Gordon Chang: ‘Our Republic Is Unsafe when Mnuchin Is in the Room with Chinese Officials’
America is “unsafe” with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin in a leadership position in trade negotiations with China, according to Gordon Chang, author of The Coming Collapse of China.
He offered his remarks in a Thursday interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight with hosts Rebecca Mansour and Joel Pollak.
China’s theft of American intellectual property is a national security priority, said Chang.
“The really big issue here is China’s theft of U.S. intellectual property, and this is to the tune of about $300 to $400 billion a year,” stated Chang. “Some say a little bit more. Some say a little bit less, but we’re talking hundreds of billions of dollars each and every year, and this is a mortal wound on the U.S. economy.”
Chang continued, “I don’t see how these trade talks are going to help us stop that theft. The only way we’re going to stop this is if we impose such great costs that the Chinese have no choice but to start to do the right thing, and I wouldn’t take off these tariffs until China stops stealing our stuff.”
Mansour asked about the possibilities of political reform in China.
“I don’t think it’s possible to reform Xi Jinping,” judged Chang. “I don’t think it’s possible to reform the Communist Party. If you’re talking about the Chinese people, I think yeah, of course, there are a lot of people in China who are actually embarrassed by what the Communist Party is doing in terms of stealing, because they just feel that this is not what a great nation should be doing, and they understand that by stealing our stuff, they also hurt themselves because they cut the incentive to innovate.”
Chang went on, “But nonetheless I don’t think we can really change Xi Jinping. He’s got this Made in China 2025 initiative to dominate technology in — now — 11 sectors. This is the subject of Senator Rubio’s report. He absolutely nails it, and it’s important that we listen to him when he says, ‘Look, this is the most pervasive challenge. This is without precedent. This is the gravest threat to the American republic.'”
Mansour asked how aligned the Chinese people are with their political leadership.
Chang explained, “I think that certainly the controls in China are becoming more Orwellian, and China is moving away from authoritarian back to full-on totalitarianism. We’re going back to things that are reminiscent of the Maoist era. Of course, China’s more modern than it was in the fifties and sixties and seventies, but nonetheless, the political system is going back to what was then.”
https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2019/02/22/exclusive-gordon-chang-our-republic-is-unsafe-when-mnuchin-is-in-the-room-with-chinese-officials/