you know we talked a lot on this show many years about economy and currencies and what makes a currency usually what makes a currency is scarcity for example gold is a currency it's money because it's scarce that's the primary reason people use it as money keynesian economics or socialism is usually unworkable because the people who are organizing it think that well you can just print all the money you need you need a program print more money there's socialism for banks on wall street as was pointed out recently one of the big presidential debates you know a bank gets in trouble just print more money well what's the ultimate scarce commodity what is the ultimate scarce commodity think about it what is the ultimate scarce commodity. seemed wrong when all. just don't hold. any gold yet to shape

out these days that's ok and in the game equals betrayal. when so many find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground. hello and welcome to cross top where all things considered i'm peter lavelle the coronavirus is a global health danger that is yet to be contain this fire which has also raised questions about the integrity of supply chains open borders and the weaknesses of globalization and dangerously this virus is being used as

a political weapon. in the coronavirus i'm joined by my guest fred tang in new york he is president of the america china public affairs institute in delaware we have scott ritter he is a former intelligence officer and the united nations weapons inspector and in beijing we cross to john gong he is a professor at the university of international business and economics right cross talk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want i always appreciate let me go to scott 1st here scott you wrote a task that article i saw in the american conservative titled tit for tat coronavirus politics are making us sick what a wonderful title i like the last sentence a lot i'm going to repeat it for our audience here politics is trumping science and medicine diluting the effectiveness of any response the consequences could be very well catastrophic what i mean by that go ahead scott. well again i'm not

a doctor but we do have what appears to be you know prepared dimmick conditions or regarding the spread of coronavirus this is something that has the attention of people around the world especially here in the united states but also japan and china iran italy everybody is feeling the effect of this it's a medical issue it's one that. choir's scientists and doctors to focus resources on to identify the problem and come up with a solution the united states should be a leader in this regard we are the world's largest economic power we're the world's you know we have significant resources can be brought to bear but instead of you know focusing our energies we have republicans and democrats we have a president and congress playing politics the president calling it a hoax congress cues in the president of you know putting together teams that aren't a viable scientifically led by mike pence who they continually degrade there might

be some legitimacy to their their complaints or the point is this isn't helping solve the problem this is we've turned this into a political one upmanship during the american silly season the worst time for political one upmanship a presidential campaign in the end result is we're not getting done what probably needs to be done to prevent this drone of ours from becoming a global pandemic i mean that a challenge in beijing i mean john you know as you look out western media particularly american media has been covering this i mean do you think that the american media is framing it correctly because i mean there is a very strong subtext that to know this is somehow china's fault or china can rise to the challenge of it because of its government because of its economy because of its people i mean there's a very strong undercurrent of anti chinese elements being played out here at least that's my reading go ahead john in beijing. well from what i've been reading

markham press so far i think of a couple of issues here 1st of all you notice of blaming as you point out that this originates from china and it's or china's fall but i haven't seen this series of you square law i mean talk a lot about this the 2nd attack is about initial response to this in a some reports about china's government sort of cover up so-called a cover up and at the very least being slowing to respond to this quickly and the 3rd kind of a serious that you know it's an attack on the chinese system saying well china has this konya magic locked down city of $20000000.00 people you cannot be done it's impossible to do it things are only going to get worse then there has to be put in much or a few days so far because in and look at the statistics in fact the number has been good coming down dramatically as a matter of fact as of today the number of new cases in china i'll settle a province is less than 10 and the numbers newt in fact it within the who have

problems with us originated it is also less than 10 excluding the city of hama siddle will cost you have some problems you know the number is a new something but it's dramatically don so clearly i think the measures the so-called 2 konya maja's has been working very effectively so far and this also be indorsed by the the head of the show china joint investigative team this guy is a canadian doctor he had a very round statement at the press conference of a few days ago 20 out that conclusively that the matches taken by china's government so far has been very effective so a clearly you know this is the very best these are awesome it was it that is certainly not a message it's making american cable i can tell you that fred if this disease had come out of italy do you think the reaction would have been different. yes i think it will be different because right now since the tree was going on there is

a tendency of the human eyes in china or whatever it's happening in china but people have to understand when the diseases and it when this should not be politicized because it is the real people who live in. mathis and also if it's contagious if we politicizing it it's just going to affect and spread to more cities and more countries you know scott one of the broader issues i think that serious people look at this and look at policy is the whole question of globalization is being reassessed now because there is the charge the claim that a lot of these things that need to be to precleared are only can be had from china and not in the united states i think for example like penicillin it is no longer produced in the united states been outsourced here and i'm not blaming china and i'm blaming american companies for moving their i mean they abandon workers in

america for profits ok it's very easy to demonize china in this respect but dummy china wants to get rich like everybody else here so the issue of globalization open borders supply change things like that go ahead scott well i mean it look we live in a reality in a reality based world where globalization is a thing and it's not easily reversed if it can be reversed we you know we've outsourced our entire economic model is dependent upon you know getting components at the cheapest possible price. you know and yes when there is an impact if china shuts down the factories that produce the components we need are producing those components of japan shuts down if it only shuts down if any nation that produces components that are used in the american economy should stay on you know obviously there will be an impact but at the end of the day you know this coronavirus is this isn't you know the end of the world this. isn't something that's you know next insole threat to humanity it will be resolved in those factories will come back up

and those parts would be produced produce so i don't see this as a as a threat to globalization but i do see the short term economic impact being politicized so that we we have people trying to score political points exploiting you know the short term inconvenience of you know of supply chain disruption well it does tell you that an event like this can have depth have an impact that may be unforseen and i think that and there is some hope smart people reassess and think what's going on here basic medicine you should produce it at home but i think that's common sense it's common sense but it's not just go ahead no i agree but it's but it's not just coronavirus this is you talk about a larger issue you're talking about the larger issue of globalization we've always had a problem if politics intervenes if the china in the united states through a trade dispute you know we get the supply saying disruption if japan and south

korea as you know problems with each other create this so it's not just coronavirus that you're talking about a larger globalization i'm agreeing with you i mean he was is highlighted this but this exactly it's highlighted here they let me go to john here john what if you want to jump in john go ahead. yeah in my view you know there's the idea that their supply chain is greatly affected by this i think it's greatly greatly overblown you know initially there are some reports about how you have double use factually because a european union some parts from china but you know other than dad i don't think this quickly a fact as a matter of fact the chinese government has been going out of her way to help foreign companies operating here in china i mean given example when companies resume production the 1st thing they need is mosques and other this in fact and other protective gear that kind of things to make sure that workers in a factious are not going to be a fact it and you know these supplies

a kind of thing such a short supply these days each other and the chinese government should have commerce has come out with a decree saying that we should have a problem with people those companies foreign companies over in china and if you look at the statistics the percentage of companies that have been coming back to production the rate of resumption of production is almost 70 to 90 percent in most parts of china so i don't believe you know i have some doubt skeptical about the theory that the supply just been great to be a factor as a matter of fact this issue has been precisely be used as a as a political weapon to sort of you don't quit companies can in china out of out of florida as a matter of fact the secretary of commerce wilbur ross at the very early time came out and saying this could be a very good opportunity for american companies going back to united states you know it's very clear it's been politicized yeah i mean fred you know they would give your assessment what are the biggest criticisms of this whole thing of china is

that it's not transparent enough do you agree with that assessment i mean you hear it all the time but when i hear something all the dogs in the mainstream media that's when i begin to doubt go ahead fred. well i think just this girl in the virus as the case china has been reporting numbers day by day province by province and it is very transparent if you compare that to the flu the influenza in the united states we have 16000 people who die from it we do not see that they number into a state by state. who was infected and who was hospitalized but i do want to add that about globalization globalization in the self it's good it helps low and of course it benefits most of the consumers in the world the problem here is supplier management i do think that i do not think that lot of these businesses all manufacturing is coming back to the united states but these could be many in

different locations of parts of the world so that we would not be you know in case of some disruption we would not be short change of the surprise so i think the same way you know scott have talked earlier because of the tree was so for a child that was affected where united states would not sell to the chips of them for them to make so forms so i think that that's another thing is the supply chain as a world for doing business we should not politicize that and using that as a weapon against each other and particularly since the the the at least the 1st phase of the trade deal is really quite contentious and there are some very big challenges ahead for both countries and again there are going to be policy makers going to look at what this god coronavirus and how it impacts trade and how trade agreements can and should be made in the future i'm going to where we do it a short break here after that short break we'll continue our discussion in the coronavirus state with our city.

and. thousands of american men and women choose to serve in the country's military and the decision. every song came to a complete. the day that i was very. you know told to shut up kill me and i see how i would destroy. any screamed at me and he made me come in and you graham my arm and he right mean. if you take into account that women don't

report because of the extreme retaliation it's probably somewhere near about half a 1000000 women have now been sexually assaulted in the u.s. military is a very very traumatizing have happened but i've never seen trauma like i've seen from women who are veterans who have suffered military sexual trauma reporting rape is more likely to get the victim punished don't be offended and almost 10 year career or chose very invested in and i gave a sex offender who was not even put to justice or put on the registry this is simply an hour in violence male sexual predators for the large part of target whoever is there to prey upon whether that's a man or women. who are feeding our hopes our dreams or desires our money to compete this creates a war do we get back to you know what like that's that's a bad deal so when this technology jumping out of this room what is the goal of the healthy need to keep you healthy for it or to keep the you know you connected and i

missed it so we will live in an area of the post screen area where we will live with us at all these screens and it will be more in harmony or will help us. welcome to cross talk where all things considered i'm peter lavelle truman we're discussing the coronavirus. are let's go back to scott scott one of the things that's happened during the course of the last few we even months is the rise of conspiracy theories trying to explain what's going on here you have there was. that lost control of a this virus that was intentionally generated engineered by on the other hand maybe the american senate there because of the trade war and you have a whole lot of a plethora of theories out there that are floating around on the internet why is

that why is this happening or sister nature of our age that a conspiracy theory for everything go ahead scott 1st of all what started some nature of the of the internet age especially where you're going to get this kind of buzz taking place i think one of the reasons why this has been nipped in the bud is because of politics you know there this is one of the things i was trying to say early on is there's a need for leadership for scientists for doctors for experts to stand in front of the public and inform them about exactly what is going on the exact nature of the threat and if they don't know something to look in the camera and say we don't know this is this time but we're working on it and we will get back to you that's not happening when we do get dr speaking their message gets diluted by politicians who either undercut or overhype what the doctors are trying to say you know there's a lot of questions out there about you know we're just we're jackley coronavirus is

you know how it's spread why do people who are asymptomatic spread the disease things things of this nature how do you handle it you wear a face mask you wash your hands do you do both. these are these are things that sound leadership could address early on educate the public inform the public and this would nip the conspiracies in the bud but you know these conspiracies thrive in a vacuum and right now we have a vacuum of you know highly sourced information about rotavirus and so you know people are going to be speculate or be susceptible to speculation you know you know john i mean i've been following this very closely i kind of waited a week or so to do a program on because i actually what scott was saying was trying to understand the story because there's so many contradictory things coming about out about it not an unfortunate i think it's intentional because people are playing politics but john i mean i know you don't speak for the government in beijing but i would have to imagine that the the government in beijing is a bit. curious and disturbed that you hear the president of the united states say

something then you see the speaker of the house pelosi say another thing and they're squabbling and then you have a medical professionals giving us kind of the hard news this is going to be hard to contain a lot more people will probably catch it and we have to hold learn a whole lot more but you have this political level and then you have this expertise level and they're not talking to each other at least that's my perception of it go ahead john well 1st of all let me see if you were supposed conspiracy theory i think there's also a fish out of conspiracy theory as well but i think it's a bit different united states and you know the fact that. conspiracy is to the user of cell sites sacks of yourselves very well it's a business action and other than that there's also a group of people who need that if states that are in fact seeing on these people a political agenda as you know and as i was i know that the top people united states refused to take vaccines and they're using this opportunity to sensitive

public in this theory that this has a lot to do his people trying to get vaccines so this is not that pot in china in china i think it's a lot to do with people just trying to make money out of this. you know it's a it's a real big business if you think about it you know the the these rulers these serious conspiracy theorists are not so much coming from serious media dollars they're mostly coming from these was quote grassroots new media outlets that coming from nowhere that make it out of money out of this it's a static and it's very set now with respect to the 2nd question about sort of inconsistency between what present trump a saint and what nancy prose is saying what the experts are saying that's from a c.d.c. are saying this is just very comical e-mail opinion you know this is also quite. a funny that you know such an important issue concerning people's lives could be so much food aside as the united states i cannot stand from present trumps perspective is that downplaying this these things is going to weigh in this election and this

is coming from nowhere trying to ruin his whole election chest but democrats are jumping on this opportunity so so it's so it's very sad also to see that you know both sides of the congress of basically trying to politicize in this and taken advantage of this you know it at that and he i think that it's also want to make a point that it seems to me that the c.d.c. has been very slow in coming up which these task is that you know the supply is scant the price is high a lot of people ducking getting tested well john look here in general john welcome to the american medical system ok and again one of the derivative elements of this whole situation with this virus here is the nature of the american medical system in the united states it's very everything is very very expensive things can become very very scarce i mean i what was there a young man in california that wanted to get tested and it ended up being like $3000.00 or something like that just to get

a tatts oh my goodness here i mean that's a commentary that's a big issue in the american campaign about what kind of medical system the country should have let me go to fred here fred you know kind of stepping back. from all of this here we did have the 1st round of the trade deal it was a very contentious and i have to admit in the american media china is very much demonized i sometimes think it's you know the democrats they demonized the russians and the republicans they demonized the chinese at least that's the vision on cable t.v. but how can how is this going to move us russia i'm sorry u.s. china relations forward or are we in kind of a cul de sac right now go ahead. i do not think that you know this thing will help in terms of u.s. china relations i don't think it will hurt but it does put even to face one deal or some thought of a hiatus because right now there is no way for china to to work all these situation

but they're in the long run. maybe it will put less tension on the trade. the less politicized and less conflict between the 2 country a better for businesses it's. from my perspective as american i wish both countries to open up. the products to services free to both countries to trade i think that is really the long term solution rather than talking about the u.s. and only on specific products and services ok let me go back to scott here scott how do you feel. i just get this sense you know i know i kind of want to be just ate a political here but i mean looking at the the discourse about this there's a lot of people in them a lot of people a lot of democrats want to see trump fail on this i mean that it's mind boggling i mean this is the disease doesn't have an ideological preference ok that's virus will go after everyone but it got get the very strong sense that because of all the

squabbling they don't want to see this resolved politically in the united states and around the world they would like to see this to turn into a catastrophe personally for donald trump but of course that would be a personal disaster for anyone that gets this virus go ahead scott. 1st of all to say that i have not heard either joe biden or bernie sanders or elizabeth warren or any of the viable remaining democratic candidates articulate you know specifically we want trump to fail they actually say the exact opposite but then what happens is you know there's there's the political machinery that's not just you know the various campaigns but also the media the american mainstream media which i think is part and parcel of a group that once donald trump the fail and while they may not be cheering on coronavirus to bring down the trump administration i think they are cheering on the fact that the trump administration has shown some extreme incompetence in handling this and they highlight this incompetence and that doesn't help the issue at all

everybody should be working lockstep to resolve this issue politics should be pushed aside this is one of these national security issues where democrats and republicans need to come together and that's not happening because again we're kneedeep in the silly season of american presidential politics where everybody's seeking to get some sort of political advantage regardless of the cost yeah that's a really pathetic when you get to choose this issue here i mean if you really tells it says a lot about our times here you know john one of the interesting things i'm trying to be positive here is that this should be a learning lesson for everyone in the world i mean what we're going to get past it we're going to get past this ok but it should be a learning lesson how to deal with that and i and i hope that will be the lesson learned from all this and i agree with scott completely this silly season of american politics you know it really blurs the vision of so many people and particularly in the media here but john i think this could be a learning experience if people want to learn from it go ahead in beijing. oh

absolutely i think what the ritual report has said it says it all you know is summarizes what has been done in china what has been effective in china well measures to take you know very detailed information i would keep referring to that press conference by. dr elwood who's the head of the year there show china joint investigation team he is in fact to recommend the many of the matters that are be implemented here in china but the problem is that what's up being done here in china is not very convenient from a political point of view in terms of attacking china's institutions the way of doing things so you know it's not surprising to see that very important press conference was not so much split publicize the united states is very new to report about that conference 1 press conference very report about the report coming from the british show as a matter of fact what the south korea is doing to some extent is essentially

mimicking what china has been doing so i think you know again i said you know we're going to put our acts together to to to to to handle this human problem not so much politicizing this aware this being an issue between democrats and republicans where as an issue between the chinese is judicious versus the market pretty good system we should set aside a lot of this and try to take whatever measures that's been effective ok fred i'll give you the last word can we put all those things aside and resolve this issue on a go on on a global scale because i have my doubts go 40 seconds go to you fred go ahead. if you i have my doubts also especially from the united states i do think other countries when they have a rational mind they will start looking at china's case and learning from china so that they can help themself in the future well that's a very very good point at the end of the day it's going to have to be a learning experience for all and unfortunately it happened in it right in the

middle of the silly season as scott has pointed out to us it's all the time we have many thanks to my guests in new york and in beijing and thanks to our viewers for watching us here darkie see you next time and remember. she could not do that but when you have kids of good to go home and don't going to . have to click on. your. son i will put you on. the titles or. something.

so some. calls to the we'll put him in his school. there's a pool at the newsroom. with a surprise.