WATCH: China expert says communist regime unlike anything 'since the Third Reich'

The FBI issued a PSA warningof the Chinese government’s intention to steal American medical research in its quest to find a cure for COVID-19.

The May 13 announcement came as mounting evidence continues to expose Chinese efforts to infiltrate America’s college campuses with the goal of stealing research and spreading propaganda.

Gordon Chang, an expert on United States-China relations, and author of The Coming China Collapse, spoke with Campus Reform Editor-in-Chief Cabot Phillips to break down what it all means and what must be done in response.

WATCH:

Pointing first to China’s response to COVID-19, Chang called out the attempt to place blame on other nations, saying “What we are seeing with the coronavirus is an attempt by the Chinese Communist Party to change the narrative around the entire world… the virus has an origin in Wuhan. Beijing has tried to change that, at times suggesting it came from the United States.”

“But also China has been trying to say they’ve had a near perfect response to the coronavirus and western countries have been failing… there’s an attempt to exert Chinese influence. One thing we’ve got to remember is Xi believes China is the world’s only sovereign state.”

Chang went on to point out how China has an extensive operation in place to steal American research, noting that “estimates put the annual theft of American intellectual property at somewhere between $150-600 billion a year.”

“Some of that actually takes place on American college campuses. China has bought a number of college professors, a number of them have been fingered by the FBI and they’re pending investigations, and Chinese students have been engaged in activities...for instance, downloading entire databases for China.” 

 Pointing out the danger in allowing the Chinese government a foothold on our campuses, Chang detailed how their Confucius Institutes “report in reality to the Communist Party’s United Front Work Department. That means these are attempts to subvert other countries. Why would China spend so much money on U.S. campuses? It’s not just because they want to teach the Chinese language. They want to put forth narratives and restrict what is said about China on American campuses.”

Pointing out the lack of reciprocity, he noted, “The U.S. is not permitted to have institutes like this in China. You don’t have a Lincoln Center or Roosevelt Institute… we know that propaganda is absolutely critical to totalitarian regimes.” In closing, Chang noted the impact political correctness has had on the failure of American colleges and universities to call out China’s infiltration efforts.

“What we’ve seen in the U.S. is political correctness gone wild in connection with coronavirus.. where any criticism of China is deemed to be xenophobic or creating racism against Chinese Americans. That’s absolutely wrong. You’ve got to remember that the Chinese regime is deeply racist with its Han nationalist ideology. This is something we haven’t quite seen since The Third Reich. To say criticism of a racist regime is racist is absolutely wrong. People have serious concerns about China and we have to have the right to have open discussions about it without the name calling.”

Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @Cabot_Phillips