cracking down on its critics h m nike
burberry facing growing boycotts in
china
over their stance on the forced labor
issue in the xinjiang
uyghur region check this out from the
wall street journal op-ed saying quote
the communist party's strategy is to use
china's market power as leverage to shut
down
critics anywhere in the world here now
steve forbes
forbes media chairman great to see you
steve good evening good to be with you
thank you jackie
your response to that these american
companies doing business
in china they are being criticized um
because a lot of the raw materials that
they use come from
various places where there are human
rights abuses they speak out about it
because they are in fact
american companies and then they get
cracked down and smacked down by the
chinese government
well that's why they can't back down and
other companies should follow their
example
and we should continue to do what we did
a few days ago before that
alaska meeting and that is really put
sanctions on officials and on chinese
companies or western companies
that use of materials from the uh from
the forced labor slave labor of the
uyghurs
and once chi once we go around the world
and hit that issue time and time again
china is going to back down on it
because it's a losing issue and what
they're doing against companies like
burberry nike
that is really getting europe which does
not want to get involved with
the us fight with china it's forcing him
into it so this is blundering chinese
diplomacy
so we have to continue to be tough
whether it's in the south china sea east
china sea
and also having a credible plan to deter
china from attacking taiwan or islands
that are controlled by taiwan like kamoi
and matsu
i hear what you're saying but there is
some doubt or
some worry if you will that this
administration
has what it takes to be that tough on
china i didn't think what we saw in
alaska
was the best showing but yesterday in
the press conference that president
biden held this is what he had to say
about china listen to this
i see stiff competition with
china china has an overall goal and i
don't criticize them for the goal
but they have an overall goal to become
the leading country in the world
the wealthiest country in the world and
the most powerful country in the world
that's not going to happen on my watch
so steve one of the conversations that
you and i have been having hour after
hour is about this
this theme of progressive hypocrisy
right um
the president will say one thing and
then he'll do something else so for
example
the border could even be used within
that example the actions say
you know doors are open come on over and
yet his words say oh
don't come with respect to china he is
saying that
it's not going to happen on his watch
but can we believe him
i think the people around him uh his
security people got a real lesson what
happened in alaska
and i think they are probably more
realistic than certainly the far left of
the democratic party
but the key is going to be how they
follow through unfortunately china and
russia
think the u.s is in the grips of an
irreversible rot
that we're a nation in decline just like
china was in the late 1800s
and there's nothing we can do about it
we have to demonstrate we will follow
through
we will put facilities in the south
china sea we will continue deep military
discussions with the so-called quad
australia india and japan with the us
to uh the asia wants our presence there
so the key is not just what biden says
the president says in a press conference
is do we follow through and if we don't
we're going to have a situation like
jimmy carter
back in the late 1970s when the soviet
union didn't take it seriously
then we got a new president and he
turned things around and one of the
things i worry about
is what's going to happen in the us
economy if they follow through on these
massive spending
big tax proposals and we get an
inflation next year
so we may have to wait to 2024 to turn
it around but china should not make the
mistake the soviet union made in the
1970s thinking we're in decline
they actually were in decline and what
china's doing now to its entrepreneurs
like jack ma and others
not good long term for them yeah what
you um just described there was a long
to do list
right now what president biden said that
he's doing is having conversations with
allies
um and so we'll be you know looking to
see what happens um but i want to switch
gears for a moment and talk a little bit
about
big tech um the conservative bias issue
that we've been talking about as well
house republican whip steve scalise
pressing twitter ceo jack dorsey on the
company's decision to block that new
york post article
about president biden's son hunter biden
back in october before the election
dorsey
defending the decision like this listen
we made a total mistake it was literally
just a process there
um that this was not against them in any
particular way
was anyone held accountable in in your
censoring department
for that mistake well we don't have a
censoring department who made the
decision then to block their account for
two weeks
we didn't block our account for two
weeks we required them to delete the
tweet and then they could tweet it again
they didn't take that action so we
corrected it for them delete the tweet
and tweet it again i don't remember that
being part of the conversation at that
time but that's what he's saying now
finally big tech is having to answer for
some of these actions
well that's right and they're making a
huge mistake politically it's going to
lead to actions against them
they should just follow the example of
the old a t and t
back when it was a legal monopoly in
this country they went out of their way
to make sure everyone was happy
well they had great service every
magazine every newspaper every tv
station radio station at ads from a t
if anyone is unhappy politically they
were quick to be on top of it
was only technology that broke up that
monopoly not politics
these guys should learn from that
otherwise they are going to have actions
taken against them
and they're going to be actions that are
actually going to hurt them they're not
going to be able to make changes on
section 230 that end up hurting small
companies
it's going to be they're going to
republicans and conservatives figure out
how it's going to harm them and it's
just so unnecessary
and and they're making a huge mistake
but we live in an environment where a
lot of people are making huge mistakes
thinking
that the worm never turns that the world
never turns
what's now is forever it isn't we got
election coming up in 2022 and i think
moderate democrats
are going to wake up maybe they're going
to be in trouble with what's happening
with the border which will happen this
blatant the
power of the of the high tech yeah um
forbes we got to go but i i thank you so
much for your insight and commentary
tonight great great conversation thank
you