The Daily Signal - Golden State Warriors’ Co-owner: ‘Nobody Cares’ About Uyghurs. True?

Starting point is 00:00:06 This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, January 19th. I'm Doug Blair. And I'm Virginia Allen. Billionaire and Golden State Warriors co-owner Chimov Paula Hapapitita says nobody cares about the persecution of the Uighur Muslims in China. Is he right? Heritage Foundation Senior Policy Analyst for Asian Studies, Olivia Inos, joins the show today to give her reaction to Paula Hopa Petita's remarks and explain why the Chinese government is persecuting the weaker people. But before we get to Virginia's conversation with Olivia Enos, let's hit our top news stories of the day. Tensions between Russia and Ukraine have

Starting point is 00:00:58 continued to rise. White House press secretary Jen Saki told reporters Tuesday that the U.S. believes Russia could attack Ukraine at any point, per AFP news. Our view is this is an extremely dangerous situation. We're now at a stage where Russia could at any point launch an attack in Ukraine. Russia has amassed 100,000 troops on the Ukraine border. Recently, Russia also moved some forces to Belarus, which sits on the northern border of Ukraine for joint military exercises. America is working to prevent a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is scheduled to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday. Blinken plans to urge the Russians to de-escalate the situation.

Starting point is 00:01:45 America is warning Russia that there will be severe economic consequences should Russia invade Ukraine. On Tuesday, Senator Rand Paul, Republican from Kentucky, released a report highlighting the impact that the mass inflation facing the country has on lower and middle class Americans, as well as small businesses. Currently, Americans are facing a 7% increase in consumer prices, which represents a 40-year high. In his report, titled The Hidden Tax, Paul reaches three key conclusions. One, that COVID-19 stimulus is directly responsible for rising prices. Two, that inflation disproportionately harms low and middle-income families. And three, inflation disproportionately harms small businesses. Additionally, Paul warned against increased congressional spending, writing in the report,

Starting point is 00:02:35 Congress needs to realize that further spending at this time of rapidly rising prices is only going to continue the trend of rising prices. on this nation's already vulnerable businesses and families. In a separate statement released on Tuesday, Paul said, $4.9 trillion in COVID-19 stimulus spending has led to one of the highest and sustained levels of inflation in U.S. history.

Starting point is 00:02:57 Though government's stimulus spending was intended as a form of relief and low and middle-income families, as well as small business owners, were promised that their taxes would not increase as a result of these packages, Americans are now paying a hidden tax for these policies. A school district in northern Virginia is removing a controversial gender identity book from its library.

Starting point is 00:03:19 Louding County, Virginia, less than an hour outside Washington, D.C., has gained national attention over the past year for its teaching of critical race theory and gender identity ideology in the classroom. A number of parents have spoken out at school board meetings and raised concerns about some of the books in the school library, including the book, Gender Queer, a Memoir. Loudoun County School Superintendent Scott Ziegler made the decision to remove the book after a school committee recommended keeping it on a split vote. The graphic novel details a teen struggle with gender identity in the style of comic book drawings. Multiple illustrations in the book depict explicit sexual content. Ziegler said in a statement that I read every book that is submitted for my review in its entirety.

Starting point is 00:04:10 I am not generally in favor of removing books from the library. I believe students need to see themselves reflected in the literature available to them. But he added, the pictorial depictions in this book ran counter to what is appropriate in school. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Heritage Foundation Senior Policy Analyst for Asian Studies, Olivia Enos, as we discuss what is happening with the Uyghur Muslims in China. Americans use firearms to defend themselves between 500,000 and 2 million times every year. God forbid that my mother has ever faced with a scenario where she has to stop a threat to her life. But if she is, I hope politicians, protected by professional armed security,

Starting point is 00:04:59 didn't strip her of the right to use the firearms she can handle most competently. To watch the rest of heritage expert Amy Swearer's testimony on assault weapons before the House Judiciary Committee head to the Heritage Foundation YouTube, channel. There you'll find talks, events, and documentaries backed with the reputation of the nation's most broadly supported Public Policy Research Institute. Start watching now at heritage.org slash YouTube. And don't forget to subscribe and share. The Golden State Warriors are trying to distance themselves from co-owner Chimov Palahapa Petita after he made a comment over the weekend that nobody cares about the Uyghur Muslims in China, who

Starting point is 00:05:44 were being persecuted. Take a listen, per Todd Starness. Nobody cares about what's happening to the weakers, okay? You bring it up because you really care. And I think that's nice that you care. The rest of us don't care. I'm just telling you very hard. You're saying you personally don't care? I'm telling you a very hard, ugly truth, okay? Of all the things that I care about, yes, it is below my line. Okay, of all the things that I care about, it is below my line. Joining me to give her thoughts on these comments, and discuss why we all need to care about the Uyghurs is Heritage Foundation Senior Policy Analyst for Asian Studies, Olivia Enoz.

Starting point is 00:06:22 Olivia, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me on. So Paula Hababatita made these remarks on his podcast called The All In Podcast. He's one of four individuals that co-host his podcast together. What was your reaction, Olivia, when you heard his comments? I mean, gut reaction, wow. This is really, really awful that he felt comfortable saying something so unbelievably brazen. I mean, he said the quiet part out loud.

Starting point is 00:06:55 And by that, I mean, he said what? No business person, no venture capitalist, no investor should ever be saying, which is that when money is on the line, human rights don't matter. And for him to say that so blatantly and then to take it a step further, he says, like, quote unquote, this is below my line of what I care about. So he's saying, like, let's just get this straight. Ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity is below the threshold of something he cares about. And this is a billionaire speaking, a very influential individual. Very influential.

Starting point is 00:07:31 I mean, I think he runs a business called like social investing or something along these lines. It's like focused on these types of things. And he's saying that, you know, having over a million people inside. political reeducation camps in China, that this is below his line, that he doesn't care about Uyghur women and girls who are being forcibly sterilized and their families being pulled apart. So I think it was really appalling to hear him say that. And he didn't even just claim it was below his line. As you said, Virginia, he said, nobody cares.

Starting point is 00:08:05 Well, I would like to set him straight. There are plenty of people who care and not just Uighur Americans or Uighers who. who are separated from family members back home, but ordinary Americans who recognize that the Chinese Communist Party is absolutely repeating history in carrying out this genocide, these atrocities. And we're not going to stand for these types of violations of freedom and human rights. And Olivia, in your position at Heritage, you have done so much research on the Uyghurs. You know in depth what so many of these individuals have and are facing. So break down a little bit more for us, for those that might not be too familiar with the Uyghurs and what they're facing.

Starting point is 00:08:46 Who are they and what are they going through in China? So Uyghurs are a Muslim minority group within China. Most of them reside within Xinjiang. And starting in around April 2017 or so, the international community was made aware of the Chinese Communist Party collectivizing Uyghurs inside what we now know, our political reeducation camps. And it's believed that there's between 1.8 million to 3 million Uyghurs currently held in those camps today. Many of them are subject to forced indoctrination. They are required to put the Chinese Communist Party first. That's above their family.

Starting point is 00:09:24 That's above their faith and any other closely held beliefs that they might have. They're also subject to forced labor. And we actually just saw Congress and the Biden administration instituting new legislation surrounding those issues. But we know that there are so many Uyghurs that are subject to a variety of human rights violations. And they really rose to the scale of the Trump administration on the last day in office saying, you know what, we've got to call a spade a spade. This is ongoing genocide in crimes against humanity. And what it means to be committing genocide just to put a fine point on it is having the intent to destroy in whole or in part an entire people group. And I think we see this most clearly in the way the Chinese Communist Party has a stated goal, according to Adrian Sends, of the victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, of forcibly sterilizing between 80 to 90 percent of Uyghur women of childbearing age.

Starting point is 00:10:20 Wow. So they're open about that. They don't hide that. Yeah. I mean, this can be found in Chinese Communist Party documentation that they want to do that. And what that means is you're either going to have a significantly smaller or ultimately non-existent next generation of Uyghurs. if the Chinese Communist Party gets away with this. And these are the types of abuses that Chamaath is essentially trying to sweep under the rug

Starting point is 00:10:44 and say that nobody cares about and nobody should care about it. This cannot go unaddressed. Yeah, yeah. Well, and Olivia, with those comments from Chimoth that no one cares about the Uyghurs, I think there would be, you know, some people really on both sides of this issues who would say, you know what, he does have a point there. You know, not enough people care about this. Not enough people are enraged or might go so far if you even say no one does care.

Starting point is 00:11:14 Because, you know, we're not seeing maybe the response across America or the world that some people would like to say. Do you think that that's true? I think that we have seen increasing responses from the U.S. government, both under the Trump administration and under the Biden administration. but I think that there's a lot more that can be done. So we've already seen, obviously, as I mentioned, the atrocity determination. We saw under the Trump administration and continued under the Biden administration sanctions, including most recently multilateral sanctions that were undertaken by the U.S., the European Union, the United Kingdom, and Canada in order to hold individuals in China who are responsible for these atrocities accountable.

Starting point is 00:11:59 We also saw more recently the Biden administration at the 11th hour saying, we're going to undertake a diplomatic boycott of the upcoming Olympics. And I think the Olympics actually present a very fantastic opportunity for ordinary Americans to make their discontent with the Chinese Communist Party known. We're not obligated to watch the Olympics and to enable China to profit off of advertising that will happen when NBC airs the Olympics. We are not obligated to purchase goods that we believe might have been produced with, labor from China. We can choose not to purchase those goods. And so I think that there are things

Starting point is 00:12:38 that ordinary Americans can do beyond just raising awareness and making it so that no one, no American, no person around the globe can say we were unaware that genocide and crimes against humanity were happening. So there's a lot of responsibility, both at the government level, but also at the personal and individual level to really hold China to account. Yeah. So on that personal level, I think it's helpful to understand some of the relationships that China has with some of the organizations in America, institutions. So something like the Golden State Warriors and, you know, we can talk about Hollywood, like so many different sort of large American for-profit entities have some sort of connection association from China or, you know, China is obviously a very large group of people. So it's a huge market to reach and address. So what does a group like the Golden State warriors or other large American companies,

Starting point is 00:13:41 what does their soft approach towards China mean for China? Well, I think, frankly speaking, the fact that the International Olympic Committee, who selected Beijing to host the Olympics, for example, in the first place, the fact that they faced very minimal pushback, honestly, I think emboldens people like Chamaath to say the type of things that he's saying. But in contrast to that, we have seen some American institutions like the Women's Tennis Association really responding with strength when there was that whole incident with Pung Shui where she disappeared. And people were saying, where is Pung Shui?

Starting point is 00:14:22 And the Women's Tennis Association, they said, we're okay with losing Chinese business. we're okay with that because we can't have one of our athletes facing, you know, persecution in the way that Pung Shui did. And so I think there are good and bad examples that, you know, other folks should look to. And hopefully folks like Chalmath will think twice, just seeing the amount of outrage, I think, from even ordinary Americans over his comments, that sporting industry, that other big multibrate, international companies, they will face repercussions for being very just sort of lazay-faire or blazze about what's happening to the Uyghurs. Now, I know there's been a lot of conversations about the Uyghurs in recent months, years in regards to Hollywood and Hollywood's relationship to China.

Starting point is 00:15:23 Can you parse that apart a little bit more for us? What do we know about the relationship between Hollywood and China? And why has at times it seemed like Hollywood turned a blind eye to the persecution of the Uighurs? Yeah, I think turning a blind eye is the absolute right turn of phrase to use here. Obviously, Hollywood does profit financially from China. And that financial profiting actually comes with strings attached. Sometimes the Chinese Communist Party will even intervene on like the inclusion. of certain characters or the light that China is put in in specific films or things along those

Starting point is 00:16:03 lines. But one that received a lot of attention was the case of Moulon, where they actually did a lot of filming in the Xinjiang region. And this came up like in the credits when you would watch Moulin. I did not watch Moulin for this reason. But I know a lot of people also, and again, this is a perfect example of how ordinary Americans can make a decision. Nope.

Starting point is 00:16:23 Hollywood's not going to profit when they. go ahead and film in a region where there's 1.8 million to 3 million Uyghurs held in political re-education camps. And so I think we do see instances like that where, you know, it's important for ordinary Americans to make a decision that they're not going to be lining the private coffers of the Chinese Communist Party. Because as we know, the linkages between the state and business are really pretty inextricable in the Chinese context. Specifically, why is China targeting the Uyghurs? So that's a million dollar question. You know, when China thinks about its foreign policy, it has some core foreign policy goals. The first is to safeguard its own sovereignty, and the second is to maintain its own internal stability.

Starting point is 00:17:18 According to China, the Uyghurs pose a threat to both. At times Uyghurs have suggested separating and having their own state, so that's potentially threatening to sovereignty. And then there has been unrest within Xinjiang at various, very discreet moments in time. And China has chosen to overcharacterize that and falsely characterize that as terrorism and label the entire group in part and almost exclusively solely on the basis of them being Muslim as terrorists, which is really horrifying. And so they have used this in order to persecute Uyghurs in any way that they possibly can.

Starting point is 00:17:59 And I think that we actually see China taking many of the same plays out of its playbook that they would use against Chinese Christians, against the Falling Gong, against Tibetan Buddhists, because they're threatened when there is a higher authority that Chinese citizens recognize that is not the Chinese Communist Party. And so I think this is part of the reason why Uyghurs are being targeted so starkly. There are many other reasons, too. One that I will mention briefly is that Xinjiang sits at the footsteps of China's Belt and Road Initiative, which is their big economic plan for investments. It's a bit amorphous. But, you know, they see Xinjiang as this region of economic activity, and they don't want that to be threatened either.

Starting point is 00:18:51 And so I just say it's absolutely horrifying what is happening to the Uyghurs, but that's, you know, some of the background and context, historically speaking. Are there any Uyghurs that have escaped those, quote unquote, reeducation camps and come out to tell the story of what's really going on there? Yes. In fact, one of the most harrowing stories, it was first covered by the BBC is of Tursanaisian Wooden. She is a Uyghur woman who was held inside of the camps and she was subject to rape in various forms. of sexual violence. When she quoted to the BBC, what happened to her, she actually said, you know, the entire system is designed to destroy your spirit. And, you know, she lived to tell her tale.

Starting point is 00:19:37 She has been sharing it very widely with media. I mean, I think there's some very recent reporting from reason that spotlights her story, and I would commend that to everyone. But there are many Uyghurs that have survived to tell. their stories. And I think the evidence beyond having satellite imagery, incredible reporting from BuzzFeed, looking at the number of camps. I think there are roughly 260 documented through satellite imagery and the firsthand testimonies. And of course, Uighur Americans and Uighurs of all stripes all around the globe who can testify to the fact that family members have been missing

Starting point is 00:20:16 for years. So it is truly undeniable. And what's happening there is incredibly harrowing. Well, you mentioned that America is doing a diplomatic boycott of the Olympics in Beijing, which simply means we're not sending any sort of official political representation. But as far as the stance that the U.S. government is taking right now, is it strong enough? Are we doing enough, Olivia? Well, you know, what I recommended from the start was that it would have been better for the U.S. in constant. with actors all around the globe to pressure the International Olympic Committee to postpone the games for the purposes of selecting a new rights-respecting host.

Starting point is 00:21:02 And obviously that didn't happen. So we had an 11th hour action from the Biden administration taking up what we considered to be a second best option, which is a diplomatic boycott. It is important because it does send a message that American officials are not going to be granting undue credence to Beijing's selection as host, but it still permits American athletes to participate, which I think is very important. All that to say is that the Biden administration really waited a long time. They kicked the can down the road, and I think we could have had a postponing and moving of the games, but obviously here we are. Amir less than a month now out from

Starting point is 00:21:43 the gains, and I think the response has been somewhat weak. Beyond this, I think there are other areas that the Biden administration has really overlooked. I mean, America has long been a police where people who are persecuted can come to find safe haven. And the Biden administration has yet to extend priority to refugee status to Uyghurs and to Hong Kongers who have seen their livelihoods turned upside down by the Chinese Communist Party. And I think the Biden administration has been somewhat reticent to institute additional financial measures against the Chinese Communist Party for the atrocities that they are carrying out. So I'd like to see more of that.

Starting point is 00:22:22 Yeah, why do you think that is? Why do you think that there's a hesitancy to really go all in and put full pressure on China? You know, I don't know. I think that there are different factions within the Biden administration who have different priorities. I mean, we've certainly seen this even in some of the opposition to the We Air Force Labor Prevention Act that I mentioned before. You know, it's excellent that it was passed and now is being implemented. this is going to significantly strengthen the tools that we have to tackle forced labor from China. But those who were in favor of sort of cooperating with China over climate change were not quite at all about their opposition to this type of move.

Starting point is 00:23:01 And so I think that having those competing factions, those who would value cooperation with China versus those who are strong on human rights issues have often come into conflict. and I really think this has muddled the strategy. So I think what I'll be looking for in 2022 is, one, a clarification of U.S. strategy toward China, especially vis-à-vis the human rights issues. But two, just whether or not there's a full-throated commitment to ensuring that, you know, people whose rights are being violated, whose rights are not being protected and safeguarded, as is a government's first order duty to do it. I think the U.S. government really does have a responsibility.

Starting point is 00:23:42 ability to step in there to make sure that those people's rights are respected. And we are not seeing that with the greatest strength that we possibly could right now. Olivia Enos, senior policy analyst for Asian Studies at the Heritage Foundation. Olivia, tell us how we can follow your work, because I know you're going to be writing on this issue. You're not going to stop talking about it. How can we keep up with your reporting? Absolutely.

Starting point is 00:24:05 Well, you can always check out my reports at heritage.org. and I also have a regular contributor status with Forbes, so you can check out my op-eds there. And as always, I am on Twitter at Olivia Enos. So I look forward to engaging further with you all there. Great, Olivia, thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much. And that'll do it for today's episode.

Starting point is 00:24:28 Thanks so much for listening to The Daily Signal podcast. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcast, Spotify, and IHeartRadio. Please be sure to leave us a review and a five. Star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Thanks again for listening. Have a great day and we will be back with you all tomorrow. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Virginia Allen and Kate Trinko, sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney and John Pop. For more information, please visit DailySignal.com.

The Daily Signal - Golden State Warriors’ Co-owner: ‘Nobody Cares’ About Uyghurs. True?

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