Former Congressman Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) told Breitbart News that China uses technology and finance as tools to globally project its communist ideology.
McCotter described China’s geopolitical ambition as an existential threat to America and the broader West, offering his remarks on Tuesday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight.
Breitbart News Senior Editor-at-Large Rebecca Mansour asked McCotter about recent developments related to China’s giant telecommunications company Huawei. Huawei’s CFO, Meng Wanzhou, was released on bail by a Canadian court on Tuesday after being arrested on Saturday in Vancouver, Canada.
U.S. authorities allege that Meng assisted Huawei in evading sanctions on Iran. She faces “serious charges of fraud involving millions of dollars,” according to an affidavit from a Canadian law enforcement official.
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McCotter, who was a vocal critic of Huawei during his time in Congress, described the telecommunications company as an arm of the Chinese state. He warned of the threat of Chinese surveillance of Americans via integration of Huawei technology with U.S. telecommunications infrastructure.
“[Communism] is antithetical to the progression of human nature, and the prosperity and salubriousness of human nature,” stated McCotter. “When you understood that the [People‘s Liberation Army’s] former general founded Huawei, and you understood what they were up to, if you understood the influence and operations run by [people] like Ceaușescu and his regime, you understood what Huawei was.”
McCotter continued, “[Huawei] is not a private entity, because communist ideology does not allow it to be a private entity. Everything is owned by the state, and you’re allowed to use it at their leisure; at their whim. So these are front groups. These are not separate organizations. So they are going to be used to get into the technology of the West, and those countries of democracy. That’s what we’ve seen, and what you’ve seen reports from intelligence organizations from the U.S. and other democracies talking about Huawei, and banning them from utilization within their 5G networks and elsewhere because of the fear that they will be then used to spy on — not just our government — but on private citizens, as well.”
McCotter added, “Remember, the Chinese Liberation Army — the PLA — they have a division of cyber warfare, and so this is something that has been long planned, and it’s just a progression. From the time of about 2007 — it goes way back, even before then — this was a long-term plan, much like using their mercantilist trade policies to undercut American manufacturing. So when you look at it, it’s been part of an overall comprehensive effort.”
McCotter said, “We know we don’t like domestic spying here in the United States, but my God, look what the Chinese communist government does to its own people. Do you want that organization, or any entity associated with them or under their direction and influence, to have access to your private information?”
Huawei’s bids for infrastructure development contracts with U.S. and Western telecommunications service providers will enable Chinese surveillance of governments and citizens, said McCotter. “They are here for no good reason,” he declared. “They are not here just to make a profit, send it back, and pay the taxes. That’s not what they’re here for. They have laws over there that they are required to engage in potentially offensive cyber operations against their customers, which would be people in the United States. This is why places like New Zealand [and] the U.S. banned them.”
McCotter went on, “[Huawei] cannot have that type of access to our market [and] consumers because they will use it for their illegitimate purposes. Remember, this is not about the Chinese people. This is about the Chinese government — the 70 million, or so — that rules a country of 1.6 billion people who want to be free and want to realize their place in the community of nations, and they’re not being allowed to by the Junta that’s run the country since Mao.”
Mansour invited McCotter’s analysis of another Chinese telecommunication company ZTE and its violation of U.S. sanctions.
McCotter described Huawei and ZTE as parts of the Chinese state’s ambition to displace global American dominance and Western liberal democracy. “They’re busy building communism in one country by 2025. Think about that. This is Stalin building socialism in one country with industrialization, except they’re doing it with technology and finance. It’s the same thing.
McCotter said China’s political ambitions cannot be appeased. “President Trump is doing more than any of his predecessors did, since President Bush I, Bush II, Obama, Clinton,” he said. “But President Trump also, I think, is still viewing this in many ways as a potential deal. There are economics [and] national security, here. It remains to be seen if President Trump sees this regime as what it is. Does he have the moral clarity to realize what communist China is to this generation of Americans, the Soviet Union was to another generation of Americans and to free people throughout the world? Does he have that? Or is this just another regime where we have differences [and] where we can have a deal? Because that is not how this regime views the United States. They view us as their enemy. They view us as a rival model of governance and that they will succeed over the long haul, and that the world will be subordinated and subjugated by the communist regime in China. That is how they view us. The middle kingdom’s view in the Communist Party has prevailed , and that’s what Xi Jinping is doing.”
McCotter remarked, “We go back to our founders in times of crisis. We go back to Washington. We go back to Jefferson. We try to understand the roots of the country, the roots of liberty [and] freedom for the American people. These communists go back to Mao, or back to Marx [and] Engels, and that is not a recipe for liberty and prosperity or the benefit of the Chinese people or Americans or any other people in the world to let that regime have more power, more sway, and go on to continue its path to not just surpass the United States, but subjugating the entire world beneath their regime, and that’s what they want to do.”
Mansour said, “It seems to me as if our corporations — and maybe the Huawei situation has finally woken them up — need to understand that if they get in bed with communist China, they’re in for a world of hurt.” She then quoted Axios China’s Bill Bishop, who recently wrote: “Any foreign and especially U.S. tech firm that has supply chain reliance on China needs to be deep into planning for reducing that reliance, no matter how hard, painful and expensive such a shift would be. Frankly, boards of directors of those firms are negligent at this point if they are not pushing for this.”
Mansour asked, “General Motors [is] totally invested in China. So is Ford. They are building the Auto 2.0 — the future of the electric vehicle [and] the autonomous vehicle — in China. Why are they doing this and is it dangerous, do you think?”
McCotter replied, “There’s danger in everything. We’ve seen throughout periods of history where free nations made the mistake of thinking they could deal with a totalitarian regime and everything would wind up hunky dory. They put plants in Nazi Germany. Churchill called World War I the Coal War, because they relied upon Germany for coal and other things. They thought waves of technological change at the beginning of the 20th century meant there would be no more wars. They thought World War I was the war to end all wars, that there would never be any wars [because] trade would change everything. It does not change the nature of that regime.”
McCotter assessed, “When companies go over [to China], whether it be Ford or any other manufacturing [or] technology companies, not only are they putting at risk their own companies and their own intellectual property and their own investors and everything else, but what they are doing is they are telling the Chinese people that do not like that regime [and] want to breathe free like the rest of us that they are in bed with them and the United States doesn’t care about anything but money, and that is not what the United States is about. The United States is about the liberty of all human beings. It is about making sure the people in communist China know we do not support that regime, that we are working with them to make sure that one day they have the chance to determine their own destiny and shape their own institutions free from the threat of that communist government and its suppression [and] all of the horrible things that it does to them. That’s what the United States is supposed to be about.”
McCotter added, “So when these citizens and multinational companies go over [to China] and they start to do these things, they are giving the United States a black eye in the minds of the Chinese people and in the minds of people like myself. That is not what you are there to do. What do you expect us to do when they steal all your stuff? Or when they take all the jobs, or they continue to destroy our manufacturing base? What do you expect the government to do? President Trump is trying to stop this intellectual property them and these people are going, ‘Good luck, Mr. Trump. We’re still going to make some money while you’re trying to fix that for us.’ Is that how this works? I don’t think so.”
“I’m sure that if push comes to shove — God forbid that we ever have any type of military conflict with communist China — they’ll continue to supply us the manufacturing parts we need for our own defense?” asked McCotter sarcastically, describing U.S. automobile companies’ dealings in China as “short-sighted” and “very detrimental.”
McCotter said, “You want to know what would make a whole lot of people rich? If China lost that regime and became free. Imagine the entrepreneurial ability and the good that it would do — not only to the Chinese people, but the entire world — to see the rise with freedom and prosperity and the rule of law and engage with other people. … Imagine what it would be if they were gone.”
Mansour asked what President Donald Trump’s approach towards China should be.
McCotter answered, “Contain them and support every possible opportunity for the Chinese people to seize their own freedom and shape their own destiny free of that evil regime. We’ve done this before.”
Breitbart News Tonight broadcasts live on SiriusXM Patriot channel 125 weeknights from 9:00 p.m. to midnight Eastern or 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Pacific.
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