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.@LindseyGrahamSC on PRC: “Well number one, they are a hostile power to freedom and democracy and to world stability. 94% of the counter-intelligence investigations opened today are against Chinese students who come here to study washingtonpost.com/world/hong-kon…
at American universities, fully paid-for tuition, and they’re holding their families hostage: “If you don’t gather intelligence for us against America, we’re going to hurt your family.” 2
They are trying to extradite dissenters from Hong Kong against every understanding of the relationship between Hong Kong and China. They are testing Trump at every turn. Trump has stood up to them unlike anybody quite frankly on the economic side. 3
If I were the president I would really draw a red line here about the law they are about to pass, disrupting the status quo with Hong Kong. It is a flagrant violation of the agreement everybody reached about the status of Hong Kong. But Trump’s put tariffs on Chinese products, 4
he’s hurting their economy. It is hurting us, but if he doesn’t change Chinese economic behavior they are going to dominate the 21st century and become the world’s leading economic power, and I don’t want that.5
HH: It appears to me that President Trump has used a wrecking ball to reset the relationship. Do you believe it is possible, Lindsey Graham, that the United States and China reach another 1972 moment where they agree to cooperate short of conflict and short of espionage? 6
LG: I think the only way you will ever get China and America to agree is for China to become a developed nation under the WTO, abiding by world trading rules and regulations, stop intellectual property theft, state owned enterprises nobody can compete against. 7
don’t see China changing until they have experienced the pain they have never experienced before. And one thing I’ll say about President Trump above all else: He’s in it to win it with China. He really is less likely to do a deal today than he was last week. 8
He believes that the tariffs are working. He’s going to keep pushing until China changes their behavior. He’s taken Iran on, he’s breaking the back of the ayatollah, but he needs to deal decisively with these attacks on the Straights of Hormuz. 9
If he did that would actually help him w/ China. The only reason Mexico changed their behavior regarding our border helping us with Central American flow is because of what Trump did to China. Mexico saw the tariffs on China and believed Trump would do the same thing to them 10
HH: Senator, there are technology companies out there —I have no [financial] interest in them— I just know about them, for example, A.C. Global, that now identify risks. Do you think we are doing an adequate job of screening Chinese nationals —not Chinese-Americans, 11
it is 94% of the counter-intelligence investigations opened today are against Chinese students here lawfully, studying in America, and some of them may be just be hard core communist Chinese, but some of them are having their families held hostage. Here’s the business model. 12
They send young people to America and they are using them to basically exploit our freedom and spy on us and steal our technology, and if they don’t play ball, they will put their family in prison. We got to somehow break that cycle. That’s not a normal relationship. 13
I welcome people to come here and study. I like a lot of them to stay and do business through H1B visas and become American citizens. But what China is doing is exploiting our open society and we are going to have to push back. 14
This is the biggest challenge for President Trump, is to rein in China, and I think he is doing, generally speaking, a damn fine job.” —@LindseyGrahamSC hughhewitt.com/senator-lindse… 15
