"...It’s a country that doesn’t buy into the rule of law, which, again, is pretty different from our European counterparts.
And it is, unlike the Soviet Union, an economic powerhouse that has trading relations with pretty much every other country on the planet, including the United States.
...There’s pretty good evidence that the Chinese government basically was telling even groups like the World Health Organization that it’s not person-to-person transmittable in mid-January, when we think they may well have known better.
...And then, of course, in China there’s no free press. ...There’s a reason why a lot of past incidents of the flu have come out of China, it’s because of this kind of wet market.
...If this continues globally with these shutdowns, that means China has no export markets for its trade and that means unemployment, which more than anything else will lead to a lot of unrest, demonstrations, and anti-government movements.
...In the past we’ve had stories about the Chinese drywall in Florida emitting noxious fumes, about Chinese baby milk powder in China that was adulterated with plastic beads that destroyed babies’ kidneys.
...Cheng: We are seeing the Chinese trying to influence other countries. For example, what we talked about earlier, with the medical equipment that they are sending out.
They are labeling it as aid even though in many cases, such as Italy, it’s actually items that the Italians have purchased.
They are describing it as support for countries in medical need.
More worrisome is their effort to, again, deflect criticism on the United States.
So it is not an accident that the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson tweeted out the charge that, “Hey, maybe this came from the U.S., and maybe specifically from the U.S. military.”
You should recognize, your listeners should recognize, Twitter’s actually not allowed in China. So the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, by using Twitter to send this message out, was using a platform that the Chinese themselves aren’t able to access.
This was a very deliberate effort to influence global perceptions.
...That’s part of what political warfare is about.
Shaping and molding perceptions of China and of China’s adversaries and doing so through media, through public opinion, through public statements, through aid, through economic activities.
...At one point its officials were suggesting in a tweet that the U.S. could have been behind COVID-19.
Is that an idea Chinese communists are promoting still within China?
Cheng: Absolutely.
- So we see in China discussions about the American military going to China for world military games, which did occur, and the U.S. team won, I think, something like seven metals, none gold. So the Chinese spin on this is not, “Wow, the Americans didn’t do well,” it’s, “The Americans didn’t do well because they came here to spread disease.”...
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