American Thought Leaders - How the CCP Is Turning America Against Itself | Tianliang Zhang

Episode Date: July 31, 2026

The values Americans hold dear—such as freedom of speech, religious liberty, and democratic elections—are weaponized by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), says Tianliang Zhang, an author, historian, and popular commentator on China affairs.In this episode, he argues that the CCP devised a master plan called “America against America” to exploit those very freedoms and openness in order to undermine U.S. interests.The concept was developed by Wang Huning in 1989, chairman of China’s top political advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).“But how to implement that, that’s the unrestricted war,” Zhang says.Unrestricted warfare is a CCP doctrine of leveraging everything as a tool of war, whether it be fentanyl, the media, or election integrity.How is this war waged in practice? The transnational repression targeting Falun Gong practitioners is one such example.The Falun Gong meditation practice was popular in China during the 1990s. An estimated 70 million to 100 million people took it up, crediting it for health benefits and mental well-being. In 1999, the CCP unleashed a nationwide persecution, subjecting the practitioners to various abuses, including slave labor and forced organ harvesting.“CCP sees it as [the] number one threat in its history … so they use American media, they use the freedom of speech here, they use the justice system here to persecute Falun Gong [practitioners],” Zhang said.The CCP’s goal, Zhang says, is to “eliminate all the independent thoughts” that do not conform to communist ideology.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

For 30 years, the Chinese regime has been trying to destroy America from the inside, using a little-known strategy. The Wang Hunings philosophy, America against America. So they use American media, they use the freedom of speech here, they use justice system. Today I sit down with author, historian, and popular China affairs commentator, Tian Liang Jiang. If there is a war between China and the United States, we need to buy our weapons from our enemy.

So, I mean, this is really, really scary just to think about it. His new film, China's stealth invasion, reveals how the Chinese Communist Party exploits democratic values and institutions against American interests. They talk about free market because that's the value you treasure. That's the value you feel like it's not disputable. And you have to follow the rule. But actually, they are not following the rules. So they are using your rules and to take advantage of you.

One useful case study of this strategy in action is the CCP's transnational campaign against the Falun Gong community in America. This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Yankeelek. Professor Chan Liang Jiang, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders. Thanks for having me. Recently, President Trump gave a speech about the 2020 election, about interference, published a series of documents that have been declassified and others. One of those packages focuses specifically on the Chinese Communist Party's efforts.

What do we know about how the Chinese Communist Party was involved in all this? I think it's not surprising at all. I guess back to 1998, so we have already known that Chinese military were spending money try to influence or to support a specific candidate. And I guess that pattern just continued. all the way up to here, up to now. The most surprising thing to me is that they have already stolen 220 million voters information from us.

So I think this is a very, very serious national security issue. I remember that the federal government wants to collect all the voter information from different states and decided we won't give you because we don't want it to be concentrated into one place and then it will be breached and somebody will steal that. But actually it happened, you know, actually China has already had that. And also, I read some news probably unverified. They said that Chinese, you know, people, they have manufactured a lot of driver's license, fake driver's license, and then ship it to America and then register them as voters. So I think this is a very, very alarming.

The bottom line, when you look through these documents around the Chinese Communist Party's role, what facts come out? Because there's a lot of discussion about this. It's kind of a mess. Even around this issue of the 220 million voter records, you hear there's some media that's not a big deal. Those are available, right? So what is it that these documents showed?

I think we can see clear intention that CCP wants to understand the voters, you know, their partisan choice. And also I think they are trying to look into their data and then see how they can manipulate their idea. I think nowadays with all this information on these social media platforms, it's very easy to target a specific person and, you know, Taylor the information that he can see and so that his opinion can be swayed. I think like I have seen some kind of experiment. They tried to manipulate about voters' opinion in the election in India. They did find it's very, very effective. And then people were manipulated without knowing.

And I think with all the data and also with the platform, the CCP controls like the TikTok. And also I believe they also heavily... infiltrate into other social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and they can change people's mind to vote the candidates that CCP favor. Well, one of the things that I did notice was that there were a number of documents saying that the Chinese Communist Party really didn't want President Trump reelected. Yeah, that's obvious. So probably CCP believe in that, you know, by the

is probably more easily manipulated and probably in their pocket. They know that President Trump is very, very tough on CCP, especially he started this tariff war or like the trade war with China. That never happened before Trump era. So I think CCP was kind of scared. And also the secretary, Pompeo, was also very, very tough to CCP. So I guess CCP was afraid that if Trump has the second term and with Mike Pompeo, CCP will be in a very, very hard position.

Well, the new Secretary of State is also, I mean, actually sanctioned technically. This is actually, there's kind of this interesting change in the language. Maybe you can remind us actually because the exact nature of this. But for Secretary Rubio to go to China, they actually altered the characters in this. name. Can you explain that? Yeah, that's very interesting because Marco Rubio, I guess CCP didn't never imagine that the second term of the Trump administration, they have an even tougher state secretary. Marco Rubio, actually, you know, he was sanctioned twice.

First time was on the Hong Kong issue, and then the second time was on the Xinjiang issue. He was sanctioned twice, and he was not supposed to go to China and not allowed. And then because he is now the state secretary and they have to allow him in and then they change his translation of his name. You know, same pronunciation but the change of the Chinese character. So this is a very subtle change. People really, you know, laugh about that. So this is a bit into your expertise.

They laugh about it, but like it just seems like it's not needed, right? Like they're letting him in. Like why would they do this? Explain to us the mentality here. Just to save their face, you know. So they feel like they have to allow him in, but like what will do? So you want to repeal the sanction or like you want to maintain there. Because if you repeal the sanction, it means like you were wrong.

You are surrendering and they don't want to give people such impression. So they just changed his translation, his name, you know, translation subtly. It's just, so it's like basically you're saying it's the most neutral way. the most face-saving thing they could do or something. Yeah, it's very awkward, so I have to say, and people can see that, but they still do that. You know, sometimes CCP will do something that looks very, very stupid, but they do it nonetheless.

So you can see, like, Xi Jinping, a lot of people mocked him, you know, as like, because his actual a diploma is like just a graduate from an elementary school. But meanwhile, he's holding a PhD degree from Chin Hua University. So, but from what he said, you know, in public speech, he, many, many times he read the Chinese characters with a wrong pronunciation. And it seems like he was not very well educated. But on the other hand, you can see he published tens, maybe dozens of books of his thoughts.

south and he can get his PhD when he was working, you know, a busy, very, very busy position, but he can still get this PhD. So you can see that, you know, this is an obvious academic corruption, but he still do that. I remember that he went to Russia, he went to France and some other countries, and he gave a speech by just reading a list of books he has ever read. This is a long, long list. So people just mocked him. But he did it nonetheless. Yeah. And so because why?

I think he did it just because his secretary gave the list, gave the speech to him. I don't think he even read it before the speech. He just read it. So sometimes when you see his speech, probably also AI made, but they just mark some difficult Chinese characters. with a different Chinese character, but with the same pronunciation.

And then when he read it, they make sure that he doesn't read it wrong. Fascinating. You introduced me to the book, America Against America. And of course, this is featured in your new film. But tell me what is America against America? What is it? When did it come out? And how does it relate to this election interference you've been discussing?

Okay, so this book was authored by Wang Huning, who is the mastermind behind the three generations of CCP leaders, from Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao and to Wang Huning. He basically came up with like three-step strategy. The first step was during the Jiang Zemin era. At that time, you know, it was right after all those Tianmen massacre and also all those sanctions. So CCP was very weak and then has a very negative view all over the world. At that time, you know, so the basic idea is to hide your strength and buy your time. Right.

Deng Xiaoping's kind of maxim. Right, yeah. You know, after the Tianman massacre, so we see like the Cold War finished, you know, Bordian War was torn down and also Soviet Union was dissolved. And CCP's idea, because at that time they were both very weak. militarily and economically, and they want to make friends. So when you see, like, whenever CCP is very, very, very weak, they're trying to make friends. I remember in 1939, so CCP published a book called a communist.

And the opening remark was given by Mao Zedong, by Mao. And Mao said, we had three magical weapons. The first one is, the party building, so basically to build solidarity. And then the second one was armed struggle. It means like we will never give up violence. And the third one is called the United Front work. So because CCP was very weak at that time, and they always say, like, America is our best friend,

and we admire what Americans have achieved, and we really like their system. We really like democracy. And they published a lot of it. of a lot of articles at that time, promoting democracy, praising America. So they did it for like 10 years from 1939 to 1940 in their official, like the mousepiece of the Chinese Communist Party. And interestingly, like in 1999, 50 years after CCP became, you know, the ruling party

of the country. And the people found, you know, dig out all those articles. articles and republished that. And they called it like the pioneer voice or the pilot voice of the history. So basically they re-published what CCP published 50 years ago, but then that book was immediately banned. So from that story you can tell, like whatever CCP said, it doesn't count. You know, so even they signed the joint statement with the UK about, you know, Hong Kong status. They talk about one country to system.

But in 2020, and they passed the so-called the national security law, and then they said, okay, so the statement we signed with UK now is a document in the history, so basically it doesn't count. So basically, when CCP is very, very weak, and they try to make itself look good in other people's eyes, and they try to make friends, and they try to capture some elites to support them. So this is called the United Front work. And this is also the exact strategy Wang Huning invented, you know, for Jiang Zemin. They called the three represents. I don't know whether you heard of that. It means like you're trying to make friends with everybody,

you know, like a capitalist with like a foreign governments. You try to make friends with everyone. And then when Hu Jintao became the leader of CCP, that was in 2002. A very, very important happened the year before, that was 2001, and China joined the WTO. And suddenly all the tariff barrier was removed, and then CCP became the powerhouse, became the powerhouse of the manufacturers. So basically, they can produce all those very cheap stuff and then flood into other country, and then basically destroyed other countries, the factories and also jobs. So this is the second phase.

And Wang Hunan called it, called a scientific development. It means like we are developing our country in a scientific way. And then after 10 years, it came to 2012, and then Xi Jinping became the leader of the CCP. And at that time, Xi Jinping felt like we are strong enough, so we don't need to hide our stress. And now we can openly tell the world that we will be the dollar. be the dominant force of the world. So basically he talked about the community of shared the future of humanities. So he means like we need to change the international or like the world order, which was established

by the United States after World War II. And now since we want to be at least a peer force, like peer power of America. You know, by achieving this, you can see, like, Wang Huning has been using the idea like America against America. Because like during the first phase, and we are using the so-called like the free market, and we use like the diplomacy to buy the time. But basically, when you talk about the free market, it seems like nobody here will be against that, right?

But then they are actually not free market. market because the CCP was stealing intellectual properties and CCP was like polluting the environment. And so they used kind of the national allowance to give it to all those factories or all those research centers to divide their own product and then dump it into other countries. When you look at a very specific example is like Huawei, you know. So Huawei used to be very, very weak. But then we say, oh, we have such large country, we have such a large population. So Nortel, if you want to enter China, and then you have to give us your technology.

And then the Nortel was a Canadian company famously that died. It's like AT&T. And then they enter China and the Huawei reverse engineered their technology. And then they start to build their routers and switches. and with the allowance from the government and then they can sell it very, very cheap. Subsidy, like you know by allowance you mean subsidy from the government, right? Yeah, yeah, kind of subsidy, yes. It's the subsidy of the government and then they can sell it as a very, very cheap price.

Nobody can compete with them. Like it's a half price, it's a third price, and they can even give you for free for a few years, and then you can pay me back later. So basically they finance the product for you. And then nobody can compete, and then not tell you. Northale just died, you know, it disappeared. I guess this is just an example. So this pattern is repeated all over the place.

So by doing this, you know, when you talk, you know, superficially, it looks like a free market, but actually it's not. But they talk about the free market because that's the value you treasure. That's the value you feel like it's not disputable. And you have to follow the rule. But actually, they are not following the rule. rules. So that's the problem. So they are using your rules and to take advantage of you. And so how does, so explain to me how America against America fits into what we've,

what President Trump recently talked about? For example, the election. So Trump talk about the election, I guess this is a very, very hot topic and even probably controversial. But I want to bring up a story. There was a very famous Chinese scholar called Jin Chan Rung. from time to time he entered Zhongnan Hai to give lecture to those top leaders of CCP. And then he openly said that there are 435 congressional districts. And if we can have our manufacturers enterprises in every district, and if we are large enough, then we have enough money to support a certain candidate. And then if we have the Chinese community large enough,

then we can sway probably thousands of votes. And usually, you know, in our election, the number of votes are very, very close. So a thousand votes, two thousand votes can make a great difference. And he said in that way, nobody will dare to stand against us or to stand against the CCP. And then he said that we can turn the US Congress

into China's National People's Congress. So it means like every congressman, every Senate, working for CCP. So this is really, really scary. So when Jin Cang Rung said that openly, he said we, so we don't know, he means like we as China scholars or we as CCP. This is vague. But like what he said is really, really alarming, I guess, because they're using our, they're abusing our election systems to put their like figure ahead or somebody they can control in the place. Well, maybe just to get you to comment on this briefly, there's been all sorts of examples of the Chinese Communist Party capturing politicians or getting people work on their behalf in different ways.

And this happens actually not just at the federal level, but at the state level and the municipal level. Right. It's a long-term plan. So you can see that take the congressman Swahwell. as an example. So when he was very, very young, when he was like an entry-level politician, and then Chinese government has already identified him, and then someone approached him and provided him with kind of honeypot, you know. So I guess this is really, really common, because like in our society, usually an official is elected and then he takes the office

and stay there for eight years. And then he's finished and he's moving on to something else. But like for Chinese government, they can plan for like 40 years and they can carry it out step by step. So as I said, like Wang Hunin, he came here in 1989 or 1988 as like a J1, like an exchange scholar. And he stayed here for about half a year and he observed this society. He found that there's something he can make use of, like so-called free market, democracy, freedom of speech, the independence of justice system. They feel there are a lot of things that they can make use of. For example, in 2022, Xi Jinping held a meeting, a very high-level meeting

with public security ministry and also some other intelligence people. And he said, our war, against Falun Gong outside is like a total failure in the past. So we have to have something new. And then they decided to launch war against Falun Gong in two fronts. One friend is the legal friend and the other one is the media front. So basically, in this case, they are using the freedom of speech, so-called freedom of speech, to demonize Falun Gong

by using American media. And also because, in the freedom of speech, in America, everybody can sue everybody. So they can sue you and then probably they know they will lose, but then they really burden you with like a very high attorney cost. For example, you know, the headquarter of Shen Yun performing arts is called Dragon Springs. And there was a guy who lived in Tianjin for 15 years. And then he came back. He's a white guy. He stayed in China for 15 years. and then he came back to America. And then he opened up a nonprofit organization near where the Dragon Springs is.

And then the only thing he did, or his nonprofit organization, is to sue Dragon Springs in the name of violation of environmental preservation law, whatever. So he sued it four times. And every time, you know, the Dragon Springs has to respond. and then they had to hire an attorney. So with all these lawsuits, then they can easily spend a million dollars. And every time he failed, but then he brought up the same lawsuit again. So you can see that, you know, this is the patent.

You know, they don't have to win, but they harass you. And they- Kind of like wear you down, right? Financially. Yeah. There's also reputational damage, right? Yes. So that's exactly what happened on the shame in performing arts.

So they sue you and then they publish on the media saying like they are being sued, they are being investigated. But actually, they just not only doing that, they spread all these information to all those theaters, all those venues, all those presenters, and try to scare them so that, you know, to make it hard for you to sell tickets. So we've covered Shen Yun and these various hit pieces against Shen Yun, some lawsuits and so forth, on this show before. But very briefly, for those that might not be familiar, you know, Falun Gong's ancient Chinese spiritual discipline.

Why is the Chinese Communist Party, give me kind of a deeper picture. Why is the Chinese Communist so particularly obsessed with this group? I think one of the reasons of the most important, For the reason, I believe that CCP persecuted Falun Gong was because the teaching of Falun Gong is truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. And these three values are directly opposite of CCP ideology. So for example, the number two guy who is actually the assistant of Mao, he said if you don't lie and you cannot achieve anything.

So basically that's like what CCP believe. So you can see like in CCP propaganda is full of lies. Like they openly claim like they didn't kill anybody during the Tianan massacre. Nobody died in the Tianan area. That kind of thing is open lies. And then they have already done so many things, so bad things in the history and they want to cover it up. For example, the great famine.

The Great Leap Forward. Yeah. really forward and the famine that ensued. So like 30 to 40 million people just died of starvation. So if people just to tell the truth, and CCP is finished. So that's why, you know, the first principle of Falun Gong, truthfulness, this is what CCP is afraid of most. And the second principle of Falun Gong is compassion.

But CCP talk about class struggle, right? they promote hatred. I remember that the very famous philosopher, Russell, he talked about Karl Marx. He said that Marxism is quite evil, because if you want to make people happy, and then your principle or your philosophy should be based on kindness and love so that, you know, you can make people happy. But the foundation of Marxism is hatred. So basically they hate successful people.

They hate people who are wealthy and they hate people with like a good reputation and they just want to destroy them. So that is directly against the compassion, the second principle of Falun Gong. And the third principle of Falun Gong promoted is called a tolerance. And you know, again, CCP talk about violence. They always trying to use violence to achieve their goals. They will arrest all the dissidents, you know, they will gun. down all those students in Tianmen Square.

So they always use violence. So that's directly against the tolerance. So I think like CCP found that if everybody in China believe in Falun Gong and then their teaching, their philosophy will be just abandoned, you know, they will be deserted by the people. So, but you need to understand that the CCP is a party built on an ideology.

So if the ideology foundation is gone, and then the party will collapse. So that was Jiang Zemin, I think, like in 1999, he wrote a letter to the Politburo. He gave two reasons why he cried on Falun Gong. This was published in 2006 in China. He gave two reasons why he persecuted Falun Gong. The first one is the number of followers of Falun Gong,

too many. And the second reason was like they believe in something other than communism. So that's the real reason. And after the persecution started and Falun Gong group resisted it peacefully. I guess this is also what CCP was very afraid of because like in history they can crack down anybody, any group, including like the president of China, Liu Shao Qi, he was persecuted to death.

And like even there are million people like went to Tianmen Square to protest after they used the machine gun to dispel people and then, you know, you don't see any mass gathering again. You don't see any math. They sent the message. Yeah. You don't see any resistance like in large group. But Falun Gong is very, very different because Falun Gong is like a more or less kind of spiritual practice of each individual.

So you cannot take it out of people's heart. And then this is the first time in CCP history, and they saw this kind of resistance from grassroot in large scale and like with this perseverance, even when they face tortures, you know, killing. You wrote a book, Killed Order, right? Even when the organs were harvested, but people still were very, very adamant,

you know, people still follow this teaching. So that was CCP, he was very afraid of. Another thing is like, you saw a lot of democratic leaders during the Tianmen movement, right, before the Tianmen massacre. And then the CCP strategy is just to exile them, you know, put them in other countries. When they are in other countries and they lose the connection with the Chinese people, their voice is not heard. So all these leaders of the movements are no longer a threat.

But Falun Gong is different. You know, I think like the first day when Falun Gong was persecuted, the Falun Gong practitioners established the websites and start to use emails, you know, in chat room, people start to tell people, you know, what was going on. All these overseas Falun Gong practitioners, they were doing this. We called clarifying the truth. And then, okay, so then CCPC, not only the resistance from China, inside China, but also outside China, and they are like bound together. So, very tightly.

So I guess CCP sees it as really as number one threat in its history. And therefore, they need to have something new, really like a new strategy to deal with this. And this is the transnational, we call the transnational repression. And the problem is, like I mentioned this because the way they use is really the Wang Hunings philosophy, America against America. So they use American media, they use the freedom of speech here, they use justice system here to prosecute the Falun.

I think like this is a very well-known case, a guy called John Chen, he tried to bribe IRS agent and just to repeal Shen Yun performing arts nonprofit organization status. And then actually the FBI found this scheme and then FBI agent impersonate the IRS agent and answer his call and then this John Chen was called and he was convicted. So you can see that they are using IRS, they are using DOJ, and they are using the media. Actually they are using the Department of Labor in New York State and open an investigation on Shen Yun, the Department of Labor, the FBI. So you can see they use all this United States institutions as their tool, you know,

to investigate a U.S. individual or U.S. enterprise. So this is, I think, a very typical case of America against America, how it is implemented here on the soil of the United States. Tell me a little bit about your background, because you know, we even have a staff member here. Actually, one of the interns here was telling me that he watches your show regularly, right, on YouTube, very popular. In Chinese, of course, I'll sell everyone.

But tell me a little bit about your background. Of course, your professor at Fetian College. But yeah. I want to say that I was born in China. So I grew up in northeast China. My father was a graduate from a college in 1963. But because his father, my grandpa, was kind of in CCP's class struggle theory.

It's their enemy. So, and then my father, after graduation, he went to a small city in northeast China. And then my mother, her father was an enterprise, and they were very wealthy. And then when CCP came and they found out that they had a lot of money, and then they started to pressure their accountant and then to convict my grandpa saying like they were didn't pay tax and then just confiscate their all the belongings. And then my grandpa was very angry and then he went to the government and to argue. And then he was put in labor camp for three years and he was also put in labor camp in

North East China. That's where my father and my mother met. And they married there in 1970. And I was born in 1973. So because at that time, China was still not open and we can only receive information from the government, from the textbook. So actually I believe that CCP is a great party and they are working hard for the benefit of the people.

And then in 1989, when I was 16 years old, the Tianmen massacre happened, right? It happened in Beijing. At that time, I was like the 12th grader. I was kind of upset by the government. And in that year, I went to Beijing. I became a freshman. For the first two weeks, there's no academic courses. The first two weeks is for brainwashing.

So basically, for the two weeks, CCP gave you all those videos, or their version of narrative, and to try to tell us that those. are rioters, they're disturbing the social order, they're creating troubles for people, and then that's why it is justified for the government to use force to crack it down. So after two weeks of brainwashing, I was totally convinced. I had to say that. You know, I think their propaganda is very, very powerful. If you only receive their information, you're very easily convinced. And then I think, I started to believe Deng Xiaoping's theory.

Deng Xiaoping said, this is the kind of cost we have to pay for the sake of the country's development, for the benefit of everybody. So we have to maintain stability. And then in 1995, my mother started practicing Falun Gong. And her illness was cured, and my father followed. And my father introduced it to me. At that time, I was working in a joint venture company.

It's between actually a company established for military purpose with Siemens. So we're producing telephone switch called EWSD. It's kind of like 5 ESS here in America. And then because at that time, CCP doesn't say anything negative on Falun Gong. So it seems like he just leave you alone. Fast forward, like in 1999, the prosecution started.

Actually, there was like an event before the persecution started. That was April 1999. Some of the people went to magazine publisher because the magazine published something untrue about Falun Gong and they tried to ask the publisher to take it down. To retract it. Yeah. And then suddenly some police came and then arrested about 45 practitioners in Tianjin. That was April 23, 1999.

And then two days later, we had a gathering outside of Zhongnanhai. We want to appeal to the central government to release these people and also to give us the freedom of belief. I was there in 1999, on April 25, 1999. I was standing very close to the entry of Zhongnanhai. So at about 10 a.m., I personally saw Zhulongji, you know, the then premier, the then-premise came out to talk to us. After that, there were various rumors about CCP was about to crack down Falun Gong. I remember on June 14th, I was on the business trip to a different city,

and then I saw a piece of newspaper, and the headline of the newspaper is saying that the government has no plan to crack down Falun Gong. Everybody has the freedom of practice. That was June 14 June 1999. But actually, four days before that, on June 10th, 1999, Jiang Zemean has already established an office dedicated to the prosecution of Falun Gong. But four days later, they tell the whole world that they had no plan. The reason was that they try to tell you that, you know, it's safe, you come out, you can practice and they can identify, you know, who is the leader and who is active, and then

they can arrest them. And then on July 20th, 1999, this persecution started. You know, all those, we call coordinators, were arrested. People that were running the practice sites and so forth. As volunteers, they were not paid. They just took their video, they just took their tape recorder to play the music and people can practice. All those people were arrested.

And then at that time, actually, I was not very active because I feel You know, spiritual practice is very personal. So I meditate at my home every day. I read Fama Gong teachings every day, but like I don't mingle with people. But then after I saw this news from Ming Hui's website, that was established in June 1999. So I followed some news there and I saw this. Then I felt like, okay, so something was wrong. So we need to do something.

So then I, together with my wife, went to appeal to the central government, to the Zhongnan Hai again. At that time, you know, nobody can enter. So all the police surrounded the Zhongnan Hai and anybody they suspect your father-goon practitioners, they will take you away. So we failed to appeal for the first day and the second day on July 22nd. We went there again. And then we were standing in baking sunlight at that time, it's like probably 1004, 105 degree Fahrenheit, it's baking.

And then the government called a few buses to come and the bused us to a kind of local government. And we were put there and the door was closed and locked and we had to stay there. And we tried to tell the government officials, the staff there, you know, about the truth of Falun Gong, you know, there's misunderstanding, you know, we hope that you can convey the message. But they just told us, like, you wait until 3 p.m. And we were not allowed to leave. So we sit in, we were sitting in the auditorium at 3 p.m. and suddenly all the TV signal

like kind of cut, you suddenly, it was in the middle of something, but it was suddenly. they cut and they start to broadcast the decision of Jiang Zemin that the persecution started. And they demonized Falun Gong with all these so-called documentaries. As I said, you know, before that moment, I believed in the government. So I believe in the government is doing everything for the people. But when I watched the video they made, the documentary they made, one thing that struck me, because one reason they said in the video why they persecuted Falun Gong was saying that Falun Gong was talking about the end of the world,

like the doomsday. And then they played a video clip of the master, the founder of Falun Gong. And I have watched the original version. The original version saying like the end of the world or the doomsday does not exist, but they cut the world does not exist. And then I suddenly felt like I was cheated for so many years. If they can cut just, like a few frames out of the context. They know everything, but they choose these two, a few frames to cut, to make it the meaning just the opposite. So I was so disappointed, and then I felt that I was cheated for 20-some years by the

government. So, and then I said to my wife, I said, probably this is not somewhere we should stay, so let's go to other places to pursue our freedom of belief. And I came here as a graduate student. My major was in electrical engineering. So how did you, but how did you get out? I took TOE test, and applied for admission in a... They didn't know you were a Falun Gong practitioner yet.

I think the government know and does not know. The reason is that I didn't go to Tianan, you know, to openly challenge the government. But on the other hand, I tried to tell everybody, around me, like my coworkers, my family, my relatives, my classmates, my friends, even like my customers, I tell everybody I meet to about like what CCP was trying to framing up to demonize Falun. So at that time, you know, I think I told hundreds of people. Actually, I sent a mass email to like hundreds of people in our own company.

Because the company is a John Inventure company and then the general manager was a German guy. And he was very sympathetic. And he said he read the Zyde Deutsch Zeitung, this is basically a very influential newspaper in Germany. And he said he knew the truth and he said, are you in danger? I said probably yes. And he said, if you are in danger, we can send you to Germany. I see. So that's...

Yeah, he was very sympathetic. And because my colleagues around me, they know me well. And they know that I was a hardworking, you know, very friendly co-worker. So we had a very good relationship. So even I sent this email to hundreds of people, but they didn't turn me in. And then the problem is at that time, you know, because a lot of practitioners were went to Tianan Square to appeal, to protest. And my father, my sister, my mother, all of them were jailed.

And my mother was put in labor camp for a year. And then I think the CCP was focusing on the Tianan Square instead of my grass route working. And then I think in August, in 1999, in August 1999, Jiang Zemin just basically escalated everything. Right before that, I came to the United States. So if I stay in China, I will be jailed for sure. And then after I came here, because my major was electrical engineering, you know, it's kind of not on humanity, not on history,

but I really wanted to figure out why CCB persecuted Falun Gong. I mean, all the reasons, all the explanations, that was explained or published on media on those interviews didn't convince me totally. I feel like there must be a deeper reason. And then I did a lot of research on Chinese culture and on CCP and then suddenly realized this is an ideological war. So this is nothing about the politics. This is just an ideological war.

Or you can call it a spiritual war. Falun Gong holds an ideology or like the principle that's directly against CCP. They are teaching their philosophy. So that's why there is no middle ground. You know, there is no compromise. So only one will win eventually. So there's no compromise. That's interesting because, you know, I never imagine, like, would Falun Gong practitioners

think of it that way? Like there's no compromise? I mean, it functioned. Falun Gong functioned very well in communist China for quite a number of years, right? Just growing sort of organically. Compromise here, I mean, ideologically, because Falun Gong people cannot adopt the CCP's

like this kind of hatred, killing violence, lies anymore, because you know this is the righteous principles. And the CCP will not adopt Falun Gong ideology either. I remember that in the book in 1984, he said, like, there are two. two purpose of the party. The first one is to conquer the surface of the earth and the second one is to eliminate all the independent thoughts. That's the two purpose of the party in the book 1984. So I think like the CCP really want to conquer the surface of the earth. You know,

they are competing with America and the second one is they really want to eliminate all the independent thoughts. And Falun Gong is apparently the independent thoughts. They need to eliminate. This is also explaining why they need to crack down. the Tibetan Buddhist monks and also the dissidents because they have independent thoughts, they have to be cracked down. And on the other hand, you know, they said that they want to conquer the surface of the earth, but like I think CCP understands that it's not possible to do it militarily. You can see the purge, you know, that the Xi Jinping has already purged a lot of generals around him, like all the top generals were purged.

So, Xi Jinping doesn't trust people. They feel like all these people were plotting against him. He's really obsessed with his power and he doesn't want anyone to challenge him. So the problem is a lot of people talk about the armed invasion of Taiwan. CCP will invade Taiwan in 2007, which means next year, 2030. But actually, I don't believe Xi Jinping. would do that ever because Xi Jinping doesn't trust his general. If he gave them the authority to control the military, to command the military, if they gave

them the guns, he never, I mean, he cannot imagine what they will do with those power and guns. What if they turn against himself? So I think if Xi Jinping wants to control a place, his strategy, no matter is Taiwan or South Korea or like the United States or Australia, what he will do is exactly what he does here. That's infiltration and subversion from within. That is America against America. For example, in Taiwan, I'm sure like Xi Jinping's strategy is basically to control one party,

name it KMT or like any other party, and then probably control their Congress, and then they do something. And then they try to control the media of Taiwan, in Taiwan, try to brainwash people, try to glorify CCP and to make Taiwan people feel like, okay, it's nothing wrong to get united with CCP. I think like they are used the same strategy in Taiwan. They're using Taiwan against Taiwan. They're using South Korea against South Korea.

They're using America against America. But then the problem is like we see the consequence. It's very, very scary. And now, I guess, remember that the situation. I think Trump talked about Made in China 2025. And he said like China became like the powerhouse of all those manufacturing. And then America's supply chain or factories were destroyed. And he wants to use tariff to protect America.

But it's kind of late. And Xi Jinping didn't mention made in China 2025 again, but actually they have already achieved the goal. Now it's like 40 to 50% of the manufacturing of the whole world is now done in China. So they have created this supply chain dependence. You see that Trump has this tariff war last year, immediately he backed down because our rare earth is dependent on China. He played his card and the CC played its card.

Yeah. And 90% of antibiotics is from China. But do you think, so I want to ask you. this since I have you here, but I felt like that when they did play the magnets card, right, the Earth magnets card, that's something everybody needs in substantial quantity, pardon me. I almost felt that was like an escalation, really, because they had, they were, they've been using all sorts of leverage, but this was a kind of leverage, which was kind of very revealing kind of leverage, right? Like, we're going to do this, you know, if you decide not to

play along with what we want. Exactly. Yeah. So, and also we see that the chips in our weapon, 40% of them were produced by China and 90% of antibiotics were produced by China. So it means like if there is a war between China and the United States, we need to buy our weapons from our enemy. So I mean, this is really, really scary just to think about it.

So I think we now see the consequence. And also CCP, I guess they're using like... kind of all kinds of ways to corrupt the society to sow division. So like the fentanyl, you know, like they clearly know that, you know, the fentanyl precursor was produced in China and then they exported to the United States. And every year the death toll caused by the fentanyl abuse is kind of like twice the number of the test toll in the whole Vietnamese war. So this is like they are launching a war against us, but like we just don't know about that. In your new film, there's a book that would be very familiar to the viewers of American thought leaders, Unrestricted Warfare.

You basically say that America versus America and the Unrestricted Warfare Book, that together they explain China's strategy under the CCP. Explain that to me. I think America against America was like kind of philosophy that Wang Hunin developed. But like how to implement that, that's the unrestricted war. So they can control our infrastructure. You know what pipeline, right, that was sponsored by the Chinese military. So basically they try to control the infrastructure of America, including the power grid, the water supply.

And also they have another project. of Salt Typhoon that was sponsored by the MSS, the Ministry of State Security. So that purpose was to eavesdrop and collect the data from American people. So from that, you know, we talk about, you know, from South Typhoon and Vaux Typhoon. You can see like they are actually in a war with us, without our knowing. They have seen like dozens of research papers on how to take that. down the power grid of America. At this data, they are using the real America power grid as the model to study, like

which node to attack to black out the whole country. So this is kind of unrestricted war. And also the fentanyl, you know, is really like an unrestricted war. This is like an open war like 150 years ago or 200 years ago. So also, I think. like they want to manipulate or maneuver the election result to put the person they favor into that position. I think all these, but the problem is we can give you like a lot of data that looks very scary.

For example, TPLink is kind of home router, 65% of a management, American families and small enterprises are using TPLink. But TP link has a backdoor, you know, so that they can control that. So first of all, it's a Chinese company. And every Chinese company is under the auspices of the CCP. And there's the national, 2017 national intelligence law, which means you have to cooperate for spying purposes. And all these routers are the perfect spying tool, basically.

65% of the homes? 65% homes and small enterprises. That's astonishing. Yeah. I mean, that's a, you know, why are we talking about this all the time? I don't know, but I think like I saw it, but people just didn't pay attention. Just, I mean, these things come up, blips, right? There's a, you know, high-level staffer of a governor is indicted.

All this, it's coming up all the time, but we kind of lose it in the news cycle, right? For Revelation, 65% of routers used in America by small businesses and, you know, roughly, right? That's an astonishing level of exposure if all of them have a backdoor, right? And then you know how data-hungry the CCP is, right? Yeah. That's what I mean by saying, why aren't we talking about this all the time, right? Yeah, yes. But why aren't we talking about this all the time?

Why are there still TP-link routers in people's homes? I think the Congress needs to do something, should ban it, I think. So that's why I feel like this kind of war, if CCP is using the whole of society approach to attack us, our response must be also like whole of society, which means like we, everybody in this society needs to understand the CCP's scheme and we need to fight back. So I mean, actually it's very simple for us. For example, we just don't use any electronic devices from CCP. You know, you buy some like iron-over.

It's easy, except it's not easy because they've had so much of the market, right? And it's changing, I know. I guess, like, it's mainly the price. They can really build something that is very useful and very cheap. And if you buy it from Taiwan or from other countries, then probably you need to pay twice, three times, even four times the price. So that's the reason. They're using the so-called free market, you know, the WTO to

dump all their stuff here. So that's why I feel like we really need to raise awareness in this society. Like we need to, for example, uninstall all the apps, like V-Chat, like TikTok, from my perspective, you know. Well, so explain to me this, right? Just I think a day or two after the president gives the speech about, you know, the 2020 election points out how China's doing all these compromising activities. right, election interfering activities. And the next day, it's approved for TikTok

to be on government phones, or some government phones. Maybe his reasoning is that now is acquired by Oracle or American Enterprise. Has this been checked now? Like, is it true? I have no idea. Actually, I had a theory. I said that, like, if you really want to make sure

TikTok is safe to use, then open source, you know, like everybody sees code. Otherwise, I'm very, very suspicious. You know, there must be some back door. CCP, you know, they plant a backdoor everywhere. Like all those solar panels, they have a back switch. Right. And it's actually a kill switch,

and they can remotely control the by the CCP. So if one day China and the US is at a war, and then they can remotely shut down all those solar panels, and we have no power. And they have the back, the back door in their, you know, I, Robert, you know, the sweeping the floor, but actually now the CCP, they have their own version and much cheaper and even better quality. But then they are actually, you know, they are moving around your family, yeah, mapping

your floor plan and then probably they were listening to what you're saying, like, you don't know. So they have back door everywhere. So I think like American people really needs to be aware of that. you know, don't use electronic devices made in China. I don't use. And also, you know, I install all apps that it was developed in China. Very difficult, though.

Very difficult. I mean, it is shifting, but. At least people need to know that. But the problem is, like, people doesn't know. Yeah. Well, hopefully a few people will learn from this episode. Yeah. If they see the movie, they will see what CCP was doing,

and they will know what they should do. I think. Let's quickly run the trailer of the film so people know what they're in for. What is China quietly doing inside America's most vulnerable systems? China's hackers are positioning on American infrastructure in preparation to wreak havoc and cause real world harm to American citizens and communities. If we don't change course, we are going to live in a world where much of what matters to us on a daily basis, from our security to our health, will be dependent on whether the Chinese allow us to have it or not.

It's being called one of the biggest hacks in U.S. history. A Chinese government-linked hackers targeted cell phones used by former President Donald Trump and his running name. Has spiked and spied on American citizens? I don't think that spying is the right way to describe it. Two Chinese nationals have been caught smuggling potential agro-terrorism fungus into the United States. Lawmakers on both sides fear that with control of U.S. farmland, China could manipulate U.S. food supply.

I mean, we're the United States, but they treat this like a colony. Fetinal poisoning is now the leading cause of death in the United States for people under the age of 45. China controls every link in the chain. Well, Professor Tian Liang Jiang, it's such a pleasure to have had you on. Oh, thank you again for having me. Thank you all for joining Professor Tian Lang Zhang and me on this episode of American Thought. leaders, I'm your host, Janje Kellick.