Why CCP Leaders Fear the Exposure of Their Immense Wealth: Col. Grant Newsham

you hear all the time Mr Trump is Putin's stoe well let's think about it all the the presidents that were involved in Ukraine it was Mr Trump who gave lethal weapons to the ukrainians particularly Javelin missiles and in the war since then the Russians have suffered well over half a million casualties many of those dead in this episode I sit down with China expert and retired US Marine Colonel Grant n a senior research fellow at the center for security policy America was pushing businesses into China at the same time the Chinese were telling their army be able to defeat a country with aircraft carriers and they met the Americans take a week and read the Chinese media the English language versions of it and the Venom directed at the United States that'll give you a pretty good sense of what our prospects are for really establishing a decent relationship with the Chinese Communists I just don't think it's possible today Nim describes the unique strategy he sees in Trump's actions Visa China and how America can Leverage What He describes as the regime's Kryptonite this is American thought leaders and I'm Yan Kell Grant Nim such a pleasure to have you back on American thought leaders I'm glad to be here Grant so tell me about Trump's diplomacy well he's accused of a lot of things he's accused of one being a stoe of Vladimir Putin U he's accused of being in it for himself but the real sort of insult that's thrown at him is he's transactional and you know if you think about it well I would hope he's transactional I want every president to get the most he can for the United States for us when he's dealing with foreign countries and presumably all presidents do this it's just with Mr Trump that is considered an insult you know we like to see ourselves as altruists um but we we aren't and even when we are acting like we think altruistically we're getting something of value it could even be the psychic satisfaction of appearing as altruists and we want people to appreciate what we do so we are getting something and I think Mr Trump has correctly observed that that most of his predecessors have not been very good at cutting deals and America left is left giving a lot but not getting much out of it so what I wrote in the article is pretty much stating well of course he's transactional every president is it's just he may be a little better than most of his predecessors and and as you point out it's what he's transactional about that's the issue I I think right like this is really the nature of the accusations isn't it one of the main things we're talking about when in terms of transactionalism is the idea is that America will hand over the lives of its young men and women um and in exchange what do we get you know when you're when you're talking about the lives of our citizens the lives of our young people who join the military in particular well we ought to get something back for that it better be worth it not not because America is a great nation and we've always done this since World War II but rather you know it needs to be clearly in America's interest and we need to get something from it otherwise you're just using you know our young people as really a dispensable bargaining chip and too often it seems like the elites on both coasts are quite willing to do this but Mr Trump is rightfully saying look if you want our support well you're going to have to do everything you possibly can to defend yourself before you you know expect us to sacrifice our own people for that and that's a pretty basic um sort of dynamic or equation and the fact that Mr Trump raises this he gets all sorts of attacks and he's accused of you know what have you uh but he's just properly look at doing a cost benefit analysis as any businessman would and really as any leader of the United States would you know what is America getting out of these things that we do and you take another example Afghanistan you know we're there 20 years blew at least a trillion dollars maybe two trillion and what did what was that for you know what exactly did was did America give and what did we get in return and I would say we gave an awful lot more than we got and you know he's pointed this out and he's been attacked for it but what I'm getting at is trans being called transactional shouldn't be an insult right in fact it's it actually should be a pretty good thing when it's young people when it's America paying the bill you want to get something useful in return you know one of the accusations that I I keep hearing frankly is this idea of being too friendly with dictators how do you view that well being friendly with dictators you that's another insult um throw in Mr Trump's way um but when you think about it let's take Putin for example of Russia um you hear you just hear all the time you know Mr Trump is Putin's you know stooge he's an recruited asset of the Russians well let's think about it all the the presidents that were involved in Ukraine you had Bush Obama uh Biden only one of them gave the ukrainians the ability to actually kill Russians it was Mr Trump who gave lethal weapons uh to the to the ukrainians particularly Javelin missiles and as a result Putin's initial assault on Ukraine in 2022 was blunted with the help of these weapons and in the war since then the Russians have suffered well over half a million casualties many of those dead so that's not a what you would call an asset um behaving in a particular way so that's a funny sort of Putin isn't getting his value for money I would say uh if he if this is what Mr Trump has done to him but also there just the the nature of negotiations particular state-to-state relations and from leader to leader Mr Trump is just recognizing the reality of negotiations and see other presidents have done uh the exact same thing Obama was very friendly superficially at least towards towards Mr Putin um George Bush said that he looked into Putin's eyes and he could see his soul and that it was somebody you could deal with um so this is as I said it's nothing unusual if you want to get a bar get a deal done you have to sort of make some concessions and how you refer to people and that's all so whenever he's called that you know you you really have to question the people raising those allegations I was at an event yesterday uh with the leadership of the house select committee on the CCP uh chairman mullinar and ranking member Krishna Morty and Krishna Morty said something interesting which kind of caught my attention he was started talking about the concept of comprehensive National Power which I don't hear uh a lot of politicians talking about often and I often reference this as an explanation as to why the Chinese regime never goes for win-win it's part of like there there ideological view how they how they view themselves versus others I want to comment on that is it possible to actually make a good faith deal with the Chinese regime no there's really no empirical evidence to suggest you can and I say go back to the founding of that regime even or take more modern times and it's just not possible it's not the nature of the Chinese Communist party you know there's a Chinese expression that translates as um you die I live and in some respects it is peasant thinking but it does reflect very much the Chinese Communist party's View of things is that it sees this very much as a zero sum game is a word some might use and whatever whatever China can get it will take and it will not make concessions but because it does very much view this as a fight to the Finish and she has said this if you actually read the the translations of his speeches both spoken and written uh he's clearly saying that you know the Chinese system cannot survive if the American system survives one of them's got to go and he has referred to the United States the US system particularly these ideas of freedom and human rights and the things we hold hold dear he refers to these as the enemy as something that must be destroyed U as I said where's the evidence that you can cut a deal with the Chinese that works they always use the word winwin but it it does mean that the Chinese win twice I say there's just no no evidence that this can happen but there's still plenty PL of people on our side who think there is some sort of accommodation we can reach uh sort of a Live and Let Live these days it's referred to again as DET taant like was said with the Russians the idea being well we we don't like each other but we just have to reach an agreement where we can um get along and we it's not ideal but it's the best we can do um but it helps if the other side is willing to do that the Chinese are not willing to do that everything they do is designed to take down the United states to destroy the free countries and to weaken them and you just cannot deal with a c a regime like that and this is a a unique regime that doesn't exist anywhere else on Earth and we have to recognize this at some point that the chasing chasing a deal is a Fool's erend at best and while we're chasing it they're attacking us weakening us and putting themselves in a position where we may find ourselves unable to respond uh when the time comes Grant one quick sec we're going to take a break and folks we'll be right back and we're back with Colonel Grant nsam senior research fellow with the center for security policy very briefly can you just explain this concept of comprehensive National Power and how the Chinese regime uses it well they it's um you call it's almost you a way of amassing accumulating every possible chip everything of value you on Earth so that you control it and the way the Chinese would look at it is if they have something the other side has less and so their comprehensive National Power is strengthening could be you know buying lithium mines in in Africa well if you get control of these you've deprived the other side of it you've hurt him could be fentol you know if you've killed 70,000 Americans in one year and you've made a ton of money from this well your comprehensive National Power has gone up because he has 70,000 fewer people many of those of military Age and and you've suffered no punishment at all so this from a Chinese perspective is definitely a win-win uh for China uh and it really applies in every every area it's not just for military things um you know it could be you know the number of phds that that China produces the number of stem graduates they have and seeing the dumbing down of the United States you now if you see the US sort of they're in chaos with like we saw during the riots in in 2020 the Chinese don't just look at this and with as disinterested Spectators but they see very good they're weaker we're stronger and it very much is the idea is to drive down your opponent it's not a competition um but rather it is to build yourself up by driving the other side down it's not to have a fair competition and and like two rental cars comp you know competing against each other another example take the Pacific island cut Nations you know the Chinese have insinuated themselves into the Pacific Islands have immense influence now and that means that America has less America has been beaten down Latin America you look at these Graphics that are easy to find of compared to 20 years ago you have see it's all blue because this is where America was the the say the main trading partner now it's almost all red once again the Chinese look at this not as a fair fight but rather as setting the other guy up for failure and the same thing applies to Africa and many other parts of the world yet president Trump you know certainly views himself as the consumate dealmaker and has shown himself to Be an Effective dealmaker in the past um and I can't help but think back to the you know the Tariff negotiations that happened back under Trump 45 and his first presidency what it was notable to me it was was that it seemed like the first time that I was aware of where the Chinese regime was actually leveraged into a position it didn't want to be in um and is that a kind of negotiation I mean how do you view that is is because maybe there is a deal to be had it just it needs to be done that way that is the only way it's it's not um sort of um a normal negotiation where both sides compromise neither side leads leads quite hap leaves quite happy um but rather it has to be one where you get you have an overwhelming advantage and you take it um and there's no nothing to be gained from being sort of concessionary by saying well yeah I've got four aces but I don't want to hurt the other guy don't want to embarrass him believe me they won't do it to us but you you have to do that when dealing with a regime like the PRC and then as importantly you have to be uh very careful about making sure the deal is enforced and if it isn't enforced well you pretty much just wasted your time and if you allow the other side to wriggle off the hook um well why did you why did you even bother um but it has to be done ruthlessly um you know if it is if you're going to have any success at all and and Mr Trump was um you know dealing with the Chinese I think it may have taken him a little while uh sort of to get his feet on this and that's not unusual you know suddenly you become president and then you know what do you do that's not an easy job to have but his was the first Administration to actually look at the Chinese as the enemy which they declare they are and they actually did uh use economic pressure against the PRC instead of every other Administration which said well we've just got to accommodate them and they'll gradually liberalize as they get uh more prosperous but Mr Trump you know realized that wasn't the case and his trade representative Robert ligh Hauser was was very good on this and they did do a lot of good things to try and sort of use our economic advantage to get the Chinese to behave a certain way it it may have been a lost cause no matter what they did um but that they did at least try and you could see from the Chinese response the com Chinese Communist response that they didn't like it but ultimately as covid came along and they were able to kind of get away from it and you know back to this Mr Trump's ability as a dealmaker in my life time I think the most impressive deal that I've seen cut at a state-to-state level is the Abraham Accords between Israel and UAE and also Bahrain for starters and nobody saw that coming nobody and all the experts the chattering classes would have said this is impossible and he pulled that off uh so I'm always willing to to give him the benefit of the doubt uh on this and you just see what what he can come up with so the Chinese regime You could argue is expert at what's called unrestricted Warfare or asymmetrical hybrid Warfare sometimes it's described as that in the US um you argue that we have a tool of this nature that is the Kryptonite for the Chinese regime so tell me about this what it is it's the it's a weapon that the Chinese leadership has created by itself and basically it's the the wealth which xiin ping and the top dogs in the the Chinese Communist Party have amassed both in China but particularly overseas you know the overseas real estate the bank accounts uh the businesses which they and their relatives own uh their relatives with green cards uh who live in the countries they call their main enemy um and establish setting up bolt holes for themselves but this is immense wealth and the Chinese give some hints now and then about how much wealth has been moved out of the country and it is in the many billions of dollars but as I said it's the the top people in the Chinese Communist Party who have really done well for themselves and keep in mind that in China by their own admission there's about 600 million people who live on $5 a day and there's a lot of people who live on a lot less of that so how are they going to feel if they the evidence of this really this massive theft by their top the top leadership is exposed if for example America and say the Japanese and the free Nations put economic sanctions on China and they make things life difficult well the in communist regimes and like the Chinese Communist Party they're glad to have the regular citizens absorb that punishment well they do very well themselves and they'll always have enough food and a nice place to live so they're glad to sort of diffuse the the pressure and the the pain um but when it's the when what you the pressure is in fact exposing their wealth that makes it very personal to them and that could be a matter of life and death you know either lose their position or worse because of popular discont popular unrest uh popular anger over this but even within that regime there's all sorts of factionalism and infighting well if you can use somebody's um corruption somebody's wealth and relatives overseas uh to expose it and bring them down that is the one thing that I say that really scares them and we've seen some evidence in the past of just how much it does frighten them well and we're actually supposed to be doing it like cataloging this the US government is supposed to be um developing a detailed report on this well they're supposed to but apparently in the United States that when Congress passes a law compliance is voluntary it seems and what I'm talking about is uh a law which Congress passed in late 2022 requiring the intelligence community and the Secretary of State to produce an unclassified report on the the wealth of China's the Chinese Communist party's leadership um they had to do it within a year so now they're well over it's late hasn't come out a well over a year late uh so the requirement is there and one asks well where is it uh it hasn't come but now one of the ironies is that the the Cong the senator who pushed this this piece of legislation the most was Senator Marco Rubio who's now the secretary of state so one hopes that we will see this report and then of course there is the question of actually doing something with it that's the the important thing is not to Just Produce it and hope somebody notices it somewhere but when you have the information then you have to um put it in front of the right people to for consideration and I would suggest the right people are the the 1.4 billion Chinese um the vast majority of you know don't have overseas bank accounts real estate and the like and that will be the real test and I would point to around 2013 or so uh Bloomberg actually produced an excellent report on some of this wealth and included the wealth of some of xiin Ping's relatives and I have never seen the Chinese Communist Party leaders respond the way they did they were Furious and for good reason um and Bloomberg basically rolled over uh and but the point was made and it showed the vulnerability that is there to be U really to be exposed and to be used as a as as a tool actually Grant I can't help but remember right around that time there was another series of reports that was done by the New York Times where this was as the huena regime was making way for the xiin Ping regime but she had already you know amassed his power this is thinking with Way Way Back uh a good number of years but they they went a Pitzer for this they exposed the wealth of w jaau and who curiously was frankly probably the only reformer of the bunch and that I I didn't hear a lot as many protests about that particular uh exposure and that's that's very interesting MH well the I think one conclusion to draw from that or inference is that um the Chinese leadership was didn't mind having that exposed so much because it allowed them to get rid of a Troublesome person but it shows how with in that those circles that there is this backstabbing and sort of would you call it fighting that makes the exposure of wealth extremely dangerous so you know this report needs to be equal opportunity oh it has to be you know and there's just so much to work with with on it it's it is shooting fish in a barrel getting the information is not that hard any competent Financial researcher uh could do it you know we spend a hundred billion dollars on intelligence this year you know each year you think they should have some ability US Treasury is good at it when they put their minds to it say it's not hard to get the information but then getting it out is always the you then that's um trickier but it's not at all hard one idea that I've proposed is is that to make it a sort of a weekly show you know you can put it out on Voice of America or um Radio free Asia or some platform that that's accessible and you say you put it out every Friday say Friday afternoon and today it's going to be this guy here's pictures of his his overseas homes here's his bank accounts he's got this much money etc etc and you could get all sorts of people interested particularly in China in you know uh dialing in uh to see well who's it going to be this week and that would make a lot of people pretty darn nervous and they say it's just one example of how you could put the information out in a sort of a fun way well Grant Nim it's such a pleasure to have had you on well thank you I always appreciate the opportunity thank you all for joining Colonel Grant Nim and me on this episode of American thought leaders I'm your host Yan Kell [Music]