Commenting on President Donald Trump’s upcoming meeting with China’s president Xi Jinping next week, author and investigative journalist Peter Schweizer said, “China’s interest is in destabilizing regions around the world that the United States and our allies would prefer to remain stable.”
Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute, has written three books on China’s efforts to subvert the US. His most recent book, the #1 New York Times bestseller The Invisible Coup, revealed how China has weaponized America’s immigration system.
“We need to recognize that we have to apply maximum pressure,” he told Brian Kilmeade of Fox News, who was guest-hosting the Ingraham Angle program on Friday.
Xi’s track record of breaking previous agreements regarding Iran, North Korea, or with American tech companies like Honeywell and Intel is the rule, not the exception, when he negotiates with American presidents, Schweizer stressed, adding that Trump’s own reputation for toughness in negotiations will be tested.
“If you look at the advances that President Trump has made in the developing world, whether in Venezuela or Iran – these are key allies of China. Trump has demonstrated over and over again that he comes from a position of strength,” Schweizer said.
Direct negotiations with China, however, are a special challenge, led by the notoriously ruthless President Xi. Most recently, China’s Commerce Ministry ordered Chinese firms to defy US sanctions on Iranian oil.
Citing research in his most recent book, as well as his previous books Blood Money and Red Handed, Schweizer described Xi’s ruthlessness.
“This is a guy whose father, at age 14, tried to poison his teacher because he wasn’t sufficiently revolutionary,” Schweizer told Kilmeade. “President Xi thinks that’s an admirable quality. President Xi’s wife, who is a famous singer in China, notoriously serenaded the troops who participated in the Tiananmen Square massacre. So, they’re very tough.”
Trump, he added, can be tough, too. “Remember their first meeting at Mar-A-Lago in 2017. They were dining, and President Trump talked about how terrific the chocolate cake was. Them, he explained that he was bombing ISIS targets in the Middle East,” Schweizer recalled. “He cannot be lured into these commercial deals, and they never work out with China.”
Schweizer warned that the commercial temptations Beijing will dangle at upcoming summit are a proven trap and concluded that only maximum diplomatic and technological pressure is the only viable strategy. The American companies who made deals ended up on the short end of the stick once those agreements were signed.
“They all got totally screwed in the end, Brian. And that behavior is not going to change,” Schweizer said.
