As we now face such turbulent times ― rising Chinese hegemony, Myanmar’s military coup, Taliban control of Afghanistan, among other crises ― American diplomacy is obviously crucial to regain peace. Under the Biden administration, however, Russia and China are getting closer than before, and we are witnessing the resurgence of the Ukraine crisis.

How does the Biden administration’s foreign policy affect the world?

The Liberty spoke to the Asia analyst, Gordon Chang, who continues to give warnings against Chinese unbridled ambition and shows the path to its regime change.

 

――The Biden administration is seemingly taking a tough stance against China, but it is said to be only a pretense; Senator Rubio actually accuses Mr. Biden of blocking the “Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.” How do you see the Biden administration’s China strategy? Is that strategy an effective approach to end Chinese hegemony or to protect the American people from Chinese aggression?

Mr. Chang: China’s regime attacks America every day, and every day America’s political leaders refuse to react. The problem starts with President Biden.

Why? Biden believes climate change, not China’s regime, poses the greatest threat to the U.S. Therefore, his administration has been willing to hand out free passes to Beijing as long as Chinese officials say the right things about carbon neutrality.

Unfortunately, the Biden administration completely misunderstands the nature of America’s relationship with the Chinese regime. In early February 2021, Biden in his major foreign policy speech said China is “our most serious competitor.”

The Communist Party of China frames the relationship in harsher terms. In May 2019, for instance, People’s Daily, the most authoritative publication in China, carried a piece that declared a “people’s war” on America. The hostility, unfortunately, has continued to the present day.

Americans must be concerned by this propaganda because the Party, with constant promotion of strident anti-Americanism, is establishing a justification to strike America.

Unfortunately, Biden is not noticing the Chinese hostility, instead becoming the master of half-measures adopted at the last moment. He obviously does not have his heart in opposing China’s regime.

His State Department, for instance, lobbied against the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which shows the President does not, in fact, have a robust China policy.

Biden’s administration is stuck in the failed “engagement” policies of a long-gone era. They did not work for decades, and they are not working now.

 

――You pointed out that the U.S. already has enough evidence related to the Corona virus’s origins and must impose severe sanctions on Beijing. Even though nearly 900,000 American citizens have died from Covid, why would you think the Biden administration still refuses to declassify that intelligence about the virus’s origins?

Mr. Chang: The Biden administration does not declassify COVID-19 intelligence, I think, because the intelligence would show that China has a biological weapons program and that, during the first stages of the epidemic, it maliciously took steps to spread the disease beyond China’s borders. Chinese leaders, for instance, told the world that the disease was not transmissible human-to-human when they knew it was highly contagious. Moreover, while locking down their own country they pressured others to take arrivals from China. It was those arrivals that spread the disease, making it a global pandemic.

If the American people saw the evidence for this, Biden would have to impose costs on China for killing—murdering—more than 880,000 Americans. There would be no cooperation possible on climate change or anything else.

Biden is failing to discharge his most fundamental Constitutional duty: protecting Americans from foreign attack.

 

――You have long supported a full decoupling of the U.S. economy from China. Under the Biden administration, however, the amount of U.S. investments in China keeps increasing and Wall Street investors continuously feed the Chinese Communist Party. We are concerned that those U.S. dollars allow the CCP to expand its military capability. In terms of decoupling, how would you see the Biden administration’s China strategy? How can we proceed with the process of a full decoupling from China?

Mr. Chang: The Biden administration is not in favor of decoupling. Very few of its actions help the United States lessen its dependence on the militant Chinese regime.

On the contrary, many of its policies, such as those encouraging the purchasing of commodities and products from China, foster interdependence, which is exactly the wrong direction for America.

The Communist Party can threaten America only with American money, in other words, with Washington’s acquiescence.

The way to end the Chinese threat, therefore, is to stop the westward flow of money to China. That means, for instance, prohibiting investment in China’s markets and in its manufacturing sector, something Biden can do by invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977.

Moreover, he can encourage low-cost manufacturing to move from China to Central America by liberalizing the provisions of the Central America Free Trade Agreement, which came into force in 2006 and includes American friend, Guatemala. We should locate our factories in countries that are not trying to destroy our country.

 

――We are concerned that Asian and African countries will be controlled by China through the Belt and Road Initiative. Sri Lanka agreed to lease its southern Hambantota port to China for 99 years and it will have another contract with a Chinese firm to build a container port in Colombo. Uganda is about to lose its only international airport to China as well. Regarding this issue, how would you see the present situation?

Mr. Chang: China’s Xi Jinping, by continually employing the Chinese imperial-era concept of tianxia—China rules “all under Heaven”—has made it clear that he believes all others should consider themselves subjects of China. The Belt & Road program, which intends to tie the world’s transportation routes to China, is intended to make others dependent on China and ultimately vassals of the magnificent Chinese court. Countries should not participate in this program unless they intend to subjugate themselves to Beijing.

Beijing has become the master of ensnaring countries in debt. That’s why we now talk about China’s “debt-trap diplomacy.”

 

――On another side, there are possibilities that the Chinese Communist Party itself will run short of U.S. dollars because of the non-performing loans caused by the Belt and Road Initiative. Could you share your outlook with us about the Chinese economy?

Mr. Chang: The Chinese economy is not growing at the 4.9% year-on-year pace claimed for the third quarter of 2021. The core of the economy, Beijing says, is consumption, but local and national statistics plus anecdotal evidence tell us consumption has remained weak during the coronavirus epidemic.

The draconian coronavirus-control measures in Xian and other cities have to be hitting consumption hard. The Chinese economy is probably hovering around zero.

At the same time, the country is on the edge of its long-delayed debt crisis. China avoided a downturn in 2008 by embarking on one of the largest stimulus campaigns in history. That campaign resulted in the unprecedented creation of debt. One can say that China is now experiencing its 2008 downturn.

Nobody knows the full extent of Chinese debt, but it is surely over 300% of gross domestic product, perhaps closer to 400%. It is now so high that it is choking off any growth that does exist. That’s a critical problem because China’s growth model is dependent on creating output to retire indebtedness. Tellingly, Xi Jinping, unlike prior years, did not mention gross domestic product in his 2022 New Year’s address.

The debt crisis is now in focus because of the impending failure of property developer Evergrande Group. The property sector accounts for almost a third of the Chinese economy, and a whopping 70% of personal wealth is in real estate.

China’s debt-laden property sector—and perhaps the Chinese economy as a whole—is in a death spiral. Evergrande is just a symptom of a systemic failure.

Even if Beijing saved Evergrande itself, it cannot save all the debtors now in line to fail. Chinese leaders now have no solutions except to postpone a reckoning and hope for a miracle in the meantime.

 

――You have kept warning that President Xi Jinping is the new Hitler, and China is an even more dangerous version of the Third Reich. Happy Science CEO Ryuho Okawa also has pointed out that the Chinese hegemony under Xi is a Nazi-like nationalism and Xi will continue to create external enemies to sustain its power. Since the Biden administration seems to be unable to see through Xi’s true nature, could you tell us the similarities between Mr. Biden and Neville Chamberlain?

Mr. Chang: Biden is still trying to develop a cooperative relationship with Xi Jinping, and so the American president has been appeasing China’s strongman.

Instead, Biden should be trying to end Communist Party rule. Almost nobody in the American policy community is seeking regime change in China, but until there is such change the Chinese state will remain an existential threat to its neighbors, the United States, and the international community. The Communist Party idealizes struggle and demands the submission of all others. It is, therefore, impossible to coexist with it.

The Party will not rest until it rules the world or destroys it. There can be no enduring peace as long as it exists.

 

――It looks like we are in the same situation as European countries were in the 1930s; they kept feeding Nazi-Germany and eventually allowed Adolf Hitler to start his invasion. Although some experts say that the CCP will not move until the end of the Beijing Olympics, we suspect the possibility of an attack on Taiwan or other countries may occur by March 2022. Could you share your views with us on this point?

Mr. Chang: Only Xi Jinping knows whether he actually wants to invade Taiwan or other neighbors, but in recent months he has been speaking more frequently and vociferously. His warning about “cracking skulls and spilling blood” in his landmark July 1 speech is a clear indication of intentions. In even more chilling words in that speech, he talked about the Chinese people as “good at taking down the old world.”

Moreover, he is, by engaging in provocative military maneuvers, creating situations where accidents can happen. Those accidents, of course, can lead to war.

 

――We believe that in order to contain China, Japan should play a key role with Western countries. How would you see the current Japanese contribution? The Japanese government hasn’t announced a diplomatic boycott from Beijing Olympics, nor joined the Genocide Convention.

Mr. Chang: Japan should play a leading role in coalitions to contain China and repel its acts of aggression. Tokyo should commit to use military force to help alliance partners for this purpose.

Japanese constitutional prohibitions should be interpreted to permit full participation in such coalitions or be repealed.

Japan should not send national leaders, diplomats, or athletes to the Winter Olympics, scheduled to start next month in Beijing.

 

――You pointed out that China has supplied weapons and logistical support to the Taliban for decades, and American presidents have ignored Beijing’s ties to the group. Regarding this point, could you share your view with us in greater detail? Would you think the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan was not just a coincidence but rather that the CCP was the mastermind behind the scenes?

Mr. Chang: Beijing supplied the Taliban, even after 9/11, with surface-to-air missiles, anti-aircraft guns, landmines, rocket-propelled grenades, and parts for roadside bombs as well as large-caliber sniper rifles and millions of rounds of ammunition. Some of these arms were shipped directly from China’s factories. Of particular concern was the Chinese shoulder-fired HN-5 antiaircraft missile.

Even though some of the equipment was routed through intermediaries in Iran and Pakistan, central Chinese authorities had to know what was happening as these arms were made in its state factories. Moreover, Beijing then, as it does now, operated a near-total surveillance state.

In short, China was a main supplier of small arms to the Taliban. Washington, therefore, should have considered China’s assistance to the insurgents as acts of war.

 

――In order to end Chinese hegemony and bring peace into the world, what would you think is the decisive move the Biden administration should take?

Mr. Chang: The United States should end all trade with China, American investment in China, and Chinese investment in the United States. America should not fund a hostile regime that is preparing to kill Americans.

 

――Numbers of US diplomats and CIA emissaries are suffering Havana Syndrome. Is there any possibility that Havana Syndrome is a stealth attack from hostile countries?

Mr. Chang: U.S. diplomats in Guangzhou were sonic-attacked in 2018. Beijing has denied responsibility, but nobody in the Communist Party’s near-total surveillance state could have conducted those attacks without Beijing knowing about them. In all probability, the Party was behind those attacks.

The White House should have held Beijing accountable for those attacks on Chinese soil