Gordon Chang exposes China’s fragile regime, from General He Weidong’s suspicious disappearance to economic unrest and PLA divisions, while dismissing Trump’s trade deal as a long-term strategy. He warns of Chinese infiltration—land grabs in Florida, FBI-ignored police stations, and U.S. officials like Eric Swalwell compromised by Beijing’s United Front Work Department. Chang advocates full decoupling, targeting China’s supply chains and capital flows, and frames Trump’s Syria sanctions reset as a geopolitical power move over China’s failed influence tactics. With Xi’s military distrust and regional tensions rising, Chang argues only decisive U.S. pressure can prevent a broader East Asia conflict. [Automatically generated summary]
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This is the Stone Zone.
Now, get in the zone.
It's the stone zone.
Here's Roger Stone.
Welcome back in the Stone Zone.
Joining me now is an old China hand, Gordon Chang, has lived and worked in Shanghai and Hong Kong for almost two decades.
He is a columnist who has written regularly for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, National Review, Barron's, and many other publications.
He's the author of several books.
His most recent book, A Must Read, Plan Red, America's Project to Destroy America, which is now available on Amazon.
Always glad to have him.
Gordon Chang, welcome into the Stone Zone.
Well, thank you so much, Roger.
I saw a great interview that you gave with my friend Grant Stritchfield last night at Real America's Voice, which is why I reached out to you.
You have been an articulate critic of the trade deal that President Trump and Secretary Besson announced the framework for yesterday, writing, let's see, you say the Chinese let the president have a temporary win in order to pave the way for a more comprehensive deal.
You point out that this is Trump the optimist at work, but you think ultimately cooperation with an arrogant Xi Jinping is not possible.
Tell us what you mean, Gordon.
Well, first of all, when you look at the trade deal, the effect, it certainly helps China's exporters far more than America's exporters.
So it is a win for the Chinese, but it's a small one.
And of course, it's a temporary one because the trade arrangement only lasts for 90 days.
What Trump has said yesterday when he was speaking from the White House was that he did not intend to hurt China's factories, but they indeed are ailing and that he would like a comprehensive agreement with China, which China promised.
So I think what's happening is that President Trump, yes, he gave China, let them off the hook, but he did that intentionally.
And I also think that he is doing it for the long-term benefit in the way he looks at the Chinese and the American economies.
So he didn't cave in, as a lot of people are saying.
He's not afraid of inflation.
He's not afraid of bare shelves.
He did it because he thinks it's in everybody's long-term best interest.
Now, I don't necessarily think he's going to get the deal that he wants after 90 days, but he's the president, and that's his view that he will be able to succeed.
How stable is the situation on the ground in China?
We Americans, I think, have an imagery of a brutal regime keeping everyone in line.
But are there political factions?
Is there instability in China today?
Yes.
I don't think that Xi Jinping is as strong politically as everybody thinks.
We know that there is turbulence in the Chinese military.
For instance, Xi Jinping's number one loyalist in the People's Liberation Army, a guy named General He Weidong, has not been seen in public since March 11th.
Now, most people say that Xi Jinping sacked his own guy, but it's more likely from what we know that Xi Jinping's adversaries sacked General He.
And really what we're talking about is the most important political faction in the Chinese military.
We've also seen a lot of signs of instability among China's civilians.
And of course, Chinese people are protesting in the streets because they've lost jobs, because they're not getting their back pay, and because they're not being able to get money out of banks.
So this is not a good situation for the Communist Party.
And although it's able to maintain control through most periods, if the situation gets worse in the Chinese economy, the Communist Party is going to have a real problem hanging on.
That is very interesting.
Folks, once again, I recommend to you Gordon Chang's new book, Plan Red, China's Project to Destroy America.
It's available today on Amazon.
I read your previous books, China's Going to War, The Great U.S.-China Tech War, Losing South Carolina, Nuclear Showdown, North Carolina, North Korea, pardon me.
All great works by Gordon Chang.
Gordon, what should the president's ultimate aim be in regard to tariffs on China?
I'd like to see a decoupling of the U.S. and China.
We heard the Treasury Secretary of Scott dissent yesterday talk about this on CNBC, where he said we need a strategic decoupling, in other words, for strategic goods.
I'd like to see a broader decoupling because we shouldn't be putting money into the hands of the Chinese regime, which just uses that money to assault and attack us.
But clearly, the Trump administration does not want to be reliant on China for important things like medicines, computer chips, and all the rest of it.
And that's one of the reasons why President Trump has gotten a lot of foreign investment for plants in the United States.
So for instance, TSMC, the Taiwan chip maker, is building something like six fabs in Arizona near Phoenix.
That's a great story for the U.S.
And we need to continue to do that because we can't rely on China for anything that we absolutely need.
I was watching your X feed and saw you hailing the developments in the Middle East, specifically dropping the outdated sanctions on Syria.
Indeed, as I said earlier on this show, this is the beginning of the Trump doctrine, a complete reset in the Middle East.
Given China's relationship with Iran, Iran is essentially a client state of the communist Chinese.
How do the Chinese react to these developments in the Middle East?
President Trump just announced the lifting of sanctions on Syria a few hours ago.
So we haven't seen any official Chinese reaction, but I'm sure they're not happy at all because what China has been trying to do is to take over the new Syrian government by flooding it with money.
But the new president of Syria, Ahmed Al-Shara, who, by the way, is a former militant, wants the United States to become the most influential country in Syria.
He wants American money.
He wants American investment, wants trade.
He doesn't want the American military, by the way.
He doesn't want aid.
What he really wants is for the United States.
He wants to replicate the American system in Syria.
If he's as good as his word, and there are indications that he is, then this means the United States can stabilize a very critical part of the world.
And it means that American business will follow.
We had Colonel Douglas McGregor on the show the other day, and he expressed a view that Chairman Xi is uneasy about the capabilities of the Chinese military, that he is not anxious to test them.
Do you share that view?
Yes.
There's been a lot of reporting that the Chinese weapons don't work as well as they're advertised.
And just as I mentioned, we know that Xi Jinping's control over the military is not as tight as people portray it to be.
So I'm not sure that Xi Jinping is confident that if he gives an order to the generals and admirals, that they'll follow it.
There's a lot of, you know, the capabilities of the Chinese military, big topic.
But you've got to remember, it's a communist military, which means it has two lines of reporting, one military and one political.
That's no way to run a war, Roger.
And I'm sure Xi Jinping understands that.
So I believe that McGregor is absolutely right about that.
As you know, one of President Richard Nixon's great accomplishments was getting a strategic arms limitation agreement with the Russians.
He succeeded in doing that really by driving a wedge between the Russians and the Chinese.
Although both were communist nations, they had a long history of hostility, a long common border.
They were not natural allies.
In fact, they were deeply suspicious of each other.
The one thing Joe Biden seems to have accomplished was driving the Russians and the Chinese together.
Do you think President Trump can be successful in driving them apart?
I don't think so.
I think that Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin have been too close for too long.
And the reason is they see the world in the same terms.
They identify the same interest, and they think they've got the same enemy, which is the United States.
Vladimir Putin is very important to Xi Jinping and vice versa.
So I don't think that it is very likely to be able to split the two apart.
It would be nice to think that we can do that, but it would be extraordinarily difficult.
And there are other ways to accomplish what we set out to do.
You know, Richard Nixon's accomplishments were historic in getting Moscow and Beijing apart, but they were already squabbling with each other when Nixon did that.
Nixon was smart enough to understand what was going on between the two and to exploit it.
But right now, we don't have that same situation.
Moscow and Beijing are on the same page.
Very interesting.
So one of the major issues that I see in this country, of course, is the Chinese buying up hundreds of thousands of acres of prime ranch land, farmland, but also public utilities like toll roads, bridges, tunnels, airports, harbors.
And this goes unimpeded.
In Florida, for example, Governor Ron DeSantis announced that he would pass state law that would prohibit the Chinese or anybody fronting for them from buying land in the Sunshine State.
When you read the small print, what the law actually did was prohibit the Chinese from buying any land that was contiguous to a quote-unquote national security site, whatever that means.
You have written quite a bit about the infiltration into all strata of U.S. society, including Owen George's huge swaths of valuable real estate.
How deep is the Chinese infiltration in the United States?
It is pervasive.
It is every institution.
And I'll just give you an example.
You know, the first time that the Ministry of State Security contacted Eric Swalwell was not when he was on the House Intelligence Committee, where, of course, he'd be of great benefit for China, but it was when he was on the City Council of Dublin City, California.
And I'm not saying Swalwell did anything wrong, but what I'm saying is that the Chinese, if they identified somebody so young in his career, there must be dozens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of Swalwells.
In other words, people who have been contacted by the Ministry of State Security.
This is just top to bottom, Roger.
And that's why it's so important for you to talk about these things, because we've got to get the Chinese out of our society because they're here to do us no good.
This is a mortal threat to the security and even the existence of the United States.
You cover this extremely well in your most recent book, Plan Red, or China's Project to Destroy America, which I note again is available right now on Amazon.
That's by Gordon Chang, our guest here today.
Gordon, the Chinese have these police stations across the country in which they are monitoring, theoretically at least, their own Chinese citizens who are in the United States.
I'm not certain why we continue to allow this.
The singer, Jimmy Levy, the gospel singer, who's a friend, because of some contacts he said, told me that he learned he was under extensive surveillance, that he was literally being followed.
He believed that his phone was also tapped.
Why do we put up with this and what should we do about it?
Well, I don't know the why, but we certainly should not put up with it.
You know, the FBI a couple of years ago closed the Chinese police station in Chinatown, New York.
But according to the Daily Caller and New York Post reporting, there are seven to nine remaining Chinese police stations on our soil.
And there very well could be more.
What we're seeing are Ministry of State Security agents and Chinese diplomats engaging in acts which are inimicable to our security.
We can turf these people out or we can imprison them.
And we absolutely have to do that because they not only monitor, but they coerce not only Chinese nationals, but American citizens of Chinese descent.
So we know that, for instance, in the state of New York, especially the city of New York, a lot of Chinese American organizations have very close contact with the Chinese consulate, but also with the Communist Party's United Front Work Department, which is the part of the party that subverts foreign governments.
So, yes, we've got to get them out of our country because if we don't, we will have a very large fifth column here, and we have got to get them out.
If you're just tuning in, we're talking to Gordon Chang.
He's an old China hand, author of the new book, Plan Red: China's Project to Destroy America.
When we come back, I'm going to ask Gordon Chang about the prospects for a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, something the Chinese have been rattling the saber about for some time, something I thought was highly likely under Joe Biden.
I want to see if he agrees with me that it is now far less likely under President Donald Trump.
Talking Gordon: Taiwan Prospects00:06:25
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This is the Stone Zone with Roger Stone.
Back into the Stone Zone.
We're talking to Gordon Chang.
He has lived and worked in Shanghai and Hong Kong for almost two decades, a columnist for Newsweek, The Hill, The Wall Street Journal, Barrons, and many others writing about China.
You can find him on X, formerly known as Twitter, at Gordon G. Chang.
Gordon G. Chang on X.
He has a very lively and informative Twitter feed, X feed.
Urge you to follow him and to check it out.
The question I asked before we went to break, I thought it was highly likely, given the defensive policies of the Biden administration, that the Chinese would invade Taiwan, would take Taiwan, because I think they probably knew all they would have gotten from the Biden administration was probably a strong letter of protest.
Now, under Donald Trump, Gordon, what are the chances, in your opinion, that the Chinese will make a move to invade and take Taiwan, which, of course, they continue to insist is rightfully theirs?
Yeah, I don't think that the Chinese will start hostilities with an invasion of the main island of Taiwan.
And the reason is for what we talked about before, and that is the Chinese military is not ready.
I don't think Xi Jinping trusts it.
And also, the military doesn't really want to fight.
But that doesn't mean Taiwan is safe.
And the reason is we know that in the last month, China has been engaged in some very provocative activities against South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Australia.
If one of these incidents goes wrong, I think there will be a general war in East Asia.
And if there's a general war in East Asia, China will move on Taiwan.
So the point is we've got to prevent an incident from flaring up.
And the way to do that is to be strong, as President Trump is, to exhibit, to say that we will protect our friends and allies and to scare the Chinese off.
If we do that, we have a chance of peace.
And by the way, I think that essentially, you know, the Chinese did not invade Taiwan during the previous administration.
And I think you're right.
They weren't afraid of Biden, but they were afraid of internal reasons.
And that's what kept them from invading.
If you're just tuning in, we're talking to Gordon Chang.
You can follow Gordon Chang on X, formerly known as Twitter.
He's at Gordon G. Chang there.
Gordon G. Chang.
He has a very lively X feed.
You had something which I really liked.
Said you can help defund China's regime by telling your broker to sell all mutual funds with Chinese or Hong Kong shares.
Illuminate us on that, if you would, Gordon.
Yeah, a lot of people say, Well, what can I do to stop China?
Well, there's things that we all can do.
One of them is that when we have a choice, it's not to buy Chinese goods, buy American-made, or buy someplace else, but not China.
And the other thing is, of course, to talk to our brokers and say, look, we don't want to hold any Chinese stocks.
Most people will say, I don't hold any Chinese stocks, but they do hold mutual funds in many cases.
And many mutual funds are international in scope, and the international mutual funds almost always have Chinese and Hong Kong stocks.
There are funds which are ex-China, ex-Hong Kong, and those are the ones that tell your broker, those are the ones you want.
Matter of fact, the Chinese equities don't perform very well anyway, so you're doing yourself a favor from a point of view of making money.
But the point is, making money or not, it's not good to fund the Chinese regime.
All right.
I want to thank our guest, Gordon G. Chang.
Again, he is the author of Plan Red, China's Project to Destroy America, which is available now at Amazon.
You can also follow Gordon Chang at Gordon G. Chang on X, formerly known as Twitter, where he has a very, very lively and informative feed.
Gordon, thank you so much for making the time for us today and for entering the Stone Zone.
Well, thank you so much, Roger.
I really appreciate it.
And for our Stone Zone listeners out there, until tomorrow, God bless you and Godspeed.
We'll be back tomorrow with more of the Stone Cold Truth.
Whether it is politics, news, history, style, culture, or food, you can always find it right here in the Stone Zone.
Au revoir.
The Stone Zone with Roger Stone.
Leadership Thread00:00:23
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The leadership thread with Dr. Peggy Polonis.
I'm Dr. Peggy Polonis.
Join me on each episode where I unravel the story that shaped leaders, tracing the thread that led them where they are today.
Because leadership isn't born in adult Twitter.
Thank you once again for joining us on the leadership thread, education, ethics, and sustainability.