encrease tensions between beijing and washington what's the impact on the global arena upon the coven 19 crisis we'll talk with asia expert gordon chang on this edition of. the politicking on larry king the coven 1000 crisis and u.s. china relations how are increased tensions between beijing and washington impacting the goal arena the world's response to the penn demick and donald trump's reelection bid we'll start there with asian expert gordon chang author of the coming collapse of china and the great u.s. china tech war he joins us from new jersey gordon the world health organization

held saniel meeting this week and member states adopted a resolution to launch a probe into the global response to the cole the 19 pandemic i guess china doesn't like this what he expects from that that's a great question larry because the world health organization itself is going to have 6 outlines of this impartial independent review now this was voted upon and approved by a 144 countries china didn't object but we do know that from chinese leaders sieging things speech to the world health assembly this is not the investigation that he wanted so i think that there's going to be a lot of behind the scenes scrambling between china on the one side and the rest of the world on the other as to the scope of this review or do you think china doll why doesn't china or is it care if they have to if they're in their right. that's.

actually i think china believes that there is something to hide because we know that from december all the way through february to beijing took a lot of moves that were intended to prevent the world from actually sending in for ologists and epidemiologist to study this and so the natural suspicion is that yes there is something to hide you know we really don't know i mean there is there are allegations that this was a bug this came from a lab china has cleaned up the lab by the way which is a worrying sign but i think that essentially larry although china is resisting the investigation eventually the truth will come out because there are just too many people in the world who want to know and i think the chinese people themselves are going to leak a lot of information about what went on in november and december when the outbreak 1st started a complete investigation into this whole coronavirus. pandemic

a complete investigation could take years. will that work out to china's favor. well the longer this takes i think that it does help aging right now there's a lot of anger around the world at what is perceived to be china's hiding of the virus as well as some deliberate. deceptions so clearly right now is not a good time for their investigation to proceed but i actually don't think over the long term this is going to help beijing because you know china and the united states are involved in this struggle this struggle is not over this year or not over next year so whether this investigation concludes now or in the future i don't think it really makes much difference because the united states right now at least under president trump is very much determined to get to the bottom of this do you trust information that comes out of beijing. no you know we have seen for instance

on basic numbers on infections and deaths there's a big gap between what beijing has been reporting and the anecdotal information that we have seen so for instance while they report something like 838-4000 infections there are indications that the number of infections were in the high 600 thousands maybe even more than that there was a leak reported by foreign policy magazine of a military website which seems to indicate that from early february to about middle of april there were 640000 cases reported and that would be on top of the cases in november december and january so i think it's a real indication that there's a gap between what china has been telling the world and what we've been able to see just from hence here and their president from didn't take part in the w.h.o.

summit he did release 11 threatening to pull the united states out of the all that is asian of influence are made china's president address the summit and pledged 2000000 to help fight coleman 19 did he outplayed trump in a sense it i think it did i mean certainly china made big advances in terms of his public relations effort whether that will be enough to. i actually don't think so because beijing has a really bad story to tell and as we talked about this investigation i think is going to reveal deceptions and other acts which the world's going to implore but at least for the moment at the world health assembly meeting that just concluded yet beijing was able to advance his cause very well. earlier this month you asserted that china's handling of the coven 19 has been as you have quote malicious in terms of deliberately taking actions that would inevitably lead to the

spread of the virus outside of china's borders you called it the crime of the century 10 aberrate on as sure beijing only publicly admitted that covered 1000 was human to human transmissible on january 20 but doctors in mohan knew that this was h.g.h. human to human 2nd week of december maybe even earlier than that now if china hadn't said anything for that 5 week period that would have been grossly irresponsible but during that period beijing trying to convince the world that it was not human to human and that of course lall public health officials around the world but to make this story worse beijing during this period when it knew that this was contagious tried to convince countries not to impose travel restrictions in coron jeans on arrivals from china and because of those chinese travelers that's what took this epidemic in china and turned it into

a global pandemic now i don't know what chinese rule or siege in ping had on his mind but if after having seen the coronavirus cripple his country if he wanted to spread the disease around the world in order to level the playing field larry he would have done exactly what in fact he did which means that the best interpretation you can put on the facts as we know them is that he was either reckless but it does look more likely that he was malicious but in either case china is responsible for the deaths of infections around the world and that's what beijing i think is really trying to hide that's why an investigation is seen i think as a mortal threat to the existence of the communist party. at this point is beijing's influence and position in the global arena diminished or enhanced because of this. well on balance i think it's pretty much the same i think that in the beginning

stages of the epidemic china was actually making an umbrella of advances around the world with its mass diplomacy and with other initiatives with its donations but recently china has for a couple of reasons i think hurt its own cause with this wolf warrior diplomacy which is extremely truculent and prognosis but also because countries are starting to see what occurred and that's the reason why you had 144 countries at the world health assembly wanting an independent impartial investigation something that china didn't want and that really shows that china has lost ground diplomatically in recent weeks why would china hide it i mean what what what would be behind their reasoning to not let the world know what was happening. i think it's because. you know maybe they were embarrassed but embarrassment doesn't explain it i think

sieging ping believes that china should be at the top of the international system and he understood that he would not be able to do that if china were the only country that was affected by the coronavirus. i'd like to think that there was a benign explanation for this but i can't come up with one and this is more than just incompetence this is deliberate because when you start looking at all the things that china did and we haven't gone through all of them but when you look at all of the things they did it's just. it's just malign i don't know any other word for that. we asked about beijing's influence well why what about america's response to this pandemic or how is this affecting our influence and reputation elsewhere. well because the krona virus has had so many infections and some of the deaths it's reflected has

a reflection on american confidence the image and this is something the beijing propaganda talks about all the time now i think that america's situation is not as bad as it appears but this certainly has not helped the image of america around the world but you know in terms of you know people saying well that the united states has lost the moral high ground united states has withdrawn i don't think those are actually the facts because what we have seen is president trump. actually talk about things that are now being talked about around the world that message is resonating there really it really is concerned about china and president trump is at the forefront of that so it's really a mixed situation but i do think that criticisms of american diplomacy have just been overdone and have been overdone in this administration like they've been overdone in previous ones i just think america is in

a much better position than most people think. of a pandemic salvias effect on our economy what's the situation on china's economy. china is in a recovery now people say that this recovery is a very sharp recovery upward i actually think that that's probably an exaggeration we know that the 1st quarter their economy they said was contract and 6.8 percent probably 1516 percent reality this quarter they'll have a recovery it won't be nearly as bad as problem though is that it's got a 2nd wave of chronic virus infections so they've been locking down they say about 100000000 people right now and that's got to have an effect on the economy also the problem for china is that it's traditional export markets the european union and the united states we're just not buying as much and that means although china's been able to get the workers back to the job sites it hasn't been able to get the

factories to sell to the extent that you would have thought so china's going to take a little bit more time to recover than most people think is going to be an issue in the election absolutely i mean some people say and i don't do domestic politics larry but some people say that china will be the central issue in our election it could very well be not because of anything that president trump or vice president biden want to do but really because the chinese will make it an issue by pressing the united states and the world maybe basically creating issues every week or so that have got to be addressed by the 2 candidates so i think that probably china if not the central issue is going to be a major issue and we will see this because of the krona virus epidemic which really is a china issue and his fundamental core goal and i panicked can't thank you enough for all your time you give us are great person great expert on this topic. well thank

you so much larry i really appreciate it stay saying my pleasure new to gordon chang we thank him for a stand today and we'll have more politicking right after the break. we go to work see you straight home. during the vietnam war u.s.

forces also bombs neighbor unless there was a secret war and for years the american people did not know. lassalle my skin is officially the mouth of rebound country per capita. human history millions of unexploded bombs still in danger lives in this small agricultural country jordyn wieber went on a can of it's happening. even today kids in laos full victims of bombs dropped decades ago is the us making amends for that tragedy in laos what help do the people need in that little land on. is your media a reflection of reality. in a world transformed. what will make you feel safe.

isolation community. are you going the right way or are you being lead somewhere. direct. what is true or what is faith. in the world corrupted you need to descend. to join us in the death. or remain in the shallows. many teams like to make their children you know when the should. do long saints you say stay in their corner and wait it's an experience we are going to stay inside corner and sing about what you have to. welcome back to politicking earlier this week president trump met with leaders of the restaurant industry at the white house to discuss the impact of the cold 19

pandemic for analysis on that meeting i'm joined by jon taffer entrepreneur and t.v. personality host and executive producer of the reality t.v. series bar rescue he joins me from las vegas are you the only one there in las vegas. all the residents who are but there's no tourists it's something you drive down the strip and you know these casinos don't even have locks on the door so are they never contemplated locking up before they're all boarded up and but the good news is they're getting ready to open and we expect to be open by the end of the month all of this xenos some of them they're going to do it in stages so a couple casinos are going to open then a few weeks later a couple more but the small yesterday morning bars opened restaurants open the week ago and they're getting busy people getting used to a new normal i'm starting to see some activity finally. president drum met with

leaders of the restaurant industry last week or this week rather one should take from that meeting well i've heard very good things about the meeting the big focus now is we've gotten stimulus dollars that help us larry would pay we're all rent and utilities the next round the stimulus has to help us with an inventory credit for food think about all these restaurants are the refrigerator is are empty even the beer kegs are stale and need to be changed so it's going to be costly for these restaurants to get their inventory back so the next round of stimulus it's important and this was discussed that we get an inventory stimulus the restaurants buying that inventory supports the farmers the matter factories the distributors the whole supply line is reinforced as more restaurants fill their refrigerators so that's the next level of stimulus that needs to happen. in the president react to the needs well you know the president being a hospitality guy himself with his own to say knows his own restaurants so i think

he has a firsthand knowledge of the pain even had a casino company go back up on him if you remember many years ago so he's keen on the pay i think the president is extremely receptive i think washington is extremely receptive let's remember the restaurant industry is the largest employer in america other than the federal government so this is important to us all to get this industry going so those employees can go back to stores get their jobs back and fuel our whole economy this is a big part of america resetting. so allows vegas right now is looks like a deserted city right it's unbelievable to see the people are riding bicycles up and down the strip in las vegas that's the new think that the locals to do of course you get killed by a car if you ever took a bicycle on a strip in normal times but that's what's going on here now and the locals have really stepped up there's a lot of charity programs going on you know this is a city that's all hospitality we really have no other industries so the industry is

supporting the industry and we're getting through it. may las vegas business model largely based on inexpensive buffets affordable rooms and great air conditioning on casino floors all these are impacted by the coronavirus does las vegas need to reimagine itself. it does larry and for example the venetian m.g.m. and when have all issued some of the new policies that they're implementing that the nation for example has over $800.00 policy changes all due to covered 19 so their policy changes with regard to the way employees dressed the way they behaved the way the sanitize virtually every process has been evaluated and change but you know harry las vegas we're good at this we feed more than anybody when we're full with our convention activity 'd so vegas is really good it systems and procedures you have to be to function that are scale so i would venture to say that anybody

gets it right vegas well how's it been seen oh than a handle social distancing how to play blackjack was social distancing out what was some of the card games might not some of the table games might not be happening but we're going to see things like foot pedals and slap machines are see a place that machine with your foot rather than touching a machine we're going to see digital playing on your phone we sit down and you interact with your phone rather than touching cards or dealing with a dealer we're going to see a number of these changes the games that are threatened most are some of the table games now imagine. bars and restaurants are they going to do ok. it's difficult where you know we've been cut by 50 percent and what's interesting is they've bunched bars and restaurants together which is really unreasonable so they say that the restaurant can open a 50 percent capacity but yet nobody can walk up to the bar nobody can sit at the

bar nobody can stand so you have to be in a table you have to be 6 feet apart in net table and there can be no real bar interactivity so even though they've opened restaurants per se they haven't yet opened bars because everybody still has to be seated as you know are one of the most important parts of the bars walking around and being close to people. i would favor liability protection for businesses in regard to this pandemic yes to a reasonable level you know i think that we're neglect occurs has to be defined but yes i think we need latitude with regard to liability now because some so much of this is not controlled by the operator but there still needs to be a point larry where it's negligent and then the liability kicks in i would expect the restaurant to to to implement certain standard policies and procedures that don't make it negligent and then l. liability should be gone after that but negligence a stone that which is now one of the hotels already closed right. this one of the

off when it's already closed another one called the times has announced that they're closed indefinitely. but they haven't said they're closed permanently but look at when that we have the biggest hotels in the world here where you have a 5000 room hotel 6000 room hotel how do you fill a hotel of that size after a crisis like this so we're going to start to see the smaller properties opened 1st and then a bigger will come out or. so we can safely say the near future las vegas will not be never be to same never be the same but i also think les vegas is going to believe her in this larry i think we're going to set the standards we're going to show how masses of people can come together and we can control it right so in as much as this is a difficult time for us vegas it's also a great time for a spotlight on las vegas too how are they holding on the hotel workers are called they handling it you know

a business jet of it is are you know the stimulus has helped i must say the stimulus is how many employees the new unemployment levels have really helped a lot of employees they're making almost the same money they made when they were working but a lot of the casinos even though they've laid people off they've kept benefits in place so almost all of our employees have retained their medical benefits for now and that along with their unemployment coverage we're getting through and you know i'm very proud of the city of us vegas there's been a lot of support but nobody is falling through the cracks yet do expect some to fall sure i'm worried are you know some of these casinos you know they're saying now they're going to try to reopen they might not you know there's a lot of restaurants now that are saying they might that but they might not what worries me is this 2 things here are the sustaining ourselves during the pandemic and then there's positioning ourselves to be successful after the pandemic i'm so worried everybody's spending so much money sustaining during this period of time

that we won't have the money to reopen properly when that sense so that's what i worry people's intentions are to reopen a can they sustain it long enough to reopen that's the issue to me is can we say the pledge to me of all the cities in america las vegas has been hit the hardest per capita. i believe that's the case of because such a large percentage of our population is in fact in the hospitality business here in las vegas we don't have farming in agriculture you know we don't produce cars we don't produce appliances our industry is hospitality so yes larry we've been devastated. city in say taxes on hotel rooms in liquor and cabs are they going to go up well you know i hope not you know i think that was vegas needs to put forth a value proposition to be successful now going forward and i've looked at the comeback in an interesting way that i think you'll like our i believe a 3rd of the population is going to come out pretty quickly those of the younger people they feel infallible the 2nd 3rd of the population is going to watch what

happens for a few weeks they want to make sure that there's no surges in infections they want to see how restaurants and retailers act rate and then in a few weeks that 2nd 3rd comes out the 3rd ferret i called a certain 3rd there are older people with preexisting conditions they're not going to go out until they're certain they're safe and if there's a vaccine unfortunately that last 3rd the certain 3rd is the affluent 3rd they have more disposable 'd income they're the ones that buy $1000.00 hotel rooms so when we're losing that affluent end of the hospitality audience i think we all have to look at value propositions now because we're targeting a younger a less affluent audience to start their conventions booked for the fall so there are still conventions booked for the fall i believe there's some still booked in can in august that have not yet been canceled and it becomes a real problem where the las vegas convention center is booked years ahead of time and there's not

a lot of availability so getting dates next year for rescheduled events it's not so easy so there's a lot of work to put it all back together again john judd she's in abu dhabi is rebranding themselves on food delivery abs under different restaurant names what are your thoughts. i think that's smart you know our years ago or before the pandemic delivery was like a sidewind force it didn't matter that much to us we did it because you know as revenue we did it because we sort of had to is good for our brands today delivery 7080 percent of our revenue if not 100 percent of our revenue it's really important it's the core of our business now so all efforts to brand the live recreate apps get the easy delivery out of people's phones get involved in us doing more delivery expanding our prices in delivery all of this is critically important so yet all of those investments are going to happen i think you're going to see huge investments in delivery by all restaurant brands john tavener thanks she had time today always

great talking with you good to see it to be well and be safe. you too and thank you viewers for joining me on this edition of politicking remember you can join the conversation on my facebook page or tweet me at kings things and don't forget to use the politicking hash tag and that's all for this edition of politicking. montes holiday international memorial awards are now open for entries the media professionals are eligible whether you're a freelance journalist work for alternative media for part of a global news platform to participate send us your published works in video all written for much go to award dot altie dot com and enter now.

one else seems wrong. but all roads just don't call. me. yet to stamp out just being active. and engaged because the trail. when something find themselves worlds apart we just of the common ground. are. and i mean i'm on the pull of the highest amount of weight or both to assume because the ballot itself mukti about. plus in this way got to doubt so hard not to think of the other disappeared this moment the work of a coward and i'm going to start then if. this is the only thing that we do is music because everybody fights in his way.

through our you can feel the fee on this bill frist woody allen you have all the ability to put the helmet on the. what i think is this is the fans that is a constant. you cannot be both with the yeah you are.

right you can stay there it's all. worth. it so have a seat at these 2 like force the green and the blue and then we'll do a quick sound check with them so you'll wear these headphones but they're just small here the size is too let's make sure that i'm going to make sure that your hair is ok and open tomorrow. it's. all right and here and there. you know minute change of all you. can hear anything and then oh she can't she can't yes. do you hear me well you hear me when. soon you were shot ski lives in kansas city her granddaughter leah it's a seattle based filmmaker and she's.