Frank Gaffney (00:10):
We're back and as always, I'd like to be able to say we are back with Bill Walton, the star of The Bill Walton Show, a master of the universe now recovering, I'm happy to say, in the Washington area. And doing incredibly important work on his television podcast in exploring some of the topics that we visit with him about each week, and we're always delighted to be able to do so. Bill Walton, welcome back to Securing America.
Bill Walton (00:36):
Frank, happy to see you.
Frank Gaffney (00:38):
Good to see you. Let's start with this topic that I touched on with Gordon a little bit. This company called Gotion, which is a big Chinese outfit that is explicitly tied to the Chinese Communist Party. I mean, it's baked into their articles of incorporation and so on. And they're going to take over 400 acres of pristine land in the heart of Michigan with $700 million plus subsidy from the government of the state, tax dollar money, obviously. Bill. This would seem to be ill-advised on a lot of different levels.. And I just wonder, is this obviously a problem in the microcosmic sense, but we're seeing stuff like this happening across America. And I just wonder what your thoughts are about the folks who are enabling it.
Bill Walton (01:34):
Well, Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, what she deserves is some sort of award or some sort of punishment for anti-Americanism. I mean, remember she was the one who completely locked down Michigan, and wanted to declare certain portions of Lowe's essential and other portions of Lowe's non-essential. Her arrogance knows no bounds. And now she's bringing it Chinese company into Michigan, after the Michigan politicians and federal politicians have assiduously shipped hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Michigan jobs to China. Now they want to bring a Chinese company in. And I think Frank, as you pointed out in one of your writings, the bylaws of the company are explicit in that it reports directly to the Chinese Communist Party, no ifs and or buts.
Frank Gaffney (02:29):
That's correct.
Bill Walton (02:30):
It's not even hidden in any way.
Frank Gaffney (02:31):
Indirect control or submission.
Bill Walton (02:34):
It's explicit.
Frank Gaffney (02:37):
Owned and operated. Yeah.
Bill Walton (02:37):
And as I have talked about, what they want to do with this plant is environmentally egregious. Lithium is part of what's going to be involved there, and they're already trying to buy up property around the facility, telling people who don't want to sell, "Well, look, your water's going to be ruined because it's going to be laced with lithium pretty soon, so better sell now or you'll never sell."
Frank Gaffney (02:59):
Lithium dust on your land. Yeah, that's right. [inaudible 00:03:02].
Bill Walton (03:02):
They want American waters to be like Chinese waters. Chinese of course is the home of the most polluted inland waterways on the planet.
Frank Gaffney (03:11):
Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
Bill Walton (03:12):
So-
Frank Gaffney (03:13):
This is bad business all the way around.
Bill Walton (03:14):
The list goes on and on and on about why this is a bad idea.
Frank Gaffney (03:18):
To say nothing of the national security implications of having this operation with they say, something on the order of 180 semi trucks coming in and out of the property every day. What could possibly go wrong, Bill?
Bill Walton (03:34):
[inaudible 00:03:35] surveil with balloons, Frank, because they already know what's going on there.
Frank Gaffney (03:38):
Well, there'll be, I suspect, up to great mischief. Bill, hopefully we'll be able to turn that off with the help of the people of Michigan. And I commend to our listeners once again, the horrific-
Bill Walton (03:48):
Please get involved in shutting this down. This is a terrible idea.
Frank Gaffney (03:51):
Amen. But a terrific webinar to give you background on it that we did at the Present Danger: China last week and presentdangerchina.org is where you can find it. Bill, one of the other things that we talk about most weeks is the inadvisability of your former colleagues on Wall Street continuing to enable China in another way, namely by taking our money, pension funds, mutual funds, index funds and so on, and shipping it to China. You've been following evidence that the Chinese are once again, under Xi Jinping, using anti-corruption arguments and programs to chill, shall we say, business opportunities. Set aside for the moment the distinct possibility that we're going to be in a shooting war with these guys soon, which I think means the end of repatriating any money you've got there, but what's the likelihood that this is going to go badly for Americans investing in China if there's going to be this further essentially unpredictability at the minimum, at worst real tyranny taking place at Xi's hands in the Financial sector?
Bill Walton (05:11):
Well, Frank, you and I have talked about this. This has been a tale of two worlds. The one world was the China before Xi, and China actually made a lot of progress in amping up its economy and bringing about entrepreneurship. And in the process, created over 1,000 billionaires. And the measure of Chinese attractiveness is that there's something called a unicorn, which is a venture capital company with more than a billion dollar valuation. Well, the United States has about 900, China has 350. And so the investment in technology and entrepreneurial energy and financial skills in China has been enormous. Now Xi comes along and he thinks that this is behavior is unseemly an anti-communist, and he's mounting a crackdown on all classes of entrepreneurs. It was the real estate companies, it was the private home tutors, it was the tech companies. Now he's aimed at the financial sector.
(06:11):
And they've got a commission here that they just started called, this is a classic right out of George Orwell, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. And its job is to prevent hedonism and high-end lifestyles in the Chinese banking system. And it also wants to do... And talking about killing entrepreneurial zeal, they want to eradicate executive's wrongful pursuit of becoming financial elites. So it's fascinating how fast and widespread this movement to kill the entrepreneurial class in China has become under Xi. And he has the totalitarian mindset that he can command and control every aspect of the Chinese economy and society. And as we all know, as Friedrich Hayek reminded us, the fatal conceit. No central government can do that. So the good news is if he keeps having his way, the Chinese system is likely to collapse. The bad news is that I think he's going to move a lot faster militarily than any of us would like. And so even though the economy is going to be melting down, it's not going to be soon enough to stop their military ambitions.
Frank Gaffney (07:33):
No, to the contrary, as we've talked about, Bill, most weeks. If things continue to go bad internally-
Bill Walton (07:39):
My weekly warning, if you have money, don't put it in China.
Frank Gaffney (07:43):
Yeah, amen. But this idea that domestic turmoil isn't going to translate into external ambitions if only to divert and justify that increased repression at home. It's crazy.
Bill Walton (07:58):
People are crowing about the Chinese economy's not growing. In fact, Gordon Chang, our friend, says it actually shrunk last year, and I agree with him. But we shouldn't be crowing because a weakening adversary is a more aggressive adversary. And I think Xi's making calculations about how rapidly he needs to move before his resources start ebbing.
Frank Gaffney (08:21):
Yeah. Well, I think Gordon agrees with that. Bill, one other piece of this that I wanted just to touch with you on as evidence of that increasing internal control is this announcement that 16 different aspects of the government's work, central government's work that is, are now national security sensitive topics, including politics and the ecology for heaven's sakes. I mean, is this not a further symptom of a tyrannical regime becoming more so?
Bill Walton (09:00):
Well, we feel America's being wrecked because everything has become political, put that on steroids and you're in China. Every single aspect of the Chinese system is political. And every single... They say 16. I don't know what the denominator is. I think it's most of the agencies of the Chinese government have been put on war footing essentially and to monitor politically-acceptable behavior. And Xi took control in 2012, and since then he's targeted over 4 million Chinese. You know when he calls them? He calls them tigers and flies. And basically, they're people that he doesn't feel are towing the line with what he thinks they ought to be doing to promote the state and the Chinese Communist Party. Where this ends-
Frank Gaffney (09:56):
And that makes them enemies of the state presumably, right?
Bill Walton (09:59):
Well, yeah.
Frank Gaffney (10:00):
Subject to discipline, as they say.
Bill Walton (10:02):
Yes.
Frank Gaffney (10:03):
Wow. Tigers and flies, that's a new one. Bill, and again, to just get to the bottom line for those of us in this country, you're talking about a China that in the aftermath, as we talked about with Gordon, in the aftermath of this latest meeting between an American politician and president Tsai of Taiwan is now ramping up again its aggressive behavior under the guise of military exercises and so on. This looks as though it's a bad time for us not to be on a war footing as the Chinese are going-
Bill Walton (10:39):
Well, and as you point out, I think you've got a group signing a petition on this, which I'm eager to sign. The Chinese has been assiduously developing its control and power over global international institutions, like the World Health Organization. And they have a handpicked and leader, and the Biden administration is promoting an executive order or a policy where we would make our pandemic responses subservient to whatever the World Health Organization decides. And what they decide goes way beyond simple health. I mean, they're talking about digital passports, they're talking about systems of social control, where they can monitor your health behavior as it feeds into where you shop, what you buy, where you travel.
Frank Gaffney (11:29):
Make you conform. Exactly right.
Bill Walton (11:31):
Yeah, make you conform and [inaudible 00:11:33].
Frank Gaffney (11:33):
Let's make sure that people know where to go to do the same, Bill. And that is at [inaudible 00:11:37].
Bill Walton (11:37):
Bill Gates is-
Frank Gaffney (11:40):
We really need your help, folks, getting this message into the Congress. Bill, we have to leave it at that.
Bill Walton (11:45):
Okay.
Frank Gaffney (11:45):
Much more to talk with you about, but come back next week.
Bill Walton (11:47):
Much to cover, Frank.
Frank Gaffney (11:48):
We love talking with you. We'll do it again next week. God bless you, my friend. We'll be right back with more right after this.
