Winning the New Cold War: A Plan for Countering China

memory although I will say there's nearly 10 pages of just recommendations in the executive summary and this shows you a little bit of just how big a gargantuan task that we have in front of us and so to help us face that challenge we could think of no one better to come to Heritage to help us explain the threat of China and that's Senator Marco Rubio in fact 364 days ago Senator Rubio was here giving a major speech on China and also addressing Putin and his invasion that speech had recommendations to face China everything from domestic Unity to empowering our allies also strengthening our economy and countering CCP espionage that speech in fact has been echoing in our minds as we've been preparing this report Senator Rubio is an inspirational leader a policy expert and a more than one nonpartisan analysis has said he's the most effective Republican in the Senate he's also among the most principled earning a 98 score from our sister organization Heritage action for America on their scorecard and not only is he a policy leader but he cares deeply for his constituents in fact helping them to navigate the complex national government he had his office helped nearly 20 000 Floridians in one year to give you a sense of the scale of that wonderful state thankfully for those of us who live outside of Florida he also applies his principles and a considerable portion of his time helping us think through National challenges he is vice chairman of the intelligence committee and he's also serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee he's a stalwart leader for human rights he's a for a strong National Defense and for ensuring opportunity for everyone so please ladies and gentlemen welcome to the stage Senator Marco Rubio [Applause] I was here 364 days ago so um I'm back from my annual address to Heritage and um on the issue of China thank you for having me I think this is a really important time to have this conversation or to continue to have it a lot has changed in the last year and um two ways I think China's obviously gotten more aggressive more transparent about what they're trying to do in the world and those are growing bipartisan consensus that something needs to happen about it but I still think this needs a lot more framework and what I mean by that is that it's really easy to sort of stand in front of cameras and say I'm going to be tough on China but I think it has to tie into why why does it matter so that you can do it in a way that's smart and intelligent it actually serves the national interest and I think the best way to do that is to just start talking about how we got to this point where we are now you know and I think that requires us to go back not just 20 years 50 years but really throughout the course of human history at least parts of it that has been recorded we were having this conversation a moment ago if you think about the history of mankind on the Earth with probably the exception of the hundred years or so of Greece every society was basically a place that said there's no such thing as individual rights it's totally foreign concept the notion of individual rights the rights of an individual people largely their rights were whatever those who governed you said they were there was frankly in most civilizations even the greatest of Empires of antiquity there was very little reason to be optimistic or to be creative for that matter because creativity was not rewarded what was rewarded was compliance and that really started changing about 200 years ago in the west and particularly in America that was founded this country on the belief that every human being had rights that those rights were not the rights granted to you by the government but there were the rights that were provided to you by your Creator and that the job of the government was to was to protect them and uh and that's how this nation was born on the basis of those rights and on the basis of that belief really truly a historic there was no precedent for it um in fact while it borrowed from the Greeks it wasn't entirely identical to it it Advanced from that point so it was a nation born in a world of full of Empires who had the power to crush this infant Republic in the crib but it survived and it didn't just survive to continue to move forward and develop and in each generation it got closer to living and fulfilling the ideals of its founding and that's why slavery in America could not coexist slavery has existed for thousands of years virtually every society in human history had elements of it it ended in America not because we were invaded by the French or the British and they imposed the end of slavery but because Americans ended it and they ended it because they country founded on the belief that every human being had god-given rights and slavery could not coexist in addition we continue to progress economically we industrialized we weren't just born with fertile farmland and natural resources and people from all over the world who came here literally go-getters from all over the world who came here to start a better life because they they believed they were created for a better purpose and what they were able to achieve in their native land but we're also blessed with natural resources and we industrialize and help build our economy and it led us to two European Wars particularly the second one that America was very reluctant to get into if Japan did not attacked US and Germany had not declared war it's not clear how long it would have taken for America to get involved in that conflict but the truth of the matter is America was reluctant and there was a pretty substantial segment of our population and of prominent leaders they were traveling the country arguing against getting involved but we did and we helped save the world from Nazism and Imperial Japan again from a return to those Dark Ages but from what emerged from that is two things one America the preeminent power the leading nation in a coalition of Nations that believed we never wanted to have a war like that again we never wanted to be threatened by totalitarianism and we wanted a world that respected things like individual rights and the Dignity of all people but the other thing that emerged as an adversary in the Soviet Union that wanted to impose communism which is runs counter and contrary to everything that we talked about and that cold war existed I was born into that era I lived and grew up in that era and I remember my first year of college at the end of my high school first year of college as the cold war came to an end it was really a stunning moment literally all these assumptions all the pillars upon which geopolitics have been built all the things that I had known the world to look like and be just collapsed overnight unprecedented unpredictable something no one could have foreseen and from that people concluded that that was the end of history that now every country in the world was going to be a liberal free enterprise economy everyone was going to look like America communism was vanquished human nature had permanently been changed and people would no longer ever again um want or try to impose their will on others through tyranny and so forth the problem is human history human nature doesn't change and we by the way we made all kinds of assumptions on that basis right we decided that at this point the existence of the nation-state was not as big a deal our economy was no longer about the well-being of the nation-state it was about this Global Market the notion was that if two countries had McDonald's right they never go to war it sounds stupid today but I'm telling you plenty of professors around the world would tell people if two countries with McDonald's have never gone to war that has obviously now changed but the point being is that those are the kinds of thinking that were out there that somehow economics and trade by tying Nations together through economics and trade you could somehow fulfill what the League of Nations could never do with the United Nations could never do you could get countries to forget the existence of placehood you could get countries to forget nation state and you could cause them to instead view themselves as citizens of the world and consumers in this global economy and which everybody was a winner and no one was a loser the second thing that happened is that we were an unrivaled power honestly from the end of the Cold War I would say up until about the early 2010-12-13 period this was a unipolar world America was the only Global superpower the only nation capable of projecting power geopolitically militarily and culturally around the world and what happens to a nation that is a unipolar power where it reminds me a lot of virtually every NBA game where it doesn't matter right I'm not saying it's fixed I'm just saying this it doesn't matter you could be up like 30 points in the third quarter every NBA game seems especially in the playoffs like Narrows down to two points at the end of the game no matter how much somebody's up early on and I don't know what the psychology is behind it I'm not a psychologist although I guess when you serve in the Senate you've got some pretty advanced studies in Psychology but um I'm not a psychologist but I can tell you that my sense of it is that complacency is part of a human tendency and and with it comes to decadence and with it comes the belief that everything's going to be fine we don't need to do anything everything always works out for the best in the end automatically because it always has because that's all we have our own and that's basically what we have today today we are a country where the majority of people in government and certainly the majority of prominent people in society have never lived in a world where America has a near-peer competitor another country with similar power and with hostile intentions we've never lived in a world like that and much of our policies and our approach to the world to this day are built on a world that no longer exists and and and that brings us to the point and part of this by the way in this decadence is you know we convince people they're not citizens you're not workers you're not found you're consumers life is about what can you afford to buy happiness is built on can you buy this I mean literally we create holidays just to force people to buy things I mean we we spend all this money on analytics and so forth convincing people you really need this you'll never be happy and your wife or your husband will never be happy and your children will not be happy and your life will not be fulfilled if you don't own this car or you don't own this Peloton or you don't own this I don't mean to pick on any of these Brands I'm just telling you that that's sort of what's happened at the same time we sort of reached this era of decadence where we're like we've gotten so smart we're now so Advanced as a as a species that things like family and faith and community and even the notion of country is no longer relevant we don't need those things anymore family is not really that important family is whatever you want it to be and so we same with community in fact we live in a society that increasingly forces us into isolation from one another not to live alongside others we've attacked all of the places that people that are very different come together same with faith we've waged the war on faith like this so you know again I don't believe this country should ever have an official religion or a sectarian Nation but we've discouraged we've discouraged teachings that basically encourage people to do things that are good for people and good for their neighbors things like care for the poor and the less fortunate things like put others ahead of yourself things like forgiveness things like seeing the best in others all these things that frankly have to come from somewhere they're not natural to humanity Faith create those guardrails and those those guideposts we've waged war on them and so now we wake up as you have as I have as others you're having we realized the history did not end history was never going to end because human nature will never change one of the reasons why biblical stories are so uncannily applicable today over and over and over again okay is because human nature is unchanged people dress differently they have different technology we advance in all kinds of things but no matter how many satellites you put in space human nature remains unchanged and there's a dark side to human nature there are we there are failings in us as creatures that that we have constructed societies and Faith constructs and moral constructs to help limit particularly when it comes to harming one another but Human Nature has not changed and so we wake up and human nature is for example that we may have pretended that the history was over and that nation state no longer matter but China never got that memo China does care about the development of nation states and they had fits and starts they did the Great Leap Forward which didn't work and you know millions of people died in the famine then they decided to wage a cultural revolution but up around 25 to 2000 you know uh 2005 2006 in particular and and heading into 0708 we have this economic meltdown and Xi Jinping who wants to go down as one of the great leaders in China's ancient history um decided this is the end for the west and for capitalism now is the time to move forward and from that point from 2007 2008 to the present day we've seen an acceleration in their role what we've seen from this economic order we created right where no longer did it matter economics was basically about what was good for the Global Commons what was good for the global economy and not necessarily what was good for the nation is two groups really prospered the first is multinational companies obviously there's nothing illegal about being a multinational company but there's a reason why the CEO of apples in Beijing yesterday hailing what a great country and how much progress they've made and that is because they build and make a lot of phones there and it's worked out they've invested a lot of money in that production capability and they want to maintain it they've done very well and so have others and the others China the fact of the matter is that China is going to be a rich and powerful country throughout history they have always been a rich and powerful country with the exception of the last 150 years or so but by and large throughout most of History China's been a rich and powerful country but they have gotten richer and faster at our expense not because of what they did but because of what we did because what we allowed to have happen because of this Viewpoint that we had the impact of it has been we decided Well it doesn't matter right we'll get rid of these jobs it's okay if all these jobs leave America they'll be replaced by better jobs these jobs will pay more the infamous go learn how to write code well it didn't work out that way people didn't get up in their 40s and go learn how to write code and if they didn't maybe they're being laid off right now because all the tech companies are laying people off and collapsing their Banks but the fact of the matter is that people didn't do it they didn't leave but when it did collapse is their communities it did wipe out good paying jobs it also wiped out by the way all the other anchors that come with it so when a community collapses because jobs disappear don't you don't just leave people behind untethered like nothing to give the grounding to their everyday life because they're not just consumers you know they're also there's dignity attached to that work but you also destroy the PTA and the little league and you destroy the churches and you destroy all those things that make community community and you leave people behind in despair but which also left us with a vulnerable economy so if you look at our economy today and people brag about our GPA but our economy GDP but our economy is basically built on two sectors predominant Finance and services and there's nothing wrong with finance and there's nothing wrong with Services the problem is that in a time of conflict what matters more the ability to fuel your economy or the ability to you know find some app that will deliver food to your house what matters more the ability high-end services or the ability to grow your own food and produce from an industrial capacity we also have an economy that's dangerously Consolidated particularly in things like agriculture but in other places as well very Consolidated Industries in which power resides and a handful of a small number of of companies we have an unbalanced economy and then one of the things that covert revealed but already existed is these very vulnerable long Supply chains and from a military concept I'm not a military tactician but I do like to read about history and one of the failings of every campaign one of the things Russia's finding now is the longer your supply chain to supply lines the more vulnerable you are well we've learned that our supply chains are about as long as they can be literally from the other side of the world and they're not just far away they happen to disproportionately reside in the hands of our geopolitical adversary someone who a nation that'll have no problem in using that as leverage against us and so the result is we confront twin challenges both at the same time the first is we have a near-peer competitor and a nation of leaders who have no memory of what it's like to have a near-peer competitor near pure adversary and at the same time we chiefly seek to confront it at a time of societal and cultural rot that's dividing our nation that's weakening the national soul that questions our identity and the end of the day ask yourself you know when you ask people to take on a challenge like this you have to convince them that what they're fighting for is worthy and special we don't have schools that teach people that our nation is special if there's anything unique about it quite the contrary and all the other things that make a nation strong we're way a society that's Waging War on truth on basic truths on basic truths things like gender doesn't exist anymore um and and and and and all of these sorts of things that are that we confront on a daily basis that are nonsensical but it creates the societal rot and destruction from within that makes it hard for us to unite people much less rally behind a great cause so I I will it confess I did not read all 100 of the recommendations I read the executive summary I said them that's why God made into the summaries but but um but I do look forward to it and I think some of it is really our challenge is to turn these ideas into something that's operational but I think really The Way Forward begins with this and that is events like today organizations like Heritage that help us to wake up and to realize that we are not just any competition we're in a conflict and I say come people think confidently think War I don't want there to be a war a war there's never been a conventional war between two nuclear Powers so no one can tell you where that goes over the long term probably not to a very good place I don't want there to be a war but that doesn't mean we're not in a conflict we are in a conflict a geopolitical conflict a diplomatic conflict a societal conflict a technological a commercial a trade at every level and and frankly certainly a military competition when it comes to um capability so we are in a conflict and we are in a conflict with a nation-state that doesn't just seek to replace us not doesn't just seek to be the most powerful nation in the world they seek to reorient the world if you look at Xi Jinping and here's the one thing we've gotten really good at for a long time okay these Chinese leaders would give speeches or put out these slogans these eight character whatever they call them but then they would say something completely different in English but now we've got enough people translating Mandarin so that we can see exactly what they mean and they talk about you know crushing the heads of the capitalists and you know spilling the blood and of the of those who dare to challenge China please be under No Illusion China envisions a world in which they are the world's most powerful country and they view America in general and specific and the West writ large as decadent Hollow and in Rapid decline what they see in these speeches that I give here today is the temper tantrums of the dying throws of a once great power that's what they see they think America is in Rapid decline they're just having a temper tantrum all the great Powers have temper tantrums as they go towards their death and that's what's happening now and they fully Envision a world in which China is the most powerful country now if China its government resembled the government of Belgium or Luxembourg or the Netherlands you know maybe we wouldn't be having the speech today we probably wouldn't be proud about it but we would feel a lot like the Brits did when America supplanted them in the world order but what we have here is something very different what we have here is a tyranny and a regime that does not believe in individual rights whose concepts of Human Rights is nothing like what you would Define as human rights to them human rights is the right to do whatever your authorities tell you there is the richest ask Jack ma what rights billionaires have in China we have the right to shut up and move to Indonesia for a year if you won't that's the right they have and they do that to their richest citizens what would they do the everyday people I can tell you what they do they put uyghur Muslims in death camps they wipe out Tibetan culture they run over protesters and Massacre them in Tiananmen Square they have no regard for their own people and so it doesn't matter that a country like that would become the world's most powerful country absolutely and this is the argument they're actually making as China goes around the world and you read G's translation what he's basically saying is this model of the west of individual freedom of of human rights of democracy of all these sorts of freedom of expression freedom of religion freedom of opinion that model doesn't work it's chaos just turn on the news it's chaos look at Israel look at America look at France it's chaos you see any of that in China you should follow our model and frankly it's appealing to some because in a world that's uncertain and unstable security is attractive and that's what authoritarians always promise security at the expensing of Freedom giving give up your freedom give up your individual rights and I will make sure things are secure and things are safe some of them will say I'll make sure things are safe and once they are I'll give you back your freedom they never do but that's the model they're sending around the world so we're back to the historic Norm of great power competition and China wants to take us back to where mankind has generally live for thousands of years with the exception of the last 200. and that is a world where the notion that individuals have rights no longer exists so I think there are really three things that that we have to focus on um and I think probably all 100 of your ideas fit within one of these three categories the first frankly is ourselves we have to rebuild our society from the ground up by reminding ourselves of things that matter number one America is something to be proud of I won't go into the long Litany of it here today but this is not just wave the flag apple pie stuff I think America is really has an incredible story to tell I think it's an unrivaled story and it's one that we should not be shy about telling and it's frankly something that we should not be funding schools that say the opposite do you have a right to criticize an American decision from time to time absolutely because at the end of the day no one's claimed that America is perfect I don't claim our history is perfect I claim it's better than anybody else's that's what I claim and I think we have history on our side to prove it I think we need to reach a society where human life matters where children are viewed as something that's not a burden that a child is not something that could potentially destroy and ruin your life why why are we shocked that a poll comes out that people no longer value having children well we have a society that basically says if you have a child right now your life will be destroyed your life will be ruined forever well why would you value child rearing if that's the case Community matters and Community is not about a bunch of weirdos on an app Halfway Around the World communities about the people you live next to about people you have different opinions with about people who you don't share some views with but you share things that are important your kids go to the same school your kids play on the same team you attend the same church you're part of the same organization it's one of the reasons why I hate the politization of sports college sports in particular is one of the few places left in America where people that are very different from one another come together when you inject politics into that you're taking away one of the last places where people that are different actually have to interact with one another and I'm telling you I live in a study on what happens when you put 100 very different people together and it reminds me for all the talk and the noise that you hear out there like you know my colleagues don't go around spitting on each other in the hallways and that's why you find that one minute Elizabeth Warren and Rand Paul are arguing about something and the next minute they might be voting the same way on something because when you force human beings to work together from time to time they will find common cause and these are the things that bind together Community not to mention other things that are important for any society like these groups that solve problems government never could and then I think faith is something that should be encouraged not dictated not directed not forced you can't but encouraged why would we discourage a moral code why would we discourage something some basis upon which people can determine not what's legal or illegal what's right and what's wrong so what's good and what's bad because we on our own some it has to come from somewhere and I assure you it does not come from human instinct human instinct is about self-preservation it's selfish it's a desire to get ahead at someone else's expense what regulates us is a moral code and I think religion provides it multiple Faith Traditions provided so that's the first the second we have to reorient our economy and I think that's some of the thing that you've talked about I'm not talking about government owning factories and directing but I do think this yes we we should remain in market economy absolutely 100 percent but I ask you what do we do in those instances in which the most efficient outcome the market outcome happens to be really bad for America so for example the market says it's cheaper to make medicine in China let's make medicine in China there's no doubt that from a market perspective if I was an AI robot I would say that is what we should do but I'm not an iel robot I'm a U.S senator from Florida in the United States of America and I think it's a really bad idea to depend on China for our medicines even though it's cheaper to do it there and so there when that happens we have to decide what's who who serves what is the country the handmaid of the market or is the market there to serve the country and so I think we have to get back to a point in which we view not just the market but trade in general as something that we should value to the extent that it furthers the nation and this is not some anti-reagan view on the contrary Reagan people forget Reagan took on the Japanese we had a trade war with Japan because they wanted to dominate personal Computing in that technology sector and it's the reason why multiple countries in Asia today have Electronics Industries because Reagan took it on he understood the difference between fair trade and mercantilists and he also understood that there were things that are important to America's future there are things we have to be able to do you can't be a great power if you're not in industrial power it's just that simple look both the Japanese and the Germans had Superior technology and weaponries in the United States you know what decided that war that they had better planes but we had more of them because for every one of their planes that got shot down and every one of ours that got shot down so there were five more on the line ready to be produced and they couldn't match it and neither could Nazi Germany and that's what ultimately decided the war the second world war was won as much as anything else by industrial power so your industry looks different in the 21st century but you can't be a great power without industrial power and then I think we have to also wake up to the reality that we are in a geopolitical conflict between two very different models of human relations and the world one model is the china-russia model which frankly offers the world what the world has had to live under for thousands of years and the other is the values of freedom and liberty and the idea that individuals matter and have rights and it's messy there's no doubt about it it's a huge Advantage the authoritarians have their societies look more orderly because they will crack heads and they will jail people right up to the point of Revolution here we argue we argue loudly people take to the streets it looks chaotic but in the end it's a better model so the extent obviously is under the rule of law and and that's one of the arguments we're really having is a civilizational conflict more than anything else all this matters because it's not just this is not just about okay who's going to be the most powerful country in the world we are living in a hinge moment in history that will Define the 21st century when they write the book about the 21st century it'll be about this and it's hard to perceive it when you're living through it if you you know go back to other hinge moments in history the people living at that moment probably didn't realize it because you're busy with everyday life things are happening things are going on you don't live you don't realize I'm living right in the middle of history but we are and every day we make decisions that are going to determine what the future looks like and I think that's an important choice we're going to make it's one that we'll be judged on for a century or longer it's someone determined not just the future course of the country but I think the state of the world and I think that the choice really comes down to do we want to return to the Dark Ages in which the dominant powers on the earth were powers that do not believe that individual humans had rights granted to them by their creator or do we want to continue to live in a world where at least those Nations who seek to live under the sunshine of Liberty are able to do so that is at the end at the core of the economics of the industrial of the technological of the military of the geopolitical of this entire conflict that we now face that's the conflict we face Freedom versus totalitarianism and it will determine what the 21st century looks like and what life is like for those not yet born so thank you for the chance to talk about this [Applause] thank you [Applause] what a tour de force and Timeless I mean that because you you weaved in human nature throughout that those remarks and uh just a brilliant Exposition uh I think we have time for one question unfortunately I'm going to take it uh unfortunate for you uh you spoke very very well about the need to have a strong culture a strong economy and realize that the the battle that we're in and I wonder one one thought that I had on this is uh Merit an opportunity and there's no one that speaks more eloquently about the need for everyone in America to have opportunity and to be able to rise based on Merit and if you look at the Chinese Communist party in some ways they encourage Merit so the average Chinese family spends about a year's salary preparing their child for college entrance exams at the same exact time in the United States we're talking about getting rid of entrance exams altogether so I wonder if you could talk about the need to get back to opportunity and how that would make us stronger vis-a-vis China well couple points the the totalitarian regimes especially in Marxist ones the yes they value Merit but there's an entry fee and the entry fee is compliance it's the how do they control you they control you because the only members that are loyal to the party have a chance to go to school and then the compliance is the first phase and then and then ultimately once you're in these organizations they value Merit um to a point but then ultimately what gets you promoted and it's the weakness of totalitarian authoritarian regimes their weak point is that what gets you promoted is not that you're good it's that you tell them what they want to hear and that's why I always tell people in fact that virus came out of a lab in Wuhan the fact of the matter is that it's possible she didn't know about it you know why because in totalitarian governments you don't get rewarded for picking up the phone and saying hey we got a problem here you get rewarded for pretending it didn't happen you get rewarded for pretending for trying to cover it up because you know you don't get that so on on the issue of Merit I would say this I'm sure there are some here that are fans of sports so let's just use an NFL franchise um but you can pick your favorite one or maybe it's another sport if I told you tomorrow our team imagine if tomorrow your favorite team whatever your favorite team is in whatever sport announced we are no longer going to fill our rosters with the best players we can find what we're going to do is make sure that our roster reflects our community and it looks like our community it's an you know it's a it's a it's an attractive goal it's certainly an altruistic one your team would suck okay and everybody knows that and everybody knows that and there isn't a single sports franchise in America that built this roster that way what they do is they say I don't care what this dude's last name is I don't care where he went to school I I need to find people that know how to play and complain are good that's what they all do so if that's how we treat our sports franchises why would we not treat our other institutions the same way and certainly our country and when someone says to you well unless we do that than certain people because of their background will not be able to succeed well now you're being discriminatory because now what you're telling me is that there are people that are incapable of doing that because of where they come from or because of their race or ethnicity or gender and so you have to somehow step in and provide them an opportunity now that's different from a structural impediment okay if there exists a structure I'll give you a great example I mean one of the reasons one of the things that I've done proactively as we try to do is we try to make sure that minority students are aware of the opportunity to have paid internships in Washington because I never had the chance to do that and if I had done so I probably wouldn't run for the Senate but I had um but I I I I that's an opportunity I didn't even know existed like I had no idea that that even existed and there's probably an impediment whether because they can't afford it because they don't go to a school that talks about this opportunity and what's and so forth there's nothing wrong with that there's nothing wrong with saying I want to expose people to Opportunities they're not otherwise knowing exists but that's different from saying we are going to hire people solely on the basis of filling out you know making sure that we're because now what you've done is anti-American you've now basically turned American into something that's never been America's never been a race it's never been an ethnicity anyone can be an American doesn't matter where what your background is or where your parents came from and when you argue differently you're basically arguing something that goes counter to our very identity as a nation one of the things that makes us unique and special so that's where I think opportunity really matters having an economy that creates opportunities removing artificial impediments but not doing it in a way that somehow categorizes each of us not as an individual not as a person with a unique set of experiences and abilities but as a racer and ethnicity or a gender when you do that when you start categorizing people as that's their number one attribute that's Un-American and it's destructive wow senator well we do need to keep you on time the Senate is in session today we're really grateful for your time and your leadership on battling the Chinese Communist party thank you for being here thanks so much for having me thank you guys thank you [Applause] and uh how I know that was a great speech one of the many reasons is I occasionally sitting here would have a glance over at Michael Pillsbury and see him nodding so that's how I know a great speech I'd like to invite Michael and Jeff Smith to come to the stage um Michael Pillsbury is our senior fellow for China's strategy and Jeff Smith is our director of the Asian studies Center and we're going to talk a little bit about this new paper that we have out that you heard a little bit about and also talk about the issue yeah please have a seat so wow what a what a tour to force and you know you combine this speech and last year's speech 364 days ago you have a combination of a lot of good solid recommendations and a really a big picture view of the civilizational conflict here Michael what do you make of the Senator's emphasis on that civilizational uh competition well it's very inside the X field of China experts a lot of China experts so I talk louder until they fix the microphone just yeah speak a little louder the word civilizational is very important debate about China you have China experts who say no it's a Marxist leninist State and our battle is with Marxism it's not Chinese civilization I don't belong to that school yeah we'll take the handheld Mike I think his mic has gone bad probably was made in China how's this Derek Ah that's perfect okay made in America so this idea of a civilizational challenge from China is very important Senator Rubio believes in it I believe in it it's not the majority view yet the view tends to be it's Marx's leninism or somehow China is just trying to be more competitive who can care about that a very senior State Department official got fired for giving a public interview uh with Anne-Marie Slaughter as the interviewer I'm mindful of this I may say something to you it gets me fired uh she said she used the word civilization she's talking about the Cold War it's important for our own study here of how the Cold War might unfold with China she said a very simple point but it angered many people including Secretary of State Pompeo she said the cold war with China will be very different and more challenging than with the Soviet Union because the Soviet Union is in the western family we shared linguistic Roots we shared concepts of History she didn't mean to demonize the Chinese but she meant to warn everybody that they may not think like we do about the competition or other issues a lot of China experts in America who teach Chinese literature philosophy ancient history they agree with that their stock and trade is teaching for a year or two hundreds of students why China is different than Western Civilization she also her name is Chiron Skinner by the way also the Chinese themselves in my next book I have a lot of quotations in the last five years or so from Xi Jinping and his advisors saying China is an exceptional civilization different from the West so why fire somebody who's bringing the news that the professors agree with China agrees with and I think the reason is it's much easier to mobilize support against a communist country by saying they're Marxist linedists it's just like the Soviet Union it'll be you know all we have to do is stand up and talk and they'll collapse I don't think that's correct I don't think China is going to collapse and I think our own structure in dealing with China so far we don't have a new structure in 1947 when the real Cold War Began we created in one year Congress and the president created the Air Force the National Security Council there was no National Security Council the Central Intelligence Agency didn't exist whole series of things because at that point in 1947 enough had happened that people were really quite scared what could happen next I don't think we've reached that point yet with China to me Senator Rubio's most important Point wasn't just civilizational challenge it was the word operational he said he hasn't read all hundred recommendations yet but he hopes there'll be operational things in there and Jeff and I have good news for him there are a hundred operational recommendations in here that we will all know within a year or two has the Congress done these things or not it's mainly Congressional has the White House done these things or not well get some better idea of where we are in the competition right now I'm not sure we even know where we are well sad so Jeff a lot of organizations around town have put out some kind of a plan to counter China what makes the Heritage plan that's kind of action-oriented what makes it unique and how many recommendations how would you categorize the recommendations like it's hard to go through all 100 yeah I don't think we have enough time for that is my mic working all right sounds like it is great I think people will tell Mike's working I also actually first want to give Senator Rubio a quick shout out yeah uh China has become a a popular topic now on Capitol Hill but Senator Rubio was was talking about this before the cool kids Senator Rubio you can go back 10 years was laser focused on the China threat uh before it sort of uh you know took over the rest of Washington so credit to him and credit to the speech he gave today um this paper does a few important things one I think is that it makes the hard calls at both a macro level and at a tactical level and so the first part of this paper deals with the state of the china-us relationship and what we call a new Cold War and so the paper is not afraid both to call China an adversary and to identify that we're in a new Cold War and we explain why in both cases why do we see China as an adversary this is the series of actions that it is doing to undermine the United States um we explain in great detail why we see China as an adversary why the relationship has grown to such a contentious level why it in some ways is a more potent adversary than the USSR was why we explore why the engagement policy that we pursued for decades failed and how do we get to the stage that we're at today we look at what are China's current strengths and weaknesses and how might those weaknesses be exploited and where do we have to shore up our own weaknesses in order to be effective in the future so if part one looks at at the big picture thirty thousand foot level part two which is really what we call the heart of the plan drills down specifically into 48 separate issues or fault lines in china-us relations and they're broken up into five broad categories what do we need to do to protect the Homeland to secure U.S prosperity to properly reorient our defense posture to hold China accountable and diminish the ccp's influence and what do we need to do to exercise Global Leadership and these 48 separate issue briefs contain over 100 policy recommendations specific policy recommendations covering the whole gamut of issues that you could imagine in in China U.S relations export controls Chinese lobbying Fentanyl CCP Espionage and IP theft efforts critical minerals Supply chains Taiwan restoring conventional deterrence it is a grand survey of of the new Cold War and each section does five specific things identify the problem articulate the policy solution look at how that policy solution has to be operationalized examine the impact of that policy measure that we're suggesting and then look at what do we need to do with allies and partners we do think this is very much a challenge that requires burden sharing and leaning on our treaty allies and strategic Partners around the world the last thing I'll say that it underscored for me in particular is how much this is a whole of society effort how much of our problems with China the threats that China poses are being grappled with at a state and local governance level in some ways that's a vulnerability of ours that we're doing some things better at the federal level but it's the sub-national level where China is operating where we have some of the greatest vulnerabilities and so this you hear the phrase It's probably overused but from Main Street to Wall Street this is going to have to be a whole society effort wow and I want to pick up on something Jeff said Michael and ask you about it and actually the senator did as well they talked about engagement or this idea you know if you open up a McDonald's you democratize and no two countries with McDonald's have gone to war and so forth you've served pretty much every president since Reagan and before you've seen China relations develop over the decades what do you think what were a couple of the turning points where at least people are now starting to wake up I feel like it's not complete wake up yet and there's still a lot of people that are in denial but tell us what you've seen over the last few decades and how that issue has developed and where we are today well going back to um President Nixon's visit in February 1972. there was already somebody who woke up his name is Bill Buckley he's been here he's a very famous maybe the most famous conservative of the of the time there's a tape recording of Nixon and Kissinger talking to each other which I've listened to out at the Nixon Library should we invite Bill Buckley to come with us on this trip to China or not and Kissinger said no he'll just create a lot of trouble and he could even undo the whole image we're trying to create as China is our new partner Nixon said no it's better to have him inside than outside so Buckley filed a number of reports all put together in a book saying that China was like Nazi Germany Nixon and Kissinger were making a terrible error to make friends with Nazis and he spelled out specific Nazi names in his columns he said this is all a hoax what we're seeing is not true and there are another 200 reporters on the trip including very famous TV hosts they broadcast the opposite this is a new land they've overcome poverty they don't quarrel with each other these blue suits they're all wearing a kind of attractive so who was right and who was wrong that early really only one person but if you re-read his reporting from 1972 you realize in a way the Kissinger was right they should not have brought him along on the trip and then slowly every few years in the 50 years since then every few years something happens that's bad in U.S China relations it never changes policy is not changed it's explained away each time a growing group of Bill Buckley's is a historical phenomena it does happen but they only talk they give speeches they say it's a terrible thing that a thousand students were killed in tenement Square let's have sanctions which put on China two years later they're taken off uh when I was working for President Reagan during the campaign I was a campaign advisor I was a transition team person then he gave me a job at the Pentagon charge of policy planning President Reagan personally got interested in selling weapons to China he sent John Lehman his conservative role-respected Secretary of the Navy to China to provide Mark 46 Torpedoes our best Torpedoes of the time the thinking was well in Chinese submarines these Torpedoes will be able to sink the Soviet Fleet didn't work so when you what I tried to do in 100 Year Marathon with Declassified records is show just how close we have been to the Chinese Communist Party from the beginning from 1943 1944 on with few exceptions they were seen as our allies here at the Heritage Foundation Heritage as you know from at full news talks Heritage was very pro-china explicitly pro-china when my book came out in 2015 I asked can I come over I've been a friend of Heritage you know for 30 years can I have a book talk I was told no by one of your predecessors you cannot discuss your book at Heritage it's too tough on China now at that point it was the number one book on China in America and outsold all other books on China 300 appearances on Fox News why would Heritage do that because they believe deeply in the very things that Nixon and Kissinger are trying to do China is our partner for the long term now how to undo this thinking I think what Jeff and I and this reporter trying to do we're trying to say if you do these hundred things we can remain the number one power in the world and many of the hundred things involve the Chinese Communist Party being blocked and things it wants to do some involve our own side our Treasury Department just to pick one of the hundred one of my favorites actually the treasury Department of the United States does not monitor in any way outgoing American Investment to China there's no records there's no obligation to report it can be in the most sensitive high-tech area a fund like Sequoia which the Wall Street drill has been reporting about Sequoia can organize technology money by the billions pick a sector in China where China wants to get ahead of us and then make it all happen there's no need to report that to Washington D.C so you see the problem we Face we were too close by far to the Chinese Communists from the beginning for all kinds of reasons that my book goes into and then we can't get out of it so I'm sorry to sound so pessimistic but I think putting 100 recommendations together that as Jeff says are very operational they're very specific past legislation that says this and the text isn't really there this is not just a China is bad to kind of report other think tanks do that this is the first time a think tank has operationally laid out this is what we're going to have to do now if we come back here Jeff in two years we'll be able to have a scorecard and see how many of the hundred have actually been implemented that to me is very exciting yeah yeah thank you for that we have time for some audience questions so uh please uh if you would raise your hand a microphone will come to you you can just state your name and affiliation and do be in the in the form of a question with someone here in the front row we can grab a mic there thank you very much for the presentation of great speech by Senator Rubio my name is Alfonso Quinones I'm the ambassador of Guatemala to the United States um I I would love to read the report as as you know Guatemala is one of the few countries that still has diplomatic relations with Taiwan we are proud of it uh we do not think that uh relations should be transactional but based on values and principles having said that uh the United States is losing ground because China is gaining uh in Latin America in South America China is the largest trading partner is the largest foreign direct investor and that has made that those countries get closer to the uh to China so I wonder if in the report you address this this kind of issues on how to uh uh try to keep the the us as the as the Forefront and not uh then relinquish to to China as it seems that it's happening I'm more familiar to to to Latin America but uh look at Africa as we were having a conversation before and it's it's the same or perhaps worst so I don't know if this is brought up in the report thank you thank you Mr Ambassador who would like to start on that one both of us probably yeah Mr Ambassador I would say that the reason Guatemala and I think it's 12 other countries including the Vatican recognize Taiwan is you're accepting the notion that Taiwan is a government it's a country therefore you can have diplomatic relations with it the United States took the lead in opposing that it's part of the Kissinger Nixon framework expanded by Jimmy Carter that Taiwan is not a country we have no diplomatic relations with it the executive branch will never permit taiwan's leaders to come to Washington D.C that would imply that they're they can go to California and meet Kevin McCarthy but president Tsai is not going to be treated treated as a president and we do discuss it in the section on Taiwan this really undercuts deterrence for Taiwan because how can you deter an attack on Taiwan if Taiwan belongs to China your government is saying no our government is had made secret Promises to the Chinese I think some one reason 100 Year Marathon sold so well there were so many Declassified things people had never heard of they never heard of The Secret promise to the Chinese we Americans know we know from our lawyers Taiwan does not belong to China it never did it was occupied by America 1945 then in the peace treaty in San Francisco Japan gave it away but they didn't give Taiwan to anybody so it just sits there but we believe this was said to the Chinese leaders We Believe Taiwan is not part of China but we'll make you a deal your government's not party to this we will never raise the issue of who Taiwan belongs to we will acknowledge your claim that you owned you Chinese Communists own Taiwan and we just won't challenge it now fast forward to today can we store Munitions on Taiwan for deterrence can we have military exercises with taiwan's military no can we have communications with taiwan's military no did we close our Command Center on Taiwan to defend it back in 1978 yes we did we closed it did we take out our nuclear weapons from Taiwan that publicly nobody knew we had nuclear weapons in Taiwan but the Chinese knew they made it part of the deal you want to recognize China do business with us take the nuclear weapons out of Taiwan and all the other U.S military forces that are there you would think Nixon and Kissinger would say hell no you can't do that no they took them all out so you see the problem with Guatemala you're in the probably morally correct position but you only have 12 other countries with you and there's 193 countries in the U.N please stick with Taiwan but our own government does not and we discussed the Strategic ambiguity of that that's one of the recommendations we have in the paper excellent anything you want to add Jeff sure yeah I think Mike did a very good job touching on the um the Taiwan angle of your question there's a second component to that which is the economic muscle that China is tossing around the world and this is one of the key points I think in our analysis um if this is a new Cold War China is a very different adversary than this Soviet Union was one of the things that makes it much more capable and dangerous is that it is an economic peer of the United States in a way that the Soviet Union wasn't so we are not only grappling with a country that has substantial economic foundations but that is intertwined with us and our partners and allies economically in ways that the Soviet Union was not and that creates vulnerabilities for the United States and our partners and allies and it creates challenges um You know despite the the the trade War and the and the Trump tariffs and covid-19 pandemic and the decoupling efforts and all the tensions we have in the relationship now China U.S trade is still growing and breaking new records and this is this is a a a a fundamental Dynamic that we're not accustomed to and how do we protect ourselves from an adversary who's has social media spying apps on the phones of 100 million Americans how do we contend with an adversary that's able to throw money around um to coerce other nations to do things like switch recognition or punish Nations for hosting a U.S missile defense system or punish Nations for evicting Huawei from their 5G networks uh this is a significant challenge that we have to Grapple with one thing we need to do is is not hamstring our own economy we need to unshackle economic growth the economic miracle in the United States and continue to be a leader of the Free World with our own sort of robust economic programs at home and abroad but it definitely creates a new set of vexing challenges that we have to Grapple with and and that's one of the new components of this new cold war that we address in the paper all right uh see we have a lot of questions we're very short on time so we'll do rapid fire questions we'll try to take two let's uh let's try right here first I saw his hand first we'll try to be very very quick and brief sure uh Marty danifelson Center for urban renewal and education could you explain the geopolitical consequences to the United States and our allies of China takes Taiwan you want to take some other questions okay yeah why don't we do that we do real quick uh let's do the two hands there and then and then we'll consequences how are you I'm Christopher Carter from real America's voice we talk to a lot of people about these experts from China but I don't want to talk about economics right now what do we know about the organ harvesting in China what we hear is a brutality that is unmatched since the Aztecs at NIH you have four years that's if you're a somebody a celebrity a politician somebody with money in China you have four weeks perfect match a liver lungs whatever how is our government letting them get away with this why don't they declassify the information and show them the camps where people are being imprisoned change the global opinion this is almost the equivalent of when the United States had to go in with the Nazis and say these camps exist these people are here it's unequivocal why don't our government just do that and change Global opinion that's good economics brutality is what we're talking about thank you for the question uh we'll do one last one and then we're gonna try to answer in Rapid Fire uh Prashant from the Hindustan times two quick questions one the role of Europe Europe still doesn't seem to have woken up to the Chinese threat using the invasion over the past year has changed that second the role of quad and I know Jeff you follow this how critical is quad in counter in China and they're into Pacific all right rapid fire answers we've got Taiwan human rights particularly organ harvesting and then Europe and the quad let Mike take the first two and I can take the quad sounds good microphone what this report does is be constructive about specific things policies that can be changed consider it a mistake anytime we see a senator Congressman Think Tank person talking about the China threat with no action plan so when you raise the issue of geopolitical consequences of a war with Taiwan it's it doesn't matter it's just talk it's a waste of time most of our house and Senate now when they speak about China they just talk they don't say therefore I'm in favor of s res 24. and I have 50 co-sponsors I move the question same thing with brutality and organs it's a terrible thing it's a very favorite talking point for almost 15 years now how brutal are the Chinese you know you can get a liver pulled out in 30 days and therefore I have what a house res 624 that places chemical places criminal penalties on something it's there's never any action so not to pick on the two of you but I want to anyway to talk without an action component is what this report is trying to get us past it's too late to just talk about how bad communist China is it's way too late and they don't care Senator Rubio made very clear the Chinese reaction to all this it's the moaning and whining of a declining superpower nothing more we've got to have legislation and things that really happen in the real world or we're going to lose and be very sorry about it well said Jeff you said cover Europe and quad yeah I don't know we have enough time to cover both so I'll focus more on the quad but I think that's relevant because because the quad is more proximate to the China Challenge and more important I do think Europe has a role to play uh in economics and sanctions and Export controls in denying China certain technology but I think the quad is is is a grouping for those in the audience who don't know it's Australia India Japan and the United States grouping that first formed in 2007 it was a very short-lived grouping it fell apart about a year later somewhat due to pressure from China the Trump Administration helped revive this grouping in 2017. uh in at a period where all four of these countries had Rising concerns about Chinese aggression abroad and it's really thrived since then and I think several things make the quad special and unique certainly in the context of the China Challenge one is the sheer size and power of the grouping we're talking about half of the population of the indo-pacific half of the GDP of the indo-pacific and over half of the military spending of the indo-pacific a big reason for that is because this group includes India which is the other Titan of the region which is now probably the most populous country in the world and will soon be the third largest defense spender and third largest economy in the world now India has been dealing with its own problems with the Chinese along their disputed border which turned hostile in 2020 we saw the first casualties from a flare-up at the border when I talk to my Indian friends they think it is extremely humorous that we're having this debate about banning Tick Tock because they had the same debate two years ago and they banned it right away snap the finger and the Chinese came to them and said there will be terrible consequences if you ban this and they said that's okay go ahead do your worst uh or sovereignty or national security the security of our people is more important than any consequences you're going to threaten us with that that identity I think is what's at the core of the quad Japan Australia the United States and India have the will and the capability to say no to resist coercion to accept the costs and push back and I think as we move ahead the more that we feel threatened by the Chinese the more the quad will be doing together and this is going to be a central group for the 21st century very well well we have run out of time we're definitely going to be talking about this issue repeatedly it is the number one National challenge for us as Americans so please do keep an eye on your email and come back to Heritage for our next event and I know that Dr Pillsbury you are looking at a strategic and index of strategic competition uh that's right that's right which will go over strengths and weaknesses of both sides and where we are in that Marathon that you wrote about in The Hundred Year Marathon so uh also one note for members of the press we will be having an additional question answer session in the zimdall room you can just find me and I'll direct you and we should also thank our panelists and thank you for coming [Applause]

Channel: The Heritage Foundation

Views: 9,420

Keywords: The Heritage Foundation, Heritage Foundation, Conservative

Id: SNO3lzpICBE

Length: 64min 10sec (3850 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 28 2023