Rep. Gimenez: U.S. Must 'Decouple' From China Because 'We Are Feeding This Dragon'
(CNSNews.com) - As she often does, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre refused to answer a question at Wednesday's press briefing, this one about Chinese President Xi telling Russian President Putin that "change is coming that hasn't happened in 100 years" and "we are driving this change together."
"What do you think that means?" Fox News's Peter Doocy asked Jean-Pierre:
"You would have to ask them," she responded.
On Thursday morning, Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.) -- a member of the new House select committee on China -- said he has no doubt what Xi meant:
"Change is coming means that China will become the dominant economic and military power in the world, and so that change is not going to good for the United States. That's a pretty easy answer," he said.
Gimenez said the U.S. must "decouple" from China because "we are feeding this dragon."
"We've made this dragon what it is, and we need to put this dragon on a diet in order for them to feel the squeeze and also to stop funding the build-up, the unprecedented military buildup that China is doing in order to supplant the United States as the dominant economic and military power of the world.
"Now, Russia is going to be used as one of China's pawns in this...They used to be the major partner with China. Now they're the minor partner, and Putin has to do what XI says or else, you know, he's not going to buy his oil and his gas and not fund the war in Ukraine and other things that Putin wants to do.
"And so, yeah, it's pretty easy for me to answer that question. The change is, China is going to be dominant, we're not."
Gimenez said the U.S. should "incentivize" American companies to come back to the United States -- or at least to our own hemisphere:
"There's plenty of good, cheap labor down in South America," he said.
"We need to look at our neighbors to the south as a solution to this problem of the supply chain. And, unfortunately, we have been looking to the Far East for that. We need to come back home.
"And, again, put this dragon on a diet, because it's needed, and we can't continue to feed the dragon that eventually is going to gobble us up. And we need to face that, and we need to face it right now."
Gimenez noted that the U.S., by making China a trading partner and introducing capitalism into the communist system, acted in the belief that we could change China:
"Yeah, they changed all right. We made them stronger," Giminez said:
"We made the Chinese Communist Party stronger. Politically they haven't changed at all. They are persecuting their own people. They are committing genocide. Unfortunately, American companies have, you know, made excuses for them.
"It's time that stops. It's time for these companies to come back to America."
NSC Spokesman John Kirby: ‘In Some Cases, We Have Significant Concerns About China’s Behavior’
(CNSNews.com) - The Biden administration has “significant concerns” in some cases about China’s behavior when it comes to abiding by the international rules of the road, NSC spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin are meeting on Tuesday in Moscow.
Fox News White House Correspondent Peter Doocy asked, “Quickly about the meeting today, the Xi-Putin meeting. In November when President Biden met with Xi, he said, I want to make sure that every country abides by the international rules of the road. Does he think China is abiding by the international rules of the road?”
KIRBY: In some cases, we have significant concerns about China’s behavior, particularly their coercive and aggressive behavior for instance in the South China Sea and pursuing false maritime claims, concerns about intellectual theft, and some trade practices, and the president’s been very open and honest about that, and he was when they met in Bali, but there are other areas where we believe there’s room for cooperation with China, and we want to be able to pursue that too, but in order to do that, Peter, you got to keep those lines of communication open.
You gotta have that ability to talk particularly when things are tense like they are right now, and that’s what the president wants to get back to.
Doocy asked about the COVID-19 Origin Act of 202 (S.618), which Biden signed on Monday.
The president said in a statement:
Today, I am pleased to sign into law S. 619, the “COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023.” I share the Congress’s goal of releasing as much information as possible about the origin of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID–19). In 2021, I directed the Intelligence Community to use every tool at its disposal to investigate the origin of COVID-19, and that work is ongoing. We need to get to the bottom of COVID-19’s origins to help ensure we can better prevent future pandemics. My Administration will continue to review all classified information relating to COVID–19’s origins, including potential links to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. In implementing this legislation, my Administration will declassify and share as much of that information as possible, consistent with my constitutional authority to protect against the disclosure of information that would harm national security.
“About the bill President Biden signed yesterday, he says he will declassify COVID origins intel except info that would harm national security. Is there a bigger national security threat than something that killed 1.1 million people in this country?” Doocy asked.
KIRBY: I’ve seen some of the commentary on your network about this. The president obviously has to balance transparency with national security, Peter. Of course he does. When coming into office, ordered the declassification of what the DNI had on COVID origins, ordered the entire intelligence community and added the Department of Energy to that list–
DOOCY: Where is it?
KIRBY: Let me finish my answer.
DOOCY: We’re talking about the beginning of his term.
KIRBY: Added the Department of Energy and national labs, told them to keep studying it. We have kept Congress informed. Some of that has to be in a classified way right now, but it’s always a balance between the public’s right to know, right - not need, right - and our obligation to protect national security.
So one should not read into that statement that he’s sort of laying a foundation here to be overly secretive. He believes strongly that we’ve got to find the roots and the origins of COVID so that we can prevent a future pandemic, and through his actions, just judging him on what he’s done, through his actions, he’s proven that he’s going to be as transparent as possible with the American people, because he believes that’s important.
DOOCY: Does the White House hope that the lab leak theory is not true?
KIRBY: We don’t have a hope one way or the other, Peter. What we want is the ground truth, wherever that takes us, wherever the science takes you, wherever the facts takes you. President Biden wants to know so that he can help work with the scientific community to prevent a future pandemic. We’re not– there’s no thumb on the scale here, Peter. It’s not about not wanting a certain outcome. We just want the best possible outcome that we can get.
The annual death toll from fentanyl poisoning among Americans now equals the annual death toll of American soldiers in World War II. But Biden has made no effort to deter the Chinese from poisoning Americans citizens by, for example, ending the subsidies we provide to their economy or revoking China’s Most Favored Nation trade status (PERPETRATED BY DIANNE FEINSTEIN), or closing all the Confucius Institutes in our universities set up to steal our technologies. From the Chinese Communist point of view, this alone would be worth the tens of millions of dollars they have poured into the Bidens’ pockets. DAVID HOROWITZ
For starters, let's define the "fentanyl crises" for what it really is: Chemical warfare, effectively perpetrated on the American people by the Chinese communist government and their Mexican-cartel allies. This administration's open border, which is clearly an intentional policy, marks Biden and Harris as co-conspirators in what's arguably the CCP's chemical-weapons assault on U.S. citizens. RICHARD MORSE
Democrats Focus on Woke Grievances During TikTok Hearing, Not National Security
While most lawmakers focused on TikTok’s ties to communist China at today’s hearing with its CEO, Shou Zi Chew, Congresswomen Doris Matsui (D-CA) and Yvette Clarke (D-NY) focused on what, for them, appeared to be a more important priority: stopping algorithms from becoming racist.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee called the hearing amid widespread concerns on Capitol Hill that TikTok, the product of Chinese company ByteDance, represents a national security risk to the United States.
WASHINGTON, DC – FEBRUARY 14: TikTok CEO, Shou Zi Chew is interviewed at offices the company uses on Tuesday February 14, 2023 in Washington, DC.(Photo by Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
While committee member Rep. Matsui briefly acknowledged the China issue, the bulk of her remarks focused on woke grievances about racist algorithms.
“Make no mistake, the Chinese government represents a real and immediate threat. Look no further than the vulnerable gear still in our telecom networks that still needs to be ripped and replaced.”
“But we can’t lose sight of the important internet governance issues TikTok and other social media companies represent. I’m especially committed to demanding transparency from large platforms about the algorithms that shape our online interactions, especially for teenagers and young users.”
“And that’s why I introduced the Algorithmic Justice and Online Platform Transparency Act, to bring greater visibility into this ecosystem. My bill would prohibit algorithms that discriminate on the basis of race, age, gender, ability, and other protected characteristics.”
“This bill would require online platforms to publish annual public reports detailing their content moderation practices, which I believe should be a baseline requirement to establish meaningful oversight and consumer choice.”
The bill, which Rep. Matsui co-sponsored with far-left Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), would create an inter-agency task force consisting of the FTC, Department of Education, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Commerce, and Department of Justice, to investigate “discriminatory algorithmic processes.”
Rep. Matsui also advanced a common talking point used by the post-2016 online censorship machine: that social media is responsible for fueling “political extremism.”
“Over the past few years, alarming information brought to light by whistleblowers have shown that social media companies are intimately aware of the effect their products have on young women, political extremism, and more. Despite this, they withheld those studies or declined to investigate further. In either case, it shows a pattern of evasive or negligent behavior that I find concerning or extreme.”
Speaking later in the hearing, New York congresswoman Rep. Yvette Clarke expressed similar woke concerns.
“The problems of social media platforms’ content moderation, algorithmic discrimination and safety are neither new nor unique to TikTok.”
“I share the concerns raised by my colleague, Congresswoman Matsui, related to algorithms. I believe that without mitigation against bias, platforms will continue to replicate, exacerbate discrimination that is illegal under civil rights law, as well as exclude important dialogue about sensitive topics like race from occurring on the platform.”
Rep. Clarke went on to ask the TikTok CEO whether he agreed that there should be transparency requirements for social media platforms to “identify whether policies have a disparate impact on communities that are protected classes, like race, religion, national origin, or gender.”
“It is vital that the diverse culture of the United States is represented online,” said Clarke, alsostating that social media platforms like TikTok need to do better at removing “hate speech” and “domestic terrorism” — a label increasingly applied by Democrats to Trump supporters.
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.
