing to correct is that i do not come from a communist china because i grew up in the air in china where the economic reform had already started, which is something that began in the late 1970's. so, that actually speaks a lot to the problem that we are facing because we are not facing a soviet style communist china because if that was a case the solution would be easier. back in the day it was easier for the u.s. to actually alienate or have a cold war competition with the soviet union because the soviet union was much less integrated into

the world than china is today. and that is the problem because we did not used to have this big trade-off to contemplate on the economic benefit of engaging with the soviet economy. it was much less of an economic benefit for americans when it comes to engaging with china. host: steve from freeland, maryland on the democrat line. good morning. caller: we all know the legislative branch of our government is bought and paid for. and it is so dysfunctional, it is going to destroy the nation -- the greatest nation ever by bankrupting us. outsourcing and off shoring passed by the legislative branch 30 years ago signed into law by president clinton has proven to be a horrible policy, causing this country the ability to manufacture anything. because it brought that to the forefront. we no longer make anything in

this country, so let us be honest. if you think the legislative branch is going to fix this in any way, you do not watch enough c-span to see the days that they are in session anymore. in reference to the new roads initiatives or the belt or the road initiative is similar to the cartels that say take the silver, or we will go in. when you have a country that is not able to get basics like toilet paper and paper towels because you have become so dependent on another country to manufacture things, that does not put us in a good position when it comes to our national security. host: go ahead and respond. guest: one thing i will say quickly is that, fortunately, a great toilet paper crisis of

2020 has seemed to have passed, and probably the grocery store crisis will pass soon and that is the magic of market mechanisms. that is the benefit of keeping china engaged in the world, we have ignored some of it because oftentimes we do not contemplate what would've happened if we had not engaged with china. we buy iphones or other smartphones at a price mostly below $1000. if you have to make all those smartphones at home, including making the chipset home, they would be much more expensive. and we do not think about that because we just look at what we have now and we do not really contemplate what our lives would be without this efficient market system. i grew up in a country, like i said, where a lot of things were made at home and made by state owned enterprises in china and

they were hugely inefficient. i do not see any reason why united states should try and imitate any element of that. host: wayne from olympia, washington on the independent line. good morning. caller: hello, how are you. host: great. go ahead. caller: it is pretty simple, i just think that the youth or a little bit older than the youth are lazy, and that is about it. you have a whole lot of people sitting around and they are lazy. everywhere i go, you cannot get them to work. and, in between that and not educated, that is a bad combination. and i hate to say that about america's youth. but that is life.

guest: thank you. i have a very different view of lazy and has. i think there is a lot of virtue to laziness that we do not realize because oftentimes a lot of innovation people -- are coming out of the desire to be lazy or not to do a lot of work. thanks about elevators and how often you would have to walk the stairs. now we can use machines to do a lot of things that we do not have to do, and that is oftentimes what is driving innovation. host: we would like to thank weifeng zhong who is a senior research fellow at the marquis de sade to her at george mason -- merck kata center -- mercatus center at george mason university. thank you for being here this morning. guest: thank you for having me. host: coming up jacob stokes a

fellow at the center for a new american security will discuss chinese national security threats to the united states. later, minky worden will join us to discuss the issue of chinese human rights abuses. ♪ >> book tv every sunday on c-span2 feet years leading authors discussing their latest books. at noon on in-depth, we will have a guest life taking your calls and discussing race relations and inequality. her many books include "the failures of integration," and " white space, black hood." on after words, row shares his

book "dignity in a digital age." where he looks at the digital divide in america and offers suggestions to close the gap. watch book tv every sunday on c-span2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org. ♪ >> exploring the people and events that tell the american story on american history tv. on "the presidency" the 60th anniversary gala with caroline kennedy and jill biden reflecting on the work of jacqueline kennedy for founding the association. on lectures incited -- on lectures in history, joseph riley and carrie taylor talk about why a new african-american history museum is being built in the city joined byhe