Morning Wire XX
[0] China is positioning itself to displace America as the world's lone superpower.
[1] But an explosive new documentary alleges that much of Beijing's rise has been fueled by American elites.
[2] We speak to the filmmaker about what's happening in China and why Americans should be concerned.
[3] I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire, editor -in -chief John Bickley.
[4] It's February 19, and this is your Saturday edition of Morning Wire.
[5] A member of Parliament in Finland is standing trial for statements she made about homosexuality.
[6] She says she was endorsing biblical morality, but the state has charged her with ethnic agitation.
[7] How will the religious freedom case play out in the Nordic country, and what does it mean for religious freedom in the West?
[8] And in 2020, President Trump signed a trade deal with China, agreeing that the communist country would purchase $500 billion in U .S. goods over two years.
[9] Now, two years later, China has flouted that deal.
[10] Why is China's purchasing fallen behind?
[11] And what does the Biden administration saying about it?
[12] Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.
[13] Stay tuned.
[14] We have the news you need to know.
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[19] The Chinese Communist Party has expanded its military, economy, and international outreach to poise itself as a long -term strategic threat to U .S. power.
[20] But a new investigative documentary series produced by The Daily Wire says much of China's rise has taken place with the help of American leaders.
[21] Daily Wire's media reporter Ben Johnson spoke with the filmmaker and brings us an inside peak.
[22] Good morning, Ben.
[23] Good morning, John.
[24] So, Ben, you watched this new documentary, China, the enemy within.
[25] What's its main message?
[26] The message is that China's rise to power is made already powerful people in the U .S. even more powerful.
[27] The series says that America's political, financial, and academic elites have sold out the American middle class in exchange for personal enrichment.
[28] No one doubts that China has malign intentions, but the series documents how pivotal institutions and decision makers actively undermine policies that would strengthen national security and the American middle class because it suits their interests.
[29] I spoke of its filmmaker Lee Smith, who identified the people he branded the enemy within.
[30] The enemy within is the main enemy.
[31] That is the American oligarchy.
[32] We're talking, sweeping across everything from big tech to the NBA, Hollywood, the entire cultural apparatus of the United States.
[33] So it's not just the NBA in Hollywood.
[34] It would also include the art world, which makes a tremendous amount of money off of China.
[35] What we're describing here, we're describing an enormous network of American elites who draw their wealth, power, and prestige from their relationship with the Chinese Communist Party.
[36] So Smith says American elites benefit economically from their relationship with China.
[37] How so?
[38] Well, in a few different ways.
[39] The Davos crowd sees China as a source of cheap labor, but increasingly it's become a billion -person strong market for their products.
[40] All of this requires the permission to the Chinese communist government.
[41] Smith argues that China's monopoly on sensitive industries could one day have a dire impact on American national security.
[42] If we were ever in the middle of a conflict, say, a real shooting war with the Chinese Communist Party and all of our pharmaceuticals, including penicillin, are made in China, I mean, what does that mean for the national security of the United States?
[43] It means that we are extraordinarily vulnerable.
[44] Smith also mentioned academia.
[45] Both Georgia and I spent some time in academia.
[46] How does he see that cutting against U .S. U .S. interests.
[47] First of all, China's bribed American professors from places like Harvard with as much as $50 ,000 a month for sensitive dual -use technology.
[48] They also have spies like Fang Fang, who masqueraded as exchange students.
[49] Colleges benefit from increased tuition from those exchange students, and U .S. corporations often hire them because they can pay them less than American graduates.
[50] Smith says the federal government simply lacks the resources to track all the potential threats.
[51] Let's say the FBI is actually doing its job, focusing on criminal enterprises and foreign threats within the United States.
[52] At 13 ,000 agents, that's not enough to cover the hundreds of thousands of Chinese student visa holders there are in the United States.
[53] Why did that happen?
[54] Because of a combination of corporate interests, mostly big tech, as well as the universities, as well as American legislators, providing more and more visas so that corporations could hire foreign students on the teeth.
[55] Now, Lee highlights the medical establishment.
[56] Who does he have in mind there?
[57] Well, none other than Dr. Anthony Fauci.
[58] After President Barack Obama placed a moratorium on research about how to make animal viruses more transmissible to humans, Smith says that Fauci used U .S. grant money to fund controversial research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
[59] Scientists can't say with certainty that the virus originated there, in part because China's refused to be transparent about it.
[60] But the lab remains what many believe to be the most likely source.
[61] We're almost out of time, but what were some of the other threats he raised in the series?
[62] He points out connections that the CCP has established from entertainment, politics, academia, Hollywood, sports, particularly the NBA and the Olympics.
[63] It's a comprehensive indictment of the American ruling classes' indifference to Americans, their desire to hollow out the American middle class, and their solicitous posture toward China.
[64] which is making them rich.
[65] Well, this is a complex and increasingly relevant topic Smith has taken on here.
[66] It definitely is.
[67] Thanks for talking with us, Ben.
[68] Always a pleasure.
[69] That was DailyWire's Ben Johnson.
[70] And if you want to watch the documentary, The Enemy Within, visit dailywire .com.
[71] Coming up, a political leader in Finland is standing trial for her comments about homosexuality.
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[76] A member of Parliament in Finland is standing trial for her comments about homosexuality, which she says are consistent with her Christian beliefs.
[77] The landmark religious freedom case will determine whether citing the Bible can be deemed criminal in certain instances in the Nordic country.
[78] Here with more on the trial is Daily Wire's Cabot Phillips.
[79] So Cabot both religious freedom and free speech at issue here.
[80] What can you tell us about this case?
[81] Yeah, the trial revolves around Dr. Piva Rassanen, a leader of Finland's Christian Democrat Party and the country's former minister of the interior.
[82] The charges against her stem from a series of comments that she's made over the last two decades regarding homosexuality.
[83] In a 2004 church pamphlet, for example, she called homosexuality a developmental disorder.
[84] And then in 2019, she criticized the Lutheran Church for partnering with LGBT pride events, saying they contradicted the Bible.
[85] And she also posted a tweet, quoting Romans chapter one from the Bible, which refers to homosexuality as a sin.
[86] It was soon after that that she was reported to finish authorities, and an investigation was launched, and now she's on trial for three separate charges.
[87] So what law exactly did she break?
[88] Yeah, so the specific law in question was passed in 2011, and it centers around so -called ethnic agitation.
[89] It states that any person expressing an opinion or message that, quote, threatens, defames, or insults someone based on their race, disability, or in this case, sexual orientation, would be subject to fine or a prison sentence up to two years.
[90] Now, it's worth noting prosecutors are not only considering prison time and fines, but they're also seeking to have radio interviews in which she talked about homosexuality removed from various platforms in the country.
[91] So there's also a censorship angle here as well.
[92] How has Rosanna responded to this point?
[93] She's standing her ground.
[94] After charges were announced, she issued a statement saying, quote, I will defend my right to confess my faith so that no one else would be deprived of their right to freedom of religion and speech.
[95] She also urged more Christians to join her in the cause saying, quote, the more Christians keep silent on controversial themes, the narrower the space for freedom of speech gets.
[96] In one interview with Alliance Defending Freedom, that's the non -prime, representing her in court, she talks about how during one police interrogation, a Bible was opened, and she was forced to give her opinions on certain verses containing references to homosexuality.
[97] The police asked me questions about my beliefs.
[98] What do you think about what Apostle Paul is here teaching?
[99] What you think about this verse, these verses where he speaks about homosexual acts?
[100] She also called for support abroad, saying it's not just about Finland, and that these types of laws will inevitably trickle out into the rest of the world.
[101] Yeah, to that point, what sort of response have we seen from the international community?
[102] There have been demonstrations in support of Rassanin throughout Finland, and even here in America, multiple congressmen led by Chip Roy of Texas, have actually called for sanctions against the Finnish government for what they view as human rights violations.
[103] And more broadly, to her point about this not just impacting Finland, we've already seen similar free speech cases in Canada and the UK, and the United Nations itself has expressed support for this specific law in the past.
[104] A year after it went into effect, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination held a hearing where they praised the bill as, quote, an extremely positive program for fighting what they called bigotry.
[105] So there does seem to be a growing conflict here between so -called hate speech laws and freedom of religion and expression.
[106] This is probably just the tip of the iceberg.
[107] Yeah, it seems like this type of story is going to become just more common as the years go by.
[108] Cabot, thanks for the reporting.
[109] Anytime.
[110] That's DailyWire's Cabot Phillips.
[111] Two years ago, former President Donald Trump signed a multi -billion dollar trade deal with China.
[112] But recent data seems to suggest that China didn't follow through.
[113] Here to tell us more is DailyWire's Ian Howarth.
[114] So, Ian, what do we know about this so far?
[115] Well, according to a new study, China has failed to live up to its promise to spend $200 billion more on U .S. goods and services under the Phase 1 trade deal made two years ago during the Trump administration.
[116] In fact, they didn't even spend one extra dollar.
[117] Under the agreement, China said it would buy at least $27 .9 billion of U .S. exports in 2020, which would increase to $274 .5 billion in 2021.
[118] This would be a total of over $500 billion over two years, But in reality, China only purchased just over half that amount.
[119] Trump celebrated this trade deal in January of 2020, saying that it would be welcome news for many U .S. industries, including agriculture.
[120] The agreement tears down major market barriers for U .S. food and agricultural exports.
[121] China will now welcome American beef and pork, poultry, seafood, rice, dairy, infant formula, animal feed, biotechnology, and much, much more.
[122] And now the Biden administration is criticizing the deal, calling it, quote, unrealistic and lacking a way to hold China accountable.
[123] But then White House official Brian D spoke on CNN and said that the Biden administration would hold China accountable for their commitments, but didn't explain what they would do differently.
[124] We're taking a different approach.
[125] Number one, holding China accountable where they have made commitments to say, if you're not going to live up to these commitments, then we need to take a different approach.
[126] but number two, to really focus on those areas where Chinese action is posing strategic threats to our economy.
[127] Another point here is that the phase one agreement didn't include any repercussions for China if it failed to live up to his promises.
[128] And President Biden is referencing this as a reason why he's leaving Trump's tariffs on Chinese made goods in place.
[129] So why did China fail to live up to their agreement?
[130] Well, there are a few reasons for this.
[131] One is that the trade war, which led up to the agreement, meant that U .S. export were already behind.
[132] Another factor surrounds the fatal crashes of two Boeing 737 Max planes, which halted production with China also canceling orders.
[133] Then, of course, there's the COVID -19 pandemic with massive impact on exports, travel and education.
[134] But we also shouldn't discount the notion that China has its own economic ambitions on the world stage, and importing U .S. products at the rates the Trump or Biden administrations would want is unlikely to be part of their plans for expansion.
[135] However, according to Chad Brown of the Peterson and Institute for International Economics who carried out this research, the deal wasn't a total failure, even though China did fail to live up to their commitments.
[136] He said, quote, the deal did halt his spiraling trade war, and several of its elements should be kept, notably China's commitments to remove technical barriers to U .S. farm exports, respect intellectual property, and open up its financial services sector.
[137] So what does this mean for the economy over here and the U .S. relationship with China?
[138] Well, U .S. officials are called.
[139] calling for, quote, concrete action from China and saying that their patience is, quote, wearing thin.
[140] So this is certainly not helping the already strained relationship.
[141] And in terms of the economy, with the U .S. economy really struggling right now, as we've discussed on multiple occasions, it goes without saying that China's failure to buy American products will have a knock -on effect, both in terms of raw trade, but also jobs.
[142] Ian, thanks for the insight.
[143] Thanks, Georgia.
[144] That's Daily Wires, Ian Howarth.
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