America's Greatest Challenge | Interviews

welcome to office hours i'm georgia howe today we sit down with the former governor of south carolina and former ambassador to the united nations nikki haley ambassador haley's new prageru video is titled china friend or foe where she discusses the biggest challenge america faces on the world stage during the cold war we limited trade with the communist soviet union ambassador haley says it's time we do the same for communist china let's jump right in ambassador haley thank you so much for joining me oh it's great to be with you georgia thank you i think a lot of people have heard politicians talk about how china is a pretty big geopolitical threat to us but to a lay person that warning can feel kind of abstract so what are your biggest concerns that you want americans to be aware of in terms of really realistic and tangible threats to americans in their daily life well i think you have to look at a combination of what china has built up their military which is a national security threat to us they now have the largest naval fleet in the world they have bulked up their air defense systems and so it's a cause for concern and on the military side and uyghurs that they are using as slave labor they've got them in concentration camp they're making them change their name change their religion the physical and sexual abuse is horrific and we promised long ago that never again would we turn to blind eye to this and they are doing it out blatantly you look at how they have took over tibet the hong kong they've totally destroyed the democracy there our biggest concern is that taiwan is next and they're already in their air space flying um aircraft over their air just to threaten them you look at the intellectual property they have been stealing intellectual property from us for years years ago both sides republicans and democrats thought that if we were nice to china if we help them get into the world trade organization that they would want to be like us they don't want to be like us they want to be communists and we have to change our attitude to how we treat them president xi named started a commission a few years ago that he personally chairs and it says any company that does business in china has to cooperate with the chinese military now think about our data think about all the information that the tech companies have on us and know that now the chinese military has that as well and then take it a step further during covet when the rest of the world was trying to save lives china not only allowed the virus to get out but they went to two american companies 3m and honeywell and said you can't export any of the ppe out to anyone you have to sell at us wholesale and they would only give it to countries that did business with huawei their 5g network that's the country we're dealing with and we have to start being smart to the way we respond back to them in your video you talk about how communist china is more aggressive abroad lately and more oppressive to their own citizens lately what do you think is causing that change in behavior so china for a long time was very polite never liked being aggressive in public you know had conversations behind closed doors but once president xi basically named himself king he did away with term limit um to allow that he would stay there for as long as he wanted once that happened what we saw was they would really start pointing their fingers in countries faces threatening them saying you better vote with us if you don't you know we're going to take your port we're going to take your military installation so they got much more aggressive this is their sign to the world that they are now the major superpower world and so if we don't stand up to them if we allow them to have that showing of them being a superpower what you're going to see is right after the olympics they will take taiwan and they'll be unstoppable on all different levels so the aggression certainly ticked up once president xi kind of was able to command presence over his people and become more aggressive with the world in your video you suggest that we ought to be treating communist china the same way we treated the soviet union during the cold war in terms of limiting trade but when you know when you consider how much consumer goods we get from china that seems like a really bold ask so what would that policy look like i think what you have to look at is look i don't have a problem if china buys grains and poultry from america any more than i mind if americans buy t-shirts than light bulbs from china but when it comes to the fact that they control 90 of our medicines when it comes to the fact that they have so much of the ppe when they have things that we need to protect ourselves that's a problem and that's why you've actually seen countries like japan they just did a billion dollar stimulus to become less dependent on china so that they could go to other countries to get those needs it's not just us that felt the pain during covet many other countries realized we've allowed china to move their strategy to where they've tried to weaken other countries and we can't let that happen anymore in the video you talk about the ccp's authoritarian vision so to the extent of your knowledge what is china's goal and how would life change if they were to achieve it they want total domination they don't want to just be a competitor they want total domination they want to be the number one superpower in the world they want to take on as much of their region as they can they want to defeat america on every front and any other country that even starts to challenge them and i think they'll do anything that they have to to do that you know one a uyghur victim recently said china won't be happy until they've destroyed every one of us they are going through ethnic cleansing in a way that they're deciding who they want and don't want to live in china and so it really is when we say that's our number one threat china is absolutely our number one threat in terms of um you know a military presence here do you envision down the road americans being unsafe on american soil or is this more about economic domination what would you say for that no i think the way that china is building up their military is a sign to us that we need to be very careful and watchful on what they're doing um you know when they have the largest navy fleet in the world when they're building up their air defense systems um by working with russia the idea that they're now doing cooperation with iran it is a cause for alarm you know one of the things that's very important is we have to have strength abroad to keep safety at home and that means knowing what they're doing when they're doing and how they're doing it and making sure that we're two steps ahead of them you mentioned this briefly and i want to go back to it because i think it's really important can you tell us a little bit about what's going on with the uyghur muslim situation so just imagine they are taking on a million muslim weakers they are now starting to do this with christians as well they are literally taking them taking kids from their homes taking parents putting them in concentration camps making them change their name change their religion putting them in forced labor and the physical and sexual abuse that is happening to these people is unthinkable and they're doing it under the eyes of the world this is a time where america has to step up i mean if ever there was a time that you see people being physically sexually abused it's it's genocide we have to start standing up for them because if they can do this to people in their own country they're going to think they can do this to people outside of their country and it's something where they don't want the world talking about it and it's something that i think that we as americans have to be loud about and i think what you're seeing is other countries are being loud about that as well that's why canada has recently called for the boycott of the olympic it's why australia has recently called them out for their behavior other countries are starting starting to notice this as well and i think we have to coalesce around the fact that we have to hold china account some pushback you might get for even bringing up this issue is that you are pitting american citizens against chinese citizens what would you say to address people who have that concern well i don't think this is american citizens against chinese citizens i think this is america against communist the communist china party um so much of this is president xi the chinese people are following along with president xi and going along with it um so yes it's a concern but i think you also have to understand when you know it's the reason why we're kind of focusing on our universities when they send chinese students to our universities what we know is that they're sending research and intel back they are basically spies what we know is when chinese business people come here we know that they are trying to steal intellectual property that's a fact and i think that we have to be realistic we don't ever want hate we don't ever want to do anything that's going to you know harm innocent people what we do want to do is make sure that we are strategic about how we deal with the chinese communist party and that we let them know we're on to them and i think that there's safety precautions that we can do here but i think that people have to be realistic you can't turn the other way and act like this isn't happening um i think that's what we've done for far too many years and i think we have to start addressing that now in terms of our current policy towards china what would you say we're doing right and what would you say we're doing wrong well i think through the trump administration it was the first time they called them out and started holding them accountable so um the president actually put policies in place and said that if they continued to steal intellectual property that we were going to put sanctions on them i think we need to be able to follow through on that should we see that happen we continue to call them out for their aggression in the south china sea and i think that the only thing that we're not doing is really getting a stronger alliance with other countries so that it's not just the us versus china but that it's a coalition of countries holding china accountable all right well ambassador haley where can people find you online well they can go to stanfordamericanow.com um and look and see all the different information that we put out every day we have a daily newsletter we'd love to have your readers sign on to stand for america.com and you can find out more about china foreign policy domestic policy and so many other issues ambassador haley thank you so much for joining me thanks so much it was great folks make sure to go out and buy ambassador haley's book with all due respect defending america with grit and grace and that's the end of today's office hours make sure to tune in next week for our conversation with a new prageru presenter i'm georgia howe thanks for tuning in thanks for watching this episode of office hours if you'd like to watch more interviews with prageru presenters head over to dailywire.com subscribe and become a member today you