Beijing Uses Diplomacy and Trade Pressure to Advance Its Interests

0:00 Speaker 1 Well, let’s go to the Far East, and who’s better to talk about it than Gordon G.

0:05 Speaker 2 Chang and his Twitter, at Gordon G.

0:07 Speaker 1 Chang, and 24-7, you’ll know what the heck is going on. Well, Gordon, give us an evaluation. A whole week has passed since we talked. Things any better? I mean, how did the meetings go, and what is your evaluation?

0:24 Speaker 3 On the meeting, we will not know for sure for weeks, months, maybe even years later as information comes out. But as we look at it from the perspective of today, the Chinese accomplished what they wanted to do. And so I guess you have to score it for them. Xi Jinping really wanted two things. One of them is he wanted

0:43 the televised images of President Trump honoring him. The reason is I think he’s got problems back home in the Chinese political system, and he wanted to be bolstered by those images. The second thing that he did was he bought some time. China’s been engaged in unacceptable and dangerous behavior.

1:02 But while we have dialogue with Beijing, we tend to postpone imposing costs. And this has been going on for decades. The Chinese are masterful at it. We keep on playing this game, and I don’t think that we should. Now, having said that, the United States is in a position to be indulgent because we’re far ahead on all sorts

1:22 of metrics. And the United States is a far stronger and far more stable society. So perhaps we can have that time in order to see what will develop. But unfortunately, we don’t see China moving in the right direction, especially in recent years under Xi Jinping.

1:40 Speaker 2 Understood.

1:41 Speaker 1 I mean, and I guess Xi Jinping got what he wanted of the president of the United States, you know, accepting him at the Andrews Air Force Base. And I guess in Xi Jinping, you know, the Chinese traditionally have a time on their side and they’re saying, well, Trump is not going to be president in two and a

2:09 half years, so let’s stay the course.

2:13 Speaker 3 Yes, but time is on the side of the United States because our economy is getting stronger. We’re advancing our AI. China has got an unstable economy, one that is deteriorating fast. And I think that essentially Xi Jinping is playing a game where time is running out for him. Especially we see the purges in the Chinese military accelerating. And this

2:37 is not a good story for China. It was just reported that the United States thinks that 2027 will not be the year that China invades Taiwan. I certainly agree because we can see that the military in Beijing is just not ready. There’s too much turmoil at the top of the Communist Party. They can back into a war

2:57 someplace around Asia, and that’s possible at any time. But they can’t launch hostilities by invading the main island of Taiwan or any other complex military operation for that matter.

3:09 Speaker 2 Well, I think you’re right, too.

3:12 Speaker 1 I mean, it’s just I guess we’re just playing the waiting game and see what happens.

3:19 Speaker 3 Yes. And this is what we did during the Cold War.

3:22 Speaker 1 Is China continuing to help Iran in many ways or they.

3:28 Speaker 2 Have just given up?

3:30 Speaker 3 Well, over the last couple of weeks, I don’t know the answer to that question. But over prior to that time, yes. So, for instance, the targeting data that Iran used to kill six Americans in Kuwait on March 1, that almost certainly came from China. Definitely the targeting data that Iran used on July 17th to kill three Americans in Jordan, that

3:52 definitely came from China. And we know from Wall Street Journal reporting that China has continued to supply dual-use war material from January through June. There’s no indication that that stopped because we’ve had these images of these Chinese military cargo planes landing in Iran during the course of the war.

4:11 We’ll have to see what happens later on. David Perdue, our ambassador to Beijing on last Sunday, made it very clear that the United States has laid down the law on that. We’ll just have to see if China listens this time.

4:26 Speaker 2 Understood. Anything else you want to tell the American people on a Sunday morning?

4:31 Speaker 3 One of the interesting things that occurred this week is that China imposed an export ban on fuel, except, of course, to Hong Kong and Macau. That took me by surprise because I thought they had been managing their oil well and that their stocks were large. I don’t know why they’re doing this. It would suggest that their inventories of

4:51 oil are probably lower than we thought, or it may be they’re just trying to disrupt oil markets in the run-up to the American midterms. I don’t know the answer to that question, but it can’t be good for whatever reason.

5:05 Speaker 2 Now, you are right.

5:08 Speaker 1 I think you have 30 days to the election or something like that. And they are trying to create turmoil. You know, a lot of the European nations, a lot of the Asian nations. Why? Because they’d rather have a weaker Donald Trump in Washington that they can control better.

5:30 Speaker 2 And bottom line, I think we all believe that. 100%. 100%, John. Well, Gordon G.

5:38 Speaker 1 Chang, let’s see what goes on this week. And thank you for your input and your love for America.

5:45 Speaker 2 Thank you so much.

5:47 Speaker 3 Thank you, John.