>> congratulations and thank you for joining us today. your book, we will cover a lot of ground talking about communist china's fight for global supremacy. so first of all why did you decide to write the book quick. >> this is my eighth book and in 2000 and i wrote a book called the china threat which is a play on the china threat theory and it was amazing that it really predicted the emergence of a major threat posed by communist china. ever since i wrote that book , i have tried to do another china book and every publisher i approached said we will not write a single topic china book you can have chapters but not a single topic. why is that quick. >> i don't know i don't know

if it was concerns if they would sell that finally i dug in my heels and said it's time to do another book on the threat from china as it is becoming greater than it was way back when the china threat was published in 2000. >> your book is very timely. but let me ask about this title and then you go on inside communist china's drive for global supremacy the second half is understandable. >> the communist are steeped in ancient strategy many people know of the famous strategist who comes from the warring states era 200 bc. there's also a book called the 36 strategies the author isn't

clear but it is military strategies over weaker power to defeat a stronger power which is beijing's main goal today. the first is called to see this guy across the ocean and the meaning goes back to the legend of the emperor one of the generals wanted him to go to war with the neighboring province and the emperor was reluctant so the general arrange for dinner at the home of a wealthy peasant and when he arrived and stepped into the house he felt that move realized it was not a house now he was sailing with the general to the province and had to decide do i go to war or return home and he decided to go to war. so you have even deceived the sky chinese legend he is

considered a godlike figure so to deceive god to achieve your objectives to me this is the strategy that the chinese communist party in beijing are using today specifically against the united states. >> i was struck by the fact you dedicated the book to the chinese people. before we go into the content and us policy, tell us why you dedicated the people of china. >> they need to be liberated on the horrors of the communist regime. i remember doing a debate many years ago in new york city whether china was a threat the one that said that wasn't a threat afterward said doing business in china for 20 years i've never met a communist and i was shocked and said you

should visit the people's liberation army in beijing and there you will see all the founding fathers of communism with stalin and marx and mao. so it is important to understand this aspect that this regime is truly going after global supremacy in a way it has not done in the past. >> if you were in beijing today in front of a bit audience what would you say to them quick. >> there is a big myth in china that the chinese party is one with the people a chinese colonel came to visit many years ago and said my beef is not with the chinese people but the communist party of china and he said no no no there is no difference between

the communist party and the chinese people. that is a huge lie. one.4billion people are enslaved into the system. as many as 93 million communist party members. but for the most part they do not with that system. they have tasted prosperity living in the main cities and have tasted a little bit of freedom they have traveled to the united states i really felt i wanted to dedicate the book to free the people from the communist party of china. >> at the beginning you go into how we got it wrong and in particular you cite 1999 the defense intelligence agency issued a report and basically that minimize that china was a threat. but then 20 years later you basically indicate army and

lieutenant general ashley had in fact indicated communist ideology had not changed as a motivating force for china's ruler and basically the report issued then documented how and why china is a threat. in fact one data point that struck me was the $600 billion annually in stolen technology and intellectual property that is rather substantial. how did we get it wrong? and then 20 years later it changed quick. >> i like to tell the story back in the late nineties i was writing a story on the pla and the pentagon would give

background briefings it was pretty vanilla with what they had to say but at the end of the briefing a kernel said the general would like to see you. that was the director of dia and sat at the end of the table and told me that china was not a threat. i was very surprised. i would expect that so my question is why do you think that? basically because of their statement and this was astounding to me i can understand that for our policy officials for a reporter or civilian intelligence but for the top military to say the nuclear armed communist dictatorship who has missiles capable of hitting our cities is not a threat i felt there was a deception operation underway. fast-forward a couple years later i revealed in my earlier book one of the top analyst at dia was a chinese spy passing

information. i believe china's penetration at that time was giving false information. the current dia director obviously has taken a major shift as the reflection of policy with a tectonic shift to identify that as a strategic competitor filtering its way throughout the democracy right now. >> let me pick up on that back in december 2017 when the national security strategy was released, it does state russia and china are strategic competitors but also a threat and you document that in the

book. >> so my view the first step in finding solutions for policies or anything else is to identify the threat without understanding that we can never solve the problem of china. so i said what makes up the threat from china? looking at chinese ideology, weapon system systems, influence operations, financial warfar warfare, and it is an one - - impressive array. it is the existential threat faced by anyone in history. >> but with the trump administration the link has been made between american national security and economic

security. and that is the centerpiece that has been developed to some extent that has been there but with the approach is having a significant impact particularly at the time when china itself to be confronted with its own economic woes. so not only the military component or the digital power influence but also the economic dimension that is absolutely essential. >> absolutely. i have an entire chapter on chinese economic warfare. but to point out this idea of the multifaceted threat from china the reason the threat has become worse the united states has been engaged in a

30 or 40 or gamble that began with henry kissinger under the cold war. it was designed to basically help to defeat the soviet union in the us at that time was struggling with us communist party of china. so the engagement policy went on autopilot and was never reevaluated it became a great legacy policy we have to continue and really that has been enormously damaging. for example one is the most concrete is engagement carried through several administration democratic and republican but

through clinton we reached a high point and at that point he allowed the national weapons laboratories to have exchanges with china and within a few short years the cia issued a conclusion through espionage through the entire arsenal that loss of secrets has not been fully resolved but it is clear it happened. what is compounded when the chinese spread to pakistan now through the ache yukon nuclear supplier network proliferated that technology to north korea and iran and syria and libya. we found this out in 2003 with

the libyan program among those documents turned over was chinese language how to design a small warhead missile i cannot think of greater damage to global security of those that didn't understand the nature of the threat from china. >> rather substantial points you are making. dive into the economic lane as i was asking, develop that a bit he made very clear that economic instrument wielded in advancing china's own agenda. >> the chinese economic threat derives from the fact to use that economic power to diminish the united states for

let me first touch on the shift of policy lot president trump has done more than any other president has aligned us national security with economic security filtering throughout the entire government whether law enforcement intelligence or pentagon everybody looks at the chinese economic threat and the white house was successful in highlighting this threat and they issued a report called china's economic aggression there is a huge policy fight with bureaucrats to say we cannot say economic aggression but if you read the report you understand why and that's where they determined based on the estimates between 250 and 600 billion annually of american intellectual property and energy - - no nation can survive especially reliant on innovation with

that type of theft. so getting back to the soviet cold war analogy, as you remember with the reagan administration they did something unique with the soviet union and basically said we will block western technology to moscow it was a major contributing factor in the demise of the soviet union. trump is doing a similar thing toward china. he has said let's see how great the chinese economic miracle is once american technology is blocked off. on these policies designed to god its launch in early 2017 with the newly elected president in trump tower meeting with the top executives from silicon valley

their main concern is how do we stop the flow of american know-how to china so that is where it began. >> do you feel china's predatory economic policies will be afforded as a result of this policy? do you see it having the impact that it should quick. >> very much so. in the financial warfare chapter i point out in addition to the tariffs imposed by the trump administration which are having an impact, china has taken a different now going after the capital markets to raise money as well as influence policy. so investments by the california personnel are retirement fund those funds

could say don't sanction china because our retirement funds are invested in all this is happening on a large scale i'm happy to say the administration within the past week has announced they will take steps to try to curb this unregulated capital market which again the united states is the unprecedented leader in all capital markets. >> the administration has been quite vigilant on this issue and that negotiators also have those goals and objectives to correct the predatory actions as part of the negotiations. robert light heiser and steve nguyen are at the forefront who is china's leader president xi? >> he is the new. up before his ascension of

power around 2013 the chinese strategy for the world they watch closely and saw the collapse of the soviet union so their idea was let's be friends with the united states so that main deception is the dia director tells me in 99 there not a threat because president xi polish e-policy was by time and build capabilities now the policy with president xi is the chinese dream in my view it is a communist party of china nightmare where china seeks to take its rightful place as the sole superpower in the world so not that they are spreading their own power in a communist system with the predatory lending practices, but also that in order for them to achieve that, and i have to go

after the united states and weaken the main enemy. so there we see the unfettered policies of china to send opioids into the united states to exacerbate the tens of thousands of deaths into the opioid crisis. >> is in a true president xi himself is driving successfully to solidify his own power base through the vote which basically says he is leader for life, also he has done that to articulate the power of the communist party talking about the revitalization of the communist party. do you see him in any capacity to be vulnerable? >> he has consolidated power through 2012 carried out under anticorruption in fact it is a

cover for consolidation he has instituted unprecedented the approach not just middle or low-level officials but senior officials of the communist party anybody perceived as a rival potentially is illuminated. this has created great instability within china because the way the communist party a structured, it's like a group of mafia families for each don has a network so by purging these families it is creating internal opposition to him. that said he has strengthened the internal security apparatus in china which is the ministry of public security there are numerous chinese security organizations

all of them modeled after the soviet kgb which is a political service to have a dual function in intelligence as well as internal security. >> one chapter is entitled the cummings space war with china. to even discuss the process of war itself and speculate this cannot be ruled out with china. please talk about that and then with the path that we're on it is likely. >> the military threat from china on what the chinese calls asymmetric warfare or a

weapon going back to the warring states. a weaker power does not try to confront the enemy head on but to find his vulnerabilities with special capabilities. states warfare is one but space warfare is a real vulnerability for the united states because it is so dependent on the multitude of satellites communications, finance, intelly , navigation and china has understood that and developed an array of weapons. this is a nonfiction book but i included a fictional scenario how china could launch a worldwide pearl harbor in the first phase would be knocking out key missile warning satellites because the us operates with very good eyes in the sky to pick up heat signatures anywhere on earth through

attacking those to destroy as many to dozens satellites the us military could be crippled and the ability to function. we are the sole superpower right now that china is working to diminish that capability. >> what about graham allison? >> i don't mention it in the book because i don't think it is a valid assessment. i don't think war with china is inevitable. the notion that in the past going back to ancient times of a decline of rising power will automatically go to war, first of all this is a major chinese propaganda theme that china is the rising power in the world but that the united states must diminish but we don't

hear how china is trying to diminish the united states. but i see the united states will be the sole superpower and i agree with president trumps strategy which goes back to the reagan administration where they basically said to prevent a war, make sure the other side does not miscalculate that's why i disagree with the graham allison strategies to make you have a number of very interesting quotations each chapter has a quote. like the assassins name in space you have the chinese kernel saying to meet the requirements of deceiving the united states in the war the pla should have weapons with

space attack capability. >> china has that capability today. >> that is what you said a fictional scenario but you do talk about the fact it does have that capability today. >> this is an area where china is ahead of the united states the military recently set up a brand-new space command. guess what? they have no weapons at least that we know of that china has an array of very lethal and capable anti- satellite weapons. we learn this in 2007 when china tested the ground launch missile called direct dissent which targeted a chinese weather satellite the impact from that satellite i spent an entire chapter explaining their lie it created tens of thousands of pieces of floating debris which will threaten manned and unmanned

spacecraft between 50 and 100 years what they learned from that lesson they took some heat from the international community so now the second thing they developed as a laser now the best way to attack is to use a ground-based laser now all you have to do to disable or destroy an orbiting satellite is to warm up the electronic or damage the sensors are the optical cameras and they are out of business without the same debris field. in addition to both missiles and lasers they also developed co- orbital satellites and i highlight how they tested a group of small satellites one had a robotic arm that can reach out and grab one - - and grab a satellite to knock it out of orbit this is an

impressive array of weaponry developing since before 2007 now the us is trying to catch up. >> your book documents many areas like that and in fact he began with a quote from the 19 forties that says to achieve victory we must make the enemy blind and deaf by stealing his eyes and ears to drive his commanders to distraction by creating confusion in their mind. relate that statement to cyber. >> the chinese cyberthreat like the space threat is another of the asymmetric capabilities where they are ahead of the united states. they have done a massive job of developing the ability to get inside of networks and

control networks from the military networks for what the logistics would need for troop and equipment to a battlefront to financial networks and most alarmingly the chinese cyberthreat has been detected inside the electrical grid. they call this cyberreconnaissance. they are mapping the networks the united states has three power grants chinese have been detected in all three and the belief is with military that in a crisis of conflict they could turn out the lights. we have 16 critical infrastructures with communications but when it comes down to it the most critical is the electric grid if that goes down we are in deep trouble.

>> on a scale of one through ted where are we with ten the most concerning with the future of chinese cyberattack? to make the threat is between seven and eight and growing. we have witnessed it in many ways and it will get worse when the chinese have stolen massive amounts of data i highlight in the book the case of a pla hacker who operated network out of vancouver that successfully broke into boeing and stole three.$4 billion worth of research on the c-17 military transport . . . . .

federal workers who are engaged in classified work. this is an amazing breach the government notified everyone in the government, millions of people who held a security clearance iclearances that their information was compromised. three b. are interested in counterintelligence and they woulthey woulduse it to find oue

speakers in this labor front if they can use it to identify network administrators and a key national security agencies targeting those people and they break into those networks. >> host: you have had so many areas that you've covered in terms of the engagement and where they deploy different kinds of technologies, economic instruments etc. throughout the book. it is an interesting title and you mentioned that by 2018, china put in place a new

technological control system based in the heart on an estimated 200 million surveillance cameras around the country and they are seemingly everywhere. talk about this high-tech totalitarianism. >> guest: this is following on the important note that this is a reflection of the ideology it has become a social credit system whereby as you have a credit ranking on the credit card and finances they have a credit card free politics. in beijing when there isn't a

proper crossing signal because automatically he would be identified and his social credit would be diminished. there's also stories for those that have done things that are perceived as anti-regime and communist party. they can't take trains, they can take aircraft and people in china are going to the remote parts of the country trying to buy credit for people that don't have this problem. they even developed in addition to facial recognition they have something that can measure the data that you walk so they can use the massive database and high-speed computing to be able to identify individuals.

>> i'm going to use the term soft power versus smart power. how would you assess this lack we know they are heavily involved in economic development in latin america, the middle east and africa. you see it as very effective. why is this in your opinion? >> guest: they have expanded in a number of areas i would say soft power is one, influence operations are another. they have the united front work department which is a party unit that they qualify a intelligence unit responsible for advancing strategic interest around the world. i think that one of the key features of the expansionism today is something mentioned earlier copperbelt and road initiative and this again morphed out of the ideology so

now the belt road initiative is kind of a trojan horse of expansionism in the developing world and the way that it works as china goes into a poor country and says we would like to build a railroad for you and we will help with financing. then they provide the financing at exorbitant interest rates and when the poor country comes back and says we are having trouble paying back the loan, they say that our railroad now taking over, and that kind of thing is taking place on a large scale around the world especially in the developing world. i see this as a kind of u.s. encirclement strategy to basically take over and buy up the developing world as a way to encircle the more developed world and insert power. >> what about thei intelligence operations and espionage? you have a case concerning key

west. share with us what exactly happened in key west? one is the ministry of state security, it's a massive intelligence political police service. second is the department that has been folded into a new military unit but those are the two that they have been chasing for years. last year something new emerged. a young man booked a hotel room in key west, left his wallet and things behind and then went to the naval air station in key west and walked around a security stretch that had been photographing of the antenna

race and they went and immediately arrested him and it turns out it's a new type of chinese spy from the ministry of public security which is in china today so he was convicted and sentenced to prison and the officials involved if a major intelligence center and it's in the counterintelligence business you can tell the motivation by the targets that they are going after. >> host: utah dot influence

making and one of the things that takes place you have an influx and we also have a number of academic institutions and there have been a flurry of attacks on the institutions taking resources from the confucius institutes. it has come out against these institutions existing. talked a bit also and describe what's going on here because in your book you do leave together the bits you also talk about ideology.

it's been very effective as an influence tool on the american campuses. there are about 100 of these institutes funded by the government and their objective is ostensibly to teach chinese culture interestingly the official communist party is using confucius as a influence tool and what has happened with these institutes is not they are dependent on the students to become dependent on these confucius institutes and you can focus on the courses that teach about the evil of the communist party of china the members of

congress tried to get the universities to take these institutes off. again they are reluctant to do with because they have become reliant on it so you have this finance and influence power and the researche researcher franz e at least 300,000 students not all of them are spies but some of them can be called upon by chinese security agencies to conduct work for them. just recently there was an arrest in the united states involved in what was known as the thousand talents program, and this is one of the chinese government's biggest programs to get officials to go from the united states to china and there was mention in the end die i'd t

that the chinese official is working with one of the confucius institute on the university in massachusetts which was not identified by name but most likely was in the institute of technology. >> host: let's go to military might. the chinese are investing in their navy and also many countries in the region have been very concerned about what they've been witnessing in terms of the south china sea, i land disputes and also about the investment, the significant investment in the military. where is it now how would you describe? >> guest: i touched on this a little bit. it comes in two forms. the conventional unconventional

warfare. >> host: and you did mention the nuclear. >> guest: they've developed an array of systems i can remembering covering way back years ago that there was a case in california that stole details on the agent's battle management system which is a huge radar that is the heart of our modern navy and baseball bat and combined it with chinese and russian technology and now they are cranking out hundreds of agents warships in terms of submarine behind the united states in terms of quietness and in the submarine warfare, how quiet it is this the most important thing that they are getting quieter. on the nuclear front, it is a major, major challenge in the sense that the nuclear threat is increasing exponentially and we know very little about it.

through arms control in the cold war as you know we were able to engage the soviet and to find out things about their arsenal. the chinese have refused to engage the arms control debate or negotiations in the united states and the reason is they believe any discussion of the nuclear deterrent will undermine its value and so we don't know whether they have 600 warheads or whether they have 1500 or if they have 10,000. we do know they have something called the great underground wall and this is 3,000 miles of tunnel this is another assassins based web and call the hypersonic missile that travels

at mach seven or five or above. that's the purpose of having it and it has the capability and a very difficult physics environment to be able to maneuver to its target. it is both a conventional warhead for the ship missiles as well as a nuclear delivery vehicle. it's been front and center in the policy where the secretary of state has raised this issue with many of our allies. some have taken issues against such technologies via the chinese and others that haven't listened and are looking at going down that path.

it blamed the concerns. >> guest: it isn't simply an advance in the telecommunications technology. it is a revolutionary step above what we are currently doing with our handheld devices and it requires an infrastructure. the chinese are seeking to corner the international market on the technology and making extra. >> host: it's bac expected the m high-tech totalitarianism. >> guest: there are giants many of them sanctioned by the united states to. the most concerning is a state-run company masquerading right now there is a huge battle. battle.

at ththe trump administration hs indicted the cso being held in house arrest outside of vancouver, canada. there is a case against her that shows that it's been a illegally conducting business in iran. it's kind of a backdoor way to deal with the threat. so far u.s. efforts around the world have not succeeded in getting as many allies as there should be about the technology. one way the united states has been influencing others not to use the technology that can be used for intelligence gathering and that is the key concern, but they said the united states will not share technology or intelligence with key partners and allies. the reason is there's a belief in effect it's the belief that we learn from the documents that the national security agency is

able to penetrate the equipment and actually spy on the spies so we know that in addition to that it requires all companies in china were ostensibly those to provide data on the chinese intelligence and security services. >> host: i want to go down two paths that we have remaining. one is foreign affairs a number of years back that conducted a poll and the question was if russia a geopolitical challenge or threat, and it was interesting because half of the experts basically had said yes but the other half focused on china and very specifically said it's not russia, it's china. let's take a look at both.

you've written about both so where on the scale do you fit, where is china and where is russia in terms of the threats and allies. >> guest: china is the greatest threat and i think this was a little confusing in the trump administration's national security policy where they coupled with china and russia together. this has been a bureaucratic ploy for many years to try to diminish the threat by elevating the russian threats. the foreign-policy community is on a kind of autopilot when it comes to russia and that is based on the cold war. we feel numerous experts on the soviet threat continue, so there's kind of a russian

threats culture within this community and that is rapidly changing. again there were much fewer experts. the language is difficult. that's changing rapidly now. i was at stanford where i heard an academic who was not necessarily concerned about the threat and he briefed it with a bunch of reporters and literally said i'm really afraid of what's happening as we see this emerging threat in china. the other thing to look at is that the economy is probably seven times larger than the russian economy where the problem comes in as they are developing a series of doomsday weapons, hypersonic missiles, nuclear power is missile, a number of very threatening weapons. the russian threat however i

believe is limited to vladimir putin and his regime and one of the recommendations i make is the united states should play the russia card against china. we need russia as an ally. that will not happen as long as vladimir putin is in power but they said he could be bought out in the billions that he's taken from russia. >> host: you put forth a number of recommendations at the end of the book. what are some of your recommendations on how we can really tackle this challenge? >> guest: the team recommendation i made this for the government and united states as a whole to recognize the nature of the threat as i call it and really declare china much more than a strategic competitor but as an adversary or enemy.

it's basically to the pro- engagement and business community that say let's keep trading with china it is so intertwined that it's beginning to change a lot of businesses are pulling out looking for other markets. india, vietnam. i think it is time to declare it would go a long way towards helping us the couple. another recommendation is to create a parliament in exile in the pro-democracy chinese around the world bring them together once a year as to create ideas and policies for reforming the system into the democratic system and have them meet and

publish that electronically. a very simple things that could be done. the other thing i could talk about is expanding the missile defense. we saw in the case of north korea when the united states deployed the high altitude area, it was a very effective antimissile system, the chinese punished south korea to the tune of three to $4 billion by causing problems to them. this is a sign that china doesn't like these missile defenses because the military is so missile oriented they have so many types of missiles, so let's start deploying the missile battery throughout the world. in mongolia, in india, in southeast asia, and australia and all these places. places. let's really encircle china and mitigate the threat. >> host: where does india get into the strategy, given their own objectives in the region, and also going back to the issue

of russia. i ask that question because are you concerned about a closer chinese russia alliance that is emerging some experts think that's happening and others counter that and say that's not happening and will. >> guest: the relationship is growing. it's like the united states in that they'vandthat they've had g debate with pro- china and anti-china communisanti-china cs them is that they are beginning to wake up to the threat and they have a dispute with china and they are very concerned. as they are growing closer together we've seen in the past couple of years within the past

few feet some joint exercise. traditionally they are taking over its far east which is very vulnerable and that the few defenses so that is basically because he is against the united states. what do you think china is most vulnerable on? >> guest: on the regime legitimacy. the chinese are going to be

celebrating 70 years of communist rule and it shouldn't be a cause for celebration. when you look back at the massive deaths that have been caused, there was a book years ago called the book of communism that estimated to be 60 million people. this is the legacy of the communist party of china, and it needs to be held accountable for that. i exposing bad and the true nature of the regime it would go a long way towards really bringing about a democratic change. what do you want them to know about this book and what is the most top three planes in the message that you want to leave with them quite?

>> guest: it is threatening and second, we missed china and the intelligence has nested and the policy community has nested and we really need to admit that. this is the key and third we've got to bring about a peaceful democratic change within china the main objective is to keep the communist party in power and to become a global hegemon for supremacy and dominance in the entire world inside of communist

china's drive for the global supremacy it's certainly a fascinating book and you've done a lot of work in the research that you put out so thank you again for coming today. it's an interesting read. thank you.

>> the shock doctrine and recently published on fire for the green new deal.