If you're not afraid of China, you
might be soon, because there's a
lot of people that are working very
hard to terrify you about China,
whether it's military threat or
economically it's a big contender.
There's this sort
of Cold War brewing, and why not?
For certain elites, it's great way
to bulk up the defense budget,
if you're going to be scared about
possible war with China, any sort
of economic policy can be justified
when it comes to trade with China.
But there are, thankfully, at least
some politicians that are pushing
back against this narrative, and
we want to give
credit to Bernie Sanders.
Who wrote an entire Op-Ed trying to
get people to chill, just a little
bit, when it comes to China.
It's available in Foreign Affairs,
but here's some of
what he had to say.
It is distressing and dangerous
that a fast-growing consensus is
emerging in Washington that views
of the US-Chinese relationship
as a zero-sum economic and
military struggle.
The prevalence of this view will
create a political environment
in which the cooperation that the
world desperately needs, will be
increasingly difficult to achieve.
And he, specifically, talks about
the need to solve all sorts of
different problems including
concerns about human rights,
economic issues, climate change,
these are all things that we can't
simply pretend that China
doesn't exist for, or make them
into our chief rival over.
He calls out one of his colleagues,
by name, saying a few months ago,
my conservative colleague Senator
Tom Cotton compared the threat from
China to one posed by the Soviet
Union during the Cold War.
Quoting Tom Cotton as saying,
once again America confronts
a powerful totalitarian adversary
that seeks to dominate Eurasia and
remake the world order.
And Bernie says, and just as
Washington reorganized the US
national security architecture
after World War II to prepare for
conflict with Moscow, Cotton wrote,
today, America's long-term
economic, industrial, and
technological efforts need to be
updated to reflect the growing
threat posed by Communist China.
And he puts this,
what we're seeing now develop when
it comes to politicians as he
points out like Tom Cotton,
and occasionally politicians like
Joe Biden, who have some things to
say about China recently.
He puts it in historical context,
recent historical context saying,
the rush to confront China has
a very recent precedent,
the global war on terror.
In the wake of the 9/11 attacks,
he American political establishment
quickly concluded that
anti-terrorism had to become
the overriding focus of U.S.
foreign policy.
Almost two decades and
six trillion dollars later it's
become clear that national unity
was exploited to launch a series of
endless wars that proved
enormously costly in human,
economic, and strategic terms.
And that gave rise to xenophobia
and bigotry in US politics,
the brunt of it borne by American
Muslim and Arab communities.
It is no surprise that, today,
in a climate of relentless
fearmongering about China,
the country is experiencing an
increase in anti-Asian hate crimes.
And as I mentioned this morning,
on The Damage Report,
that violence continues.
Culver City, actually,
just yesterday,
had an incident of that sort.
So, we have a little bit more that
we can talk about about some other
politicians, but Bernie Sanders is
hoping to change the conversation
about the future of diplomatic ties
between the US and China.
>> Yeah, so, first of all,
great to see that America's moving
their ire from one side of my
family to the other, [LAUGH] okay?
So, I'm Muslim, so
we took the brunt of it after 9/11.
My wife is Chinese and so,
obviously, our kids are half and
half, so now they're moving onto
anti-Chinese hate.
And, again, this is not just Trump
now, this is, basically,
the Washington establishment, and
that's who Bernie Sanders is
calling out.
And that, definitely,
includes Democrats.
So, now, he says, and
if you follow Bernie Sanders,
you might be little confused.
So, I want to be clear, and this is
really important and actually,
I think, maybe, even the most
important part of this story.
Bernie Sanders has not been in
favor of just unmitigated free
trade with China throughout.
And then, so,
simpletons might look at that and
go, wait, wait, I thought you were
against dealing with China.
Now you're saying you're in favor
of dealing with China, right?
I don't get it.
Well, that's because the world is
not black and white.
The question isn't whether to
engage with China, the question is,
how to engage with China?
And the answer isn't,
we should love them and
write them love letters as Trump
did with North Korea, or
we should nuke them.
And no, the world is not black
and white.
The answer is almost always
somewhere in the middle.
It doesn't
mean that the moderate position or
the centrist position is right.
It just means that the extremes
are unlikely to be right.
And did Bernie carry that nuance
forward to today?
Yes, he said that the Chinese
government is surely guilty of many
policies and
practices that I oppose, and
that all Americans should oppose.
The theft of technology, the
suppression of workers' rights, and
the press, the repression taking
place in Tibet and Hong Kong, and
Beijing's threatening behavior
toward Taiwan and
the Chinese government's atrocious
policies towards Uyghur people.
So, again, simpletons on the right
or people that think they're on
the left or something will go, no,
I don't get it.
He's talking out of
both sides of his mouth.
[LAUGH] Come on, on the one hand,
he says China's bad on some things.
And on the other hand,
he says we shouldn't nuke them.
I don't get it.
It's just really not that hard.
So, yes, we should have a smart
strategic policy towards China.
We don't need to have them as
an adversary.
On the other hand, you can't be
just let everything slide and
go, you can steal our IP.
Okay, yeah, no big deal, right?
You're setting up concentration
camps for the Uyghur people.
No problem.
No, the answer is, well, here is
how we're going to oppose that.
And here's how we're going to work
with you on climate change,
because we don't have a choice.
They're among the top two powers in
the world.
We're one they're the other.
We have got to find a way to work
with each other while pushing
them in the right direction.
So, as usual, Bernie Sanders,
a rare voice of reason, in DC.
>> Yeah.
>> Cenk, I think you're wrong
when you say that we don't need to
make those guys our enemy,
how else are we going to justify
damn near trillion dollars [LAUGH]
in our budget every single year for
the military, right?
If we don't have a scary enemy,
you can't justify that in a country
where equality, inequality, excuse
me, is at record highs, right?
You can't justify the amount of
resources we commit to planes
that don't even freaking work, for
enemies who we don't even freaking
have, right?
That's the entire point of it, and,
I thought about it,
when I was reading Bernie's Op-Ed,
I was like, man, we don't even talk
about ISIS anymore.
Remember, when ISIS was going to
come, some guy in a turban,
in a black pickup was going to come
and strangle your babies in
their carriages while you slept,
remember that?
It's completely over.
We don't even talk
about it anymore.
I think, even 2016, it wasn't even
a focal point of either one of
the candidates' platforms, right?
We're over it.
As Americans,
we're over the war on terror.
So, we need a new big bad, and
I guess that big bad is China.
>> Yeah, I'm glad
that you said that,
because I want to talk a little bit
more about the future of where this
conversation is going to go.
So we have the status quo, Bernie
is trying to put out there that,
hey, maybe we don't need a stupid,
pointless, expensive Cold War.
And he's not the only
one, of course.
Other politicians,
including representative Ilhan Omar
have spoken out.
Ilhan said recently,
we need to distinguish between
justified criticisms of the Chinese
government's human rights
record and a Cold War mentality
that uses China as a scapegoat for
our own domestic problems and
demonizes Chinese Americans.
And the thing is- >> New ones.
>> God it's like- >> It hurts my
head [LAUGH].
>> Accept the reality and
don't go to war with them.
Anyway, so,
but what are we supposed to do?
When I think about the last 20
years, we invaded a couple of
countries and
then just stayed there, forever.
Now, they're going to use China, as
a way to continually spend evermore
on, as pointed out,
planes that don't work.
It doesn't matter how many hundreds
of billions of dollars
you throw in, apparently can't make
them stay aloft.
[LAUGH] >> And there won't ever be
any justification for it.
It'll just be, nothing's happening.
I don't think this is going to be
like the last Cold War and there's
going to be proxy wars between us.
I don't think, economically,
that's viable.
But they're still going to try to
sustain this sort of thing.
And, at least,
as we were talking about with TDR,
when it was the Middle East,
there's conflict going on,
we're losing soldiers.
People can see that and they
can potentially get sick of it.
And there could
be a reaction to it.
But this is mostly going to be
military budget and an occasional
speech that gets people pissed off
at China or whatever.
It seems so much easier to sustain
without any rationale,
just as an excuse to change some
trade policies, and
to pump up the military budget.
>> Yeah. >> So what do we do?
How do we get people fired up
against this Cold War, when nobody
really supports it, anyway?
>> Yeah, nobody supports it.
The right wing doesn't support it,
the left wing doesn't support it.
There's only one set of people
who support it, and
you guys are going to be shocked.
It's politicians who get tons
of financing
from the defense industry.
Whoa, whoa,
I did not see that coming.
[LAUGH] >> And the thing
is, the thing about China why this
is a foolhardy enemy to pick,
our economies are like this,
they're intertwined.
You can't separate what we do
from what China does because,
basically 35, 40 years ago,
American business decided we wanted
all their cheap labor.
And now that they've built
up a pretty sizable like middle and
wealthy class,
we want their consumers, we want to
sell stuff to them, right?
They're too important to us,
to ever actually spike or
smite them.
So, this is just a weird sort of,
enemy to try to just take up
on a whim.
It doesn't make sense.
We are China, at this point.
>> Yeah, but actually you bring up
a really important point,
because part of the reason why we
weren't as much Cold War mongering
against China for the last 20,
30 years was because we love that
they were opening up their markets.
So, McDonald's, etc.,
were rushing in.
And they were thrilled that China's
opening up and
basically becoming capitalist.
But now that China has built up
their own businesses,
they are starting to block Western
interests and, particularly,
American business interest within
China, and blocking access to that
market of over 1.2 billion
consumers, that's a market four
times larger than America.
So, now, part of what's driving is
not just the defense contractors
but other corporations pressuring
corporate Republicans and
Democrats, hey now, make them open
up, make them open up, okay?
Otherwise, threaten them and stuff,
right?
because we need that market,
we need that market.
And guys, again,
nuance on all fronts, right?
So, is China an actual threat to
Hong Kong and Taiwan?
Yes, so, my wife's originally from
Taiwan, I know a lot of folks from
there, and they all have to serve
in the military, and they train,
and I forget the exact number of
officer days now.
My recollection is, their entire
military is training around,
eight hours, because that's how
much they've calculated America
will take to get there and
rescue them, okay?
because Taiwan
cannot do a war with China.
So, I forget if it's eight hours or
two days or whatever it is, but
whatever the number is, that's
their entire training is just hold
until America comes, okay?
And so, it's important that
we protect our allies.
So, it's not like,
we're not doing Cold War.
So, who cares about Taiwan?
Take it anytime you want, right?
[LAUGH] No, and
then by the way do we should
we want them markets opened up so
that American companies, there's no
such thing as American companies,
they're all multinational.
But some of the companies that
started here and are based in
Delaware that they open up,
as well- [LAUGH] >> And
are able to compete there?
Yes, because some of those folks
work here and
that would create more jobs to be
able to sell goods in the China.
So, we want all those things, but
we don't need to do it
by building a thermonuclear
submarine that doesn't work, but
funnels half a trillion dollars to
Raytheon- >> Yeah.
>> Right?
That's the underlying issue that,
not only do the politicians never
talk about, but
the media almost never talks about.
I mean, there's a multi-trillion
dollar elephant in the room,
that's the defense contractors.
>> Mm-hm. >> And
that's driving most of this
Cold War mongering that
Bernie Sanders is fighting against.
>> Yeah, yeah, and my final thought
is, I feel, to some extent, I think
the media's, the fact that they
wouldn't have that conversation is
partly complete and utter ignorance
on virtually every other country,
other than the United States,
including the United States,
actually.
But then, partially, I think,
at a much lower level,
a little bit of fear of
seeming not patriotic enough.
It feels a little bit like that
thing over the past two decades of,
no, you have to rally with your
country.
This is our national enemy.
How dare you talk about them as
someone that we should work with,
that we should try to get along
with, that we should try to then
influence to get better on
human rights.
I feel like there's a little
bit of that, too.
And the way that things are going,
the way that politicians in both
parties, the way their narrative
is, when it comes to China,
I worry that that pressure on media
is going to get stronger.
So, all the more important that
there are both media, as well as
politicians, that are willing to
speak out for a different path.
That said we do- >> But
I think- >> No,
sorry, what were you going to say?
>> No, what I was going to say is I
think some of the propaganda has
seeped into American thought
amongst the citizenry.
I saw it myself, in my own job,
where Daryl Morey, General Manager
then of the Houston Rockets, he
put out a Free Hong Kong twee,t and
it caused, basically,
a brouhaha international incident.
Because the NBA does a lot of
business in China and
the Chinese government don't play.
>> Yeah. >> If you want to make up
money over here, you don't get
to talk crap about our government.
And, a lot of people over here felt
like, yo, those dudes don't get to
tell us how to talk.
We have freedom of speech,
democracy, etc., etc.
I think there's a lot of negative
feelings towards China within the
population, not that people want to
see us go to war or something like
that, but people definitely see
China in an extremely unfavorable
light these days.
>> Yeah, well, we certainly
saw over the last year,
a lot of attempt to tie that in
with the pandemic, of course, too.