Jul 9, 2019, 10:56 PM
Below is an extended excerpt from an interview with Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA),* Chairman, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence *
Schiff's comments accurately reflect the opinion of Democrats regarding China. Don't expect any Democrat presidential candidate to offer anything different.
When it comes to China the only difference between Democrats and Republicans, progressives, conservatives, and Trumpsters is tactical, not strategic.
Friends of China should have no illusions about where Democrats stand. They are as rabidly anti-China as can be. Their media sycophants at the NYT, WaPo, MSNBC and CNN are as disingenuous and dishonest as FOX and other Trump supporting media.
None of this is anything new. We all know it. But it is worth repeating.
FEIST: I want to shift gears a little bit, Congressman. I think it’s appropriate, we are here at the Council on Foreign Relations today on the thirtieth anniversary of the—of Tiananmen Square. And I know you’ve spoken out forcefully about China and the human rights record. Last night at 12:01 a.m. Beijing time the secretary of state put out a statement. Here’s—and I thought I’d read a little bit of what he said. Put out a statement and said: Over the decades that followed Tiananmen Square, the United States had hoped that China’s integration into the international system would lead to a more open, tolerant society. Those hopes have been dashed, he said—he write. China’s one-party state tolerates no dissent and abuses human rights whenever it serves its interests. Today, Chinese citizens have been subjected to a new wave of abuses, especially in Xinjiang, where the Communist Party leadership is methodically attempting to strangle the Uighur culture and stamp out the Islamic faith, including through the detention of more than a million members of Muslim minority groups. It was a tough statement. That statement sounds like it could have come from Adam Schiff.
SCHIFF: I was going to say this is a rare bit of agreement between the secretary and myself. I think that—and, actually, the very first hearing that we had on the Intel Committee when I became chair was not on Russia, or not on Russia alone, it was on the rise of authoritarianism around the world. And China’s a very dangerous and influential part of that trend. It’s certainly true that, you know, Russia has been undermining democracies in Europe and elsewhere. But China has been undermining democracy in a very different way. China’s been undermining democracy in a—in a powerful, technological way, with the promulgation of these so-called safe cities and the safe-city technology where CCTV cameras are ubiquitous. And Chinese citizens now are facially recognized by the software in these cameras. That ties into a database that includes information about their social scores, their credit history, their use of social media.
It is big brother come to life. And this is obviously not only a grave threat to the freedom and privacy of the Chinese people and their ability to associate or communicate their freedom, but it also—to the degree that China is now exporting this technology to other authoritarian countries—allows them to perpetuate their autocratic rule. And this, under the masquerade of safety and security. So I think that this is a very dangerous trend when you compare—when you consider the Chinese totalitarian model, and you consider the Russian autocratic model, and you consider that autocrats are on the rise around the world. It is threatening to freedom-loving people all over the globe, and ultimately is threatening to us here at home. And you would hope, and I’m encouraged by the secretary’s statement, but as we have seen from time to time the secretary speaks for himself, and the national security advisor speaks for himself, and the U.N. ambassador speaks for themselves, and the president speaks for himself. And they don’t often accord with each other.
Our president has more typically—and China may be the outlier—found common cause with the autocrats and little in common with fellow democrats around the world. So I fully concur with the secretary said in that statement. And I think this is a grave concern that we need to be paying attention to. And it’s certainly hugely consequential for the Uighurs, but consequential for hundreds of millions of other citizens of China, and ultimately consequential for people around the world.
FEIST: What levers do you think the United States should use—should be using to try to impact China’s human rights record?
SCHIFF: Well, it has to be part of the agenda. And, you know, apart from the statement on the anniversary of Tiananmen Square, I’m not sure how much of this is actually on the agenda when we meet and talk with our Chinese counterparts. I’d be very surprised if any language like that is ever expressed by the secretary in his meetings with his Chinese counterparts, or by the president for that matter. And this doesn’t go unnoticed around the world. When the president calls Putin to congratulate him on an election, in which his opponent was effectively not allowed to run, and congratulates Erdogan on flawed elections in Turkey, or al-Sisi in Egypt, it sends a very clear message that human rights and democracy are really not even on the agenda. And so I think it has to be a priority in our meetings, our conversations, our interactions. I think we have to continue to press the issue. And I also think we need to do a far better job fighting back around the globe as China tries to export this technology.
I’m always struck when we have hearings in our committee on China, and we’ve been doing a deep dive on China in the Intel Committee. I would say that we spend more time focused on China just about anywhere else. You know, but for the Russian investigation, it would be more time than anywhere else. I’m continually struck by the fact that when we look at what China’s doing investing in its military, what China’s doing with its Belt and Road Initiative, and what China’s doing in terms of its diplomatic effort, as well as development assistance, what it’s doing in investment in R&D and technology, that you would think by comparison we’re a poor, impoverished country that can’t keep up with these Chinese investments. But we spend far more than China on defense, we just spend it very differently. And I really think that China is a very worthy rival. And we need to be rethinking how we’re spending our resources.
There’s no reason why China ought to be outspending us in development assistance or its Belt and Road Initiative. There’s no reason why it ought to be, you know, locking up mineral rights around the world while we sit on the sidelines. And, you know, I think we have to ask ourselves whether we’re still fighting the last war, and we’re not really investing the nation’s resource wisely to counter not just, you know, Chinese influence around the world, but most perniciously the export of these authoritarian ideas as well as technologies. The final thing I’ll say is, you know, China really has challenged one concept that I think we believed in, and maybe it was the failure of hope to triumph over experience, but the idea that with prosperity came liberalization, that you couldn’t maintain an authoritarian or totalitarian grip and have a robust economy, that the corruption that comes from state rule would inherently suppress economic growth.
But China’s found a way to grow and strengthen its grip on the lives of its people. So we cannot assume that this is a self-fulfilling prophecy anymore. And that, I think, ought to challenge us to think about more than laissez-faire in terms of how we deal with them.
FEIST: Well, to that end, the Trump administration has effectively banned Huawei technology to be used in the United States. The president says he is trying to get a fair trade deal with China, at the same time trying to force China to protect America’s intellectual property. Do you disagree with any of what the president’s doing along those lines?
SCHIFF: Well, I certainly agree with the strong steps taken against Huawei. And I certainly agree with taking strong steps to protect our intellectual property, and that many of the rules of the road in terms of our trade with China are deeply unfair. I don’t agree with much of anything about how the administration is trying to accomplish bringing about a fair trade situation with China, or protecting us from Chinese technologies that might threaten—
FEIST: Meaning the tariffs that the president has imposed? You don’t think that’s the proper approach?
SCHIFF: Well, meaning really across the whole board. And what I mean by that is if you look at Huawei, for example, the president announced very similar far-reaching sanctions on ZTE. Those lasted a week. And those were imposed on ZTE out of reasons of concern for privacy and espionage over the circumvention of sanctions on Iran and North Korea. They were announced with great fanfare. And then in a tweet, they were made to go away. There was never an explanation for why there was that complete and utter about-face. You know, there were reports at the same time that China had made a decision to invest half a billion in Trump-branded property in Indonesia, and maybe that was the reason. There was an effort to get China on board with North Korea sanctions, and maybe that was the reason. Who knows what the reason was?
But what we do know is that the president gave President Xi his top ask at the beginning of trade negotiations, which was relief for ZTE. Now, I don’t think, frankly, these security issues ought to be intermingled with the trade issues, because when they are it makes it look like it’s just protectionism. What’s being done to Huawei and what was done to ZTE is simply protectionism—when it’s not. At least, it shouldn’t be. And so I certainly don’t agree what they did to ZTE, or how they did it with ZTE, which remains a concern. But it has caused me, and I’m sure the Chinese and others, to wonder: Is he going to similarly cave on Huawei as part of the trade talks? And what’s more—
FEIST: Do you think he will?
SCHIFF: Honestly, I have no idea. I hope not. But I have no idea. You know, I will say this, I have the conviction, sadly, that as we get closer to 2020 and as his desperation for something he can call a victory with China becomes all the greater, he will sacrifice anything and everything he needs—including our security vis-à-vis Huawei, or anything else. So there will be a deal before 2020, even if it means he completely gives away the farm. And it will just be the usual kind of marketing ploy about how this is the greatest deal since sliced bread.
So—but there are real trade inequities with China that we ought to be pressing. But we ought to do it in a logical and rational way, which is anything but what’s happening. You know, I’ll give you a perfect illustration. I was in Seattle some months ago and talked with Amazon about China. Amazon’s competitor is able to freely operate in the United States. Amazon is not able to freely operate in China. Now, why we would allow that kind of situation to persist, I don’t know. That is a very clear-cut double standard that we ought to insist on equality of treatment. And we would be on very solid ground. But in the—in the haphazard way that we’ve been slapping tariffs here and there, and the Chinese have been responding, it’s hard to make heads or tails out of what the strategy is, except that it is very idiosyncratic, very kind of temperamentally motivated, and headed to a very inconclusive result.
FEIST: All right. I’d like to invite our members to join the conversation and to ask a question. Please raise your hand, state your name and affiliation, and remember these are questions, not comments. The best way to know it’s a question is to make sure your sentence ends with a question mark. (Laughter.) So we’ll start right over here. Yes, ma’am, in the second row.
Below is an extended excerpt from an interview with Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA),* Chairman, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence *
Schiff's comments accurately reflect the opinion of Democrats regarding China. Don't expect any Democrat presidential candidate to offer anything different.
When it comes to China the only difference between Democrats and Republicans, progressives, conservatives, and Trumpsters is tactical, not strategic.
Friends of China should have no illusions about where Democrats stand. They are as rabidly anti-China as can be. Their media sycophants at the NYT, WaPo, MSNBC and CNN are as disingenuous and dishonest as FOX and other Trump supporting media.
None of this is anything new. We all know it. But it is worth repeating.
FEIST: I want to shift gears a little bit, Congressman. I think it’s appropriate, we are here at the Council on Foreign Relations today on the thirtieth anniversary of the—of Tiananmen Square. And I know you’ve spoken out forcefully about China and the human rights record. Last night at 12:01 a.m. Beijing time the secretary of state put out a statement. Here’s—and I thought I’d read a little bit of what he said. Put out a statement and said: Over the decades that followed Tiananmen Square, the United States had hoped that China’s integration into the international system would lead to a more open, tolerant society. Those hopes have been dashed, he said—he write. China’s one-party state tolerates no dissent and abuses human rights whenever it serves its interests. Today, Chinese citizens have been subjected to a new wave of abuses, especially in Xinjiang, where the Communist Party leadership is methodically attempting to strangle the Uighur culture and stamp out the Islamic faith, including through the detention of more than a million members of Muslim minority groups. It was a tough statement. That statement sounds like it could have come from Adam Schiff.
SCHIFF: I was going to say this is a rare bit of agreement between the secretary and myself. I think that—and, actually, the very first hearing that we had on the Intel Committee when I became chair was not on Russia, or not on Russia alone, it was on the rise of authoritarianism around the world. And China’s a very dangerous and influential part of that trend. It’s certainly true that, you know, Russia has been undermining democracies in Europe and elsewhere. But China has been undermining democracy in a very different way. China’s been undermining democracy in a—in a powerful, technological way, with the promulgation of these so-called safe cities and the safe-city technology where CCTV cameras are ubiquitous. And Chinese citizens now are facially recognized by the software in these cameras. That ties into a database that includes information about their social scores, their credit history, their use of social media.
It is big brother come to life. And this is obviously not only a grave threat to the freedom and privacy of the Chinese people and their ability to associate or communicate their freedom, but it also—to the degree that China is now exporting this technology to other authoritarian countries—allows them to perpetuate their autocratic rule. And this, under the masquerade of safety and security. So I think that this is a very dangerous trend when you compare—when you consider the Chinese totalitarian model, and you consider the Russian autocratic model, and you consider that autocrats are on the rise around the world. It is threatening to freedom-loving people all over the globe, and ultimately is threatening to us here at home. And you would hope, and I’m encouraged by the secretary’s statement, but as we have seen from time to time the secretary speaks for himself, and the national security advisor speaks for himself, and the U.N. ambassador speaks for themselves, and the president speaks for himself. And they don’t often accord with each other.
Our president has more typically—and China may be the outlier—found common cause with the autocrats and little in common with fellow democrats around the world. So I fully concur with the secretary said in that statement. And I think this is a grave concern that we need to be paying attention to. And it’s certainly hugely consequential for the Uighurs, but consequential for hundreds of millions of other citizens of China, and ultimately consequential for people around the world.
FEIST: What levers do you think the United States should use—should be using to try to impact China’s human rights record?
SCHIFF: Well, it has to be part of the agenda. And, you know, apart from the statement on the anniversary of Tiananmen Square, I’m not sure how much of this is actually on the agenda when we meet and talk with our Chinese counterparts. I’d be very surprised if any language like that is ever expressed by the secretary in his meetings with his Chinese counterparts, or by the president for that matter. And this doesn’t go unnoticed around the world. When the president calls Putin to congratulate him on an election, in which his opponent was effectively not allowed to run, and congratulates Erdogan on flawed elections in Turkey, or al-Sisi in Egypt, it sends a very clear message that human rights and democracy are really not even on the agenda. And so I think it has to be a priority in our meetings, our conversations, our interactions. I think we have to continue to press the issue. And I also think we need to do a far better job fighting back around the globe as China tries to export this technology.
I’m always struck when we have hearings in our committee on China, and we’ve been doing a deep dive on China in the Intel Committee. I would say that we spend more time focused on China just about anywhere else. You know, but for the Russian investigation, it would be more time than anywhere else. I’m continually struck by the fact that when we look at what China’s doing investing in its military, what China’s doing with its Belt and Road Initiative, and what China’s doing in terms of its diplomatic effort, as well as development assistance, what it’s doing in investment in R&D and technology, that you would think by comparison we’re a poor, impoverished country that can’t keep up with these Chinese investments. But we spend far more than China on defense, we just spend it very differently. And I really think that China is a very worthy rival. And we need to be rethinking how we’re spending our resources.
There’s no reason why China ought to be outspending us in development assistance or its Belt and Road Initiative. There’s no reason why it ought to be, you know, locking up mineral rights around the world while we sit on the sidelines. And, you know, I think we have to ask ourselves whether we’re still fighting the last war, and we’re not really investing the nation’s resource wisely to counter not just, you know, Chinese influence around the world, but most perniciously the export of these authoritarian ideas as well as technologies. The final thing I’ll say is, you know, China really has challenged one concept that I think we believed in, and maybe it was the failure of hope to triumph over experience, but the idea that with prosperity came liberalization, that you couldn’t maintain an authoritarian or totalitarian grip and have a robust economy, that the corruption that comes from state rule would inherently suppress economic growth.
But China’s found a way to grow and strengthen its grip on the lives of its people. So we cannot assume that this is a self-fulfilling prophecy anymore. And that, I think, ought to challenge us to think about more than laissez-faire in terms of how we deal with them.
FEIST: Well, to that end, the Trump administration has effectively banned Huawei technology to be used in the United States. The president says he is trying to get a fair trade deal with China, at the same time trying to force China to protect America’s intellectual property. Do you disagree with any of what the president’s doing along those lines?
SCHIFF: Well, I certainly agree with the strong steps taken against Huawei. And I certainly agree with taking strong steps to protect our intellectual property, and that many of the rules of the road in terms of our trade with China are deeply unfair. I don’t agree with much of anything about how the administration is trying to accomplish bringing about a fair trade situation with China, or protecting us from Chinese technologies that might threaten—
FEIST: Meaning the tariffs that the president has imposed? You don’t think that’s the proper approach?
SCHIFF: Well, meaning really across the whole board. And what I mean by that is if you look at Huawei, for example, the president announced very similar far-reaching sanctions on ZTE. Those lasted a week. And those were imposed on ZTE out of reasons of concern for privacy and espionage over the circumvention of sanctions on Iran and North Korea. They were announced with great fanfare. And then in a tweet, they were made to go away. There was never an explanation for why there was that complete and utter about-face. You know, there were reports at the same time that China had made a decision to invest half a billion in Trump-branded property in Indonesia, and maybe that was the reason. There was an effort to get China on board with North Korea sanctions, and maybe that was the reason. Who knows what the reason was?
But what we do know is that the president gave President Xi his top ask at the beginning of trade negotiations, which was relief for ZTE. Now, I don’t think, frankly, these security issues ought to be intermingled with the trade issues, because when they are it makes it look like it’s just protectionism. What’s being done to Huawei and what was done to ZTE is simply protectionism—when it’s not. At least, it shouldn’t be. And so I certainly don’t agree what they did to ZTE, or how they did it with ZTE, which remains a concern. But it has caused me, and I’m sure the Chinese and others, to wonder: Is he going to similarly cave on Huawei as part of the trade talks? And what’s more—
FEIST: Do you think he will?
SCHIFF: Honestly, I have no idea. I hope not. But I have no idea. You know, I will say this, I have the conviction, sadly, that as we get closer to 2020 and as his desperation for something he can call a victory with China becomes all the greater, he will sacrifice anything and everything he needs—including our security vis-à-vis Huawei, or anything else. So there will be a deal before 2020, even if it means he completely gives away the farm. And it will just be the usual kind of marketing ploy about how this is the greatest deal since sliced bread.
So—but there are real trade inequities with China that we ought to be pressing. But we ought to do it in a logical and rational way, which is anything but what’s happening. You know, I’ll give you a perfect illustration. I was in Seattle some months ago and talked with Amazon about China. Amazon’s competitor is able to freely operate in the United States. Amazon is not able to freely operate in China. Now, why we would allow that kind of situation to persist, I don’t know. That is a very clear-cut double standard that we ought to insist on equality of treatment. And we would be on very solid ground. But in the—in the haphazard way that we’ve been slapping tariffs here and there, and the Chinese have been responding, it’s hard to make heads or tails out of what the strategy is, except that it is very idiosyncratic, very kind of temperamentally motivated, and headed to a very inconclusive result.
FEIST: All right. I’d like to invite our members to join the conversation and to ask a question. Please raise your hand, state your name and affiliation, and remember these are questions, not comments. The best way to know it’s a question is to make sure your sentence ends with a question mark. (Laughter.) So we’ll start right over here. Yes, ma’am, in the second row.
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