joelle we are zeroing in on the fallout
from the united states troop withdrawal
from
afghanistan president biden is set to
speak today
on the afghanistan issue as nearly all
troops have now left
but now china is looking to ramp up its
involvement in afghanistan afghan
officials have reportedly
become more engaged with chinese leaders
on a potential infrastructure deal
joining me right now is the founder of
the atlas organization and the author of
china's vision of victory
jonathan ward jonathan it's always a
pleasure thanks very much for being here
this morning
as we continue to drill down on the
chinese communist party and its motives
this headline from the daily mail days
after we leave afghanistan
china is moving in to gain a direct
route to the riches of the middle east
and with billions in their war chest
where will these ambitions
end your thoughts on china moving into
afghanistan and what that perhaps tells
us
maria it's good to be here well first of
all it's part of what
china you know they're essentially the
belton road initiative which we all know
about is sort of an
intercontinental project to link um
through infrastructure and
other outbound investment many parts of
asia and even europe ultimately
back to china and create sort of a hub
and spoke model for
you know economic trade routes and a lot
of that goes
through some very vulnerable regions so
i think this may not turn out so well
for china
for them to go into afghanistan
initially it's going to be about
infrastructure that appears to be what
these talks are about
um but it neighbors some some very uh
key pieces of the belton road that are
already very vulnerable
i've been out on the afghanistan chinese
border i've been out on the
china-pakistan border
back when i was younger and moving
around out there and you know these are
the regions where china's stake in some
of its most important um
you know pieces of its geopolitical play
to get into the arabian sea
um to bypass uh difficult choke points
uh straight of malacca
um and really to get its uh way to find
its way around the
um difficult geography of maritime asia
the indian ocean so by going through
um pakistan and the china pakistan
economic corridor for example
they're going through balochistan
they've been attacks on
infrastructure projects so they're
already having difficulty in some of
these areas i think afghanistan could be
um you know it worries them quite a bit
to see the u.s moving out i mean i think
the us
has to um you know generally move
uh away from the middle east and into uh
asia and also
focus on deterrence with russia i mean
whether or not the total withdrawal is a
good idea
there are so many there are so many
elements to the chinese communist
party's
motives and goals to become the number
one superpower
and it was you who said on this program
so long ago
that you believe that the uh economic
soft war that is taking place between
china and the communists and the free
world
will play out in the corporate sector
will play out potentially in corporate
america and now of course we've got
the ccp's probe into deity making things
increasingly difficult for the
ride-sharing giant both at home
and abroad china's internet watchdog
ordering the country's app stores to
remove
didi from their platforms this just a
couple of weeks after we saw
jack ma's treatment because he made the
mistake of criticizing the regulatory
framework
for the financial services industry in
china they disappeared jack ma
his uh his huge ipo
delayed pushed back your thoughts on
what you're seeing from the ccp with
regard to the corporate sector jonathan
as so many u.s companies are gearing up
to open their doors in china well maria
first of all
um you know you and i talked about this
last week we told everybody
that these stocks are dangerous that
these chinese tech companies are not
a good idea and wall street is still
living in the alternate universe when it
comes to chinese companies i mean you
still have them pushing
this stuff to america um so i thought it
was uh
you know rather um you know perhaps
poetic justice to see this happen to dd
uh so soon after the ipo i mean last
week you have jim cramer saying get as
many
shares of dd as you can and the whole
you know i think our financial media is
still
trying to push all this stuff as well
and and nobody's really talking
about what these companies are um the
fact that they are ultimately in the
hands of the communist party in the
hands of beijing
and and here you go with um of course
you know we're witnessing how
uh the communist party itself uh has has
serious concerns about uh these listings
and about the
the potential for ultimately us
regulation to look into these companies
and
gain access to this data and they're
busy right now trying to take
um you know firmer control over their
tech sector i mean their tech sector is
essential
to many of their uh key strategic goals
so
for us to be investing in this for
america um to be putting money into
uh chinese tech and chinese corporations
in general is just so
senseless ultimately um and
unfortunately that's still
um you know a narrative that's being
sold to the united states by wall street
to our pension funds to
you know individual investors to all
sorts of people that china's
a big market a big opportunity and we've
just seen one essentially take
a massive hit i mean they removed the
app from the app store that's about as
uh you know about a toughest hand is
as tough a hand as you can take with a
with a tech company
you also need to see policy right you
need to see policy because you know
these large financials are going to say
look when you change the law
then maybe i won't go operate in china
selling to the 1.4
billion person population not what i
would do
but that's their pushback joe biden has
thrown out a reform
sought by former president trump that
would have brought more federal
oversight
to foreign nationals in the u.s on
student visas so
you've got that biden throwing out the
crackdown on foreign student visas
because we know
the ccp has abused the visa process
and then you've got the chinese-owned
nexperia announcing that it is going to
be acquiring the uk's largest chip
producer
i know you know this is important i know
this is a story
we need to cover opponents are raising
the concerns about the uk
selling such a valuable asset to a
chinese-owned business
amid a global chip shortage uh they're
want to get to taiwan that's one of the
reasons they want to get
back reunified with taiwan taiwan
semiconductor
one of the most successful in the world
your reaction to this sale
uh in the uk right well it's it's the
uk's largest trip uh chip manufacturer
so you really can't sell this to china i
mean chips is one of the few things that
china can't
do on its own so um you know the
basically the the key semiconductor
um you know infrastructure is all
outside of the prc they're investing
tens of billions of dollars
into um you know creating their own
capabilities and
it's it's just something that can't go
through i mean the uk absolutely
should not must not cannot allow this
sale to happen
um fortunately it appears that the prime
minister has initiated a review
of this sale um you know there are
people in in
british parliament that are being very
vocal against it but
you know the idea that it could even go
that far makes no sense and
as i pointed out in china's vision of
victory i mean europe is the back door
for chinese access to western technology
um
and and financial capital so you know
we're going to have to start working
with our allies in europe i mean you
want to have a broader cities
um sort of internationalization of sofia
so that we're working with allies we've
done that with south korea on ships
before by the way sending
you know civilians over to help with a
review of a chinese acquisition
but we need to do that with with europe
i think this is a good opportunity for
cities to get involved with london
yeah for london to adopt those practices
but also ultimately chinese um
m a in european tech in american tech i
mean we've got to stop this
um you know there we all saw xi
jinping's speech
last week we know what their endgame is
um
it's time to end their access to western
technology
capital and ultimately to aspects of our
markets i mean we can't
facilitate the rise of our primary
adversary and that's that's what all of
this
adds up to all right and it does add up
to we need to see policy jonathan thanks
very much
always good to talk with you jonathan
ward joining us