Tucker: Beijing using Black Lives Matter as a weapon against us
'Tucker Carlson Tonight' host on what unfolded during US-China meeting
We spend a lot of time talking about China: its intentions, its crimes, its treatment of dogs. We’ve got pretty clear views on the Chinese government. Polls show most Americans do.
But here’s a question we rarely ask: What do the Chinese think of us? Most of the time, we have no real idea. China’s on the other side of the world, and its leaders are cagey enough to keep their opinions to themselves most of the time. But occasionally, we get a glimpse of what they really think. We did this week, when our new secretary of state flew to Alaska to meet with his counterpart, China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi. It was a fascinating exchange. Here, for starters, is the Chinese government’s assessment of our democracy:
YANG JIECHI [TRANSLATION]: Many people within the United States actually have little confidence in the democracy of the United States, and they have various views regarding the government of the United States.
Many Americans don’t have confidence in their own democracy, he said. In other words, maybe the last presidential election was fraudulent. Suddenly China’s top diplomat sounded a lot like one of those right-wing White supremacist insurrectionists you’re always hearing about on CNN, the ones the Biden Justice Department has put in prison. But Yang wasn’t done. Next, he attacked the Biden administration for its silly neocon foreign policy:
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YANG JIECHI [TRANSLATION]: We do not believe in invading through the use of force, or to topple other regimes through various means, or to massacre the people of other countries, because all of those would only cause turmoil and instability in this world ... It is important for the United States to change its own image and to stop advancing its own democracy in the rest of the world.
Ouch. This is not the traditional language of diplomacy, elaborately polite, oblique and indirect. This is talk radio. The Chinese government has utter contempt for the Biden administration, and doesn’t feel like hiding it anymore. Tony Blinken, who’s supposed to be our secretary of state, clearly had no idea what to say in response. Blinken isn’t a natural statesman. What Tony Blinken really wanted to be was a pop star.
In one of his lesser-known non-hits, he sings "And then I came onto you, but you said let’s just be friends yeah, you’re paying me lip service tonight…"
It all brings you back to 1997, when the Hanson brothers were America’s reigning boy band. Remember "MMMBop"? That could have been Tony Blinken, but it wasn’t. Instead, Tony Blinken learned to memorize political slogans, and over time, the Democratic Party gave him the State Department as a reward. When it came time for a showdown with one of the leaders of the Communist Party of China, all Blinken could muster was this:
BLINKEN: I have to tell you, what I’m hearing is very different from what you described. I’m hearing deep satisfaction that the United States is back.
A slogan straight from the bumper sticker. Really? You’re hearing that? From whom? Tony Blinken didn’t say. Nor could he manage to press any point that might conceivably benefit the United States. For example, where did COVID come from? We still don’t know. The Chinese government likely does know, but they’re not telling. Scientists would like to know, because they’d like to prevent future global pandemics. So we ought to find out. But Tony Blinken didn’t dare mention any of this. Notice COVID's conspicuous absence from his list of concerns:
BLINKEN: We’ll also discuss our deep concerns with actions by China, including in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, cyberattacks on the United States, economic coercion of our allies.
Listening to the secretary of state, you’d never know the Chinese government is still, to this day, stonewalling international efforts to find the origin of the coronavirus. Even officials at the World Health Organization, which China pays for, have complained about it (privately, of course).
China has consistently lied about COVID-19 for more than a year. The Chinese government delayed the release of genetic information about the virus that could have helped scientists understand it, fight it, and save lives. This is a crime of enormous proportions. It affects the entire world and endangers all of us. Yet the Biden administration, totally paralyzed by identity politics, has said nothing. In fact, at times it has abetted the cover-up of the origins of COVID-19.
As one of his first acts as President of the United States, Biden signed an executive action ordering federal agencies to stop making reference to the pandemic by the "geographic location of its origin." So, as a matter of official U.S. policy, no more linking a Chinese virus to China. No more talk about where it came from. None of that lab theory. This is now the official position of the Democratic Party.
Why? You have to ask. On Thursday, Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., announced that when you criticize the Communist Party of China, people in the U.S. die of hate crimes.
NADLER: This surge did not spontaneously arise only out of fears regarding the coronavirus pandemic. Some of this blame lies squarely on political leaders who have demonized China — both because of the virus and ongoing geopolitical tensions.
It’s always about words – that’s what they want to control. Here you have a sitting member of Congress flacking for China, our most dangerous rival. You’d think the Chinese would appreciate this. It makes their job easier. But they don’t appreciate it. In fact, it just increases their contempt for our leaders. Our leaders are weak, and so the Chinese press their advantage.
In fact, Yang exploited identity politics to subdue our diplomats in Alaska.
YANG JIECHI [TRANSLATION]: There are many problems within the United States regarding human rights ... and the challenges facing the United States in human rights are deep-seated. They did not just emerge over the past four years, such as Black Lives Matter. It did not come up only recently.
So there you have the Chinese government using Black Lives Matter as a weapon against the United States. You have the Chinese lecturing us about human rights. You never thought you’d see the day that happened. But the amazing thing is, in 2021, it works. That’s why they do it. The Chinese know our leaders well. In fact, they have a name for our self-hating professional class.
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They call them "baizuo." The rough translation from Mandarin is "White liberal," and it is definitely not a compliment. Chinese state media describes baizou as people who, "only care about topics such as immigration, minorities, LGBT and the environment, who have no sense of real problems in the real world, who only advocate for peace and equality to satisfy their own feelings of moral superiority, and who are so obsessed with political correctness that they tolerate backward Islamic values for the sake of multiculturalism."
As Chinese state media notes, "former US [sic] President Obama was considered an advocate of baizuo ideology."
So is "German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her decision to welcome more than one million third-world [sic] immigrants to Europe."
Other observations about baizuo, as reported by Chinese state media, include the fact that they "advocate inclusiveness and anti-discrimination but cannot tolerate different opinions." Baizuo's political opinions are "so shallow that they tend to maintain social equality by embracing ideologies that run against the basic concept of equality."
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According to one scholar from Peking University, "baizuo are phony and hypocritical and will make the situation in the West go from bad to worse." And so on.
Talk about insight, they know our leaders well. According to Wikipedia, many Chinese internet users use the term "baizuo" to "criticize the Democratic Party's emphasis on affirmative action policies [which are] perceived as discriminating against Asians.
Whatever you think of the Chinese, they’re definitely not stupid, and they’re on to something there. Affirmative action hurts Asians. That’s true and everyone knows it.
A study of Harvard’s admissions policy, for example, found that if the school admitted students solely on merit, as we thought they did, the percentage of Asian students in a given class would double to 43%.
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Harvard doesn’t want that many Asians, so it denies admissions to Asians because they’re Asian. That’s the definition of discrimination. That’s what racism is. But it’s everywhere. It’s going on in all elite schools right now, as well as in almost every major corporation. The current administration wholeheartedly supports it.
The Biden Department of Justice dropped a lawsuit against Yale for racist anti-Asian admissions practices, which were proved. They got hold of Yale’s admissions standards, which showed unequivocally that Asians were denied entry because they were Asian. But the Biden DOJ didn’t want to pursue it because they support it.
The attacks on standardized testing have the same effect. We have standardized tests for a reason. They’re created so that people who have no social connections – ambitious and talented immigrants, for example – could succeed in this country too. People like that have no one to write recommendation letters for them — no rich uncles who sit on the board of this or that school — but they’re smart and they work hard and we wanted a place for them in our hierarchy. (This is the land of opportunity, remember?) So we created standardized tests so they could make it too. People from nowhere could succeed on their own talents. That was the idea.
But, not anymore. Standardized tests are disappearing, thanks to lobbying by baizou - from woke Democrats. The meritocracy is racist, they claim. So is succeeding through hard work.
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Who does this poisonous ideas hurt most? In Boston, as in so many places around the country, public schools have suspended an "advanced work" program due to quote "concerns about equity." The real concern is the skin color of the students in the program. Liberals were mad that the classes were too Asian. You’re seeing this everywhere. Many elite high schools are changing admissions because there are too many Asians in the classes.
We all see this happening. No one in this country mentions it. You know who else notices it? The Chinese. Why wouldn’t they? On one hand, they’re offended, because the baizuo’s so-called "equity programs" always wind up hurting people who look like them. On the other hand, the Chinese government is pleased as they watch this. Because no country that penalizes people for intelligence and hard work can last very long. The Chinese have been around long enough to know that’s true.
This article is adapted from Tucker Carlson's opening commentary on the March, 19, 2021 edition of "Tucker Carlson Tonight."
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