Sen. Cruz on Fox News: We've Got to Treat China Like the Threat It Is

HOUSTON, Texas - Ahead of the Senate's return to Washington, D.C., U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, this weekend appeared on Fox News' ‘Justice with Judge Jeanine' and ‘Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo,' where he called for a fundamental reassessment of the U.S.-China relationship. In the interviews, Sen. Cruz highlighted his legislative efforts to unwind the U.S. from China, counter China's censorship and information warfare - which is responsible for at least the spread of the pandemic, edited U.S. movies, growing Chinese influence at our academic institutions, and propaganda on U.S. airwaves - and block Chinese espionage operations in the U.S.

Excerpts from the interviews are below.

ON RETHINKING THE U.S.-CHINA RELATIONSHIP:

"The most important long term national security and foreign policy consequence of this coronavirus pandemic is going to be a fundamental reassessment of the United States' relationship with China. I believe China is the most significant geopolitical threat to the United States for the next century, and I have been saying that for years. Many in Washington have not been interested in hearing it or have refused to listen. I think this coronavirus pandemic has opened the eyes of many in Congress, many in Washington, and even some in the media." (Sen. Cruz, Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo, Fox News, 5/3/2020)

Click here to learn more about Sen. Cruz's effort to decouple the U.S. from China.

ON COUNTERING CHINA'S CENSORSHIP & INFORMATION WARFARE:

"If you look at the pandemic itself, the Communist government in China bears enormous responsibility - enormous direct culpability for this pandemic. We know they covered it up. We know that when heroic whistleblower doctors tried to draw attention to it in December of last year, the Chinese government shut them up. [...] Had they behaved responsibly and sent in health professionals, and quarantined those infected, there's a real possibility this could've been a regional outbreak and not a global pandemic. The hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide are in a very real sense the direct responsibility of Chinese Communist government's lies." (Sen. Cruz, Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo, Fox News, 5/3/2020)

"China is, in my judgment, the single greatest geopolitical threat the United States faces over the next century. [...] I have got [four] bills that I'm introducing this coming week. One is focused on the coronavirus coverup. It imposes strict sanctions on Chinese government officials who covered up this pandemic. They are directly responsible for this pandemic that has killed over 240,000 people worldwide. Because [when] the heroic physician whistleblower [...] tried to stop this at the outset, the Chinese Communist government came down on them, punished them, and silenced them. We used to think of their suppression of speech as a human rights issue. It is clear to everyone this is a national security issue and this is a public health issue." (Sen. Cruz, Justice with Judge Jeanine, Fox News, 5/2/2020)

"When it comes to propaganda, I'm introducing legislation called the SCRIPT Act that is focused on Hollywood. Hollywood far too often lets the Chinese Communist government censor American films. The SCRIPT Act says we are not going to allow the Pentagon to cooperate with moviemakers to let them use ships and jet airplanes and equipment if they are going to allow the Chinese government to censor. It uses the power of government to stop Chinese censorship through Hollywood. [...] I'll give you a great example. [...] The new Top Gun 2, the Chinese government took issue with the fact that Maverick's jacket, the back of it, had a flag, a Japanese flag and a Taiwanese flag. And so the movie maker has censored them and has changed the jacket. Think about it for a second, Judge. What we are saying is that Maverick is scared of the Chinese Communists. That is ridiculous. Hollywood producers who claim to support the First Amendment and free speech readily let the Chinese government censor." (Sen. Cruz, Justice with Judge Jeanine, Fox News, 5/2/2020)

WATCH: How Chinese Censorship Led to a Global Pandemic

WATCH: Sen. Cruz on Fox News: China's Medical Censorship is ‘Threat to National Security & Global Health'

ON BLOCKING CHINA'S ESPIONAGE OPERATIONS:

"The Five Eyes are our closest allies with whom we share the most sensitive intelligence information, and the Five Eyes network itself, the integrity of that network, has potentially been seriously compromised. The United Kingdom had made a decision prior to this pandemic to allow Huawei, the giant telecom company that's owned and controlled by the Chinese government, to build some of the telecom infrastructure and equipment in the United Kingdom. I have spoken out loudly against it [...] because Huawei is a multi-billion dollar espionage agency for China. If they build the infrastructure, it gives them the ability to surveil and to intercept. From the perspective of the Five Eyes network, we can't be sharing information with a system that is compromised. As I said a couple of months ago, four eyes are better than six eyes, which means as much as we love the Brits - if they're going to set up a system that lets the Chinese hack into the communications - we're not going to be able to share the same information. Here's the good news, Maria: post-coronavirus, the reports out of the United Kingdom are that the Prime Minister and the government are seriously reconsidering that Huawei contract because of these security risks." (Sen. Cruz, Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo, Fox News, 5/3/2020)

"There's always been theft, piracy, and industrial espionage. What we've never seen in the history of the world, is a nation-state with trillions of dollars of resources like China, who uses the theft of intellectual property as a strategy and invests billions of dollars into it. [...] M.D. Anderson had a number of instances of Chinese nationals on the payroll of the Chinese Communist government, making more from China than they were making from M.D. Anderson, stealing their intellectual property. This, by the way, is not missile technology. This is treatment and cures for cancer. They're doing this at universities throughout the United States, they're doing this at businesses throughout the United States. This week, I've got four pieces of legislation I'm introducing. One of them is legislation that prohibits the U.S. government from conducting any business over any telecom or internet infrastructure that China owns or controls. Why? Because they use it to steal. That is part of their strategy." (Sen. Cruz, Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo, Fox News, 5/3/2020)

"Last fall, I traveled to Asia. Did an Asia tour of Pearl Harbor, Japan, Taiwan, India, and Hong Kong - really friends and allies all surrounding China. The entire purpose of the tour was to talk about China's threat. When I was meeting with the leaders of our Pacific Command out there, they were saying the military threat from China is enormous. And one of the reasons is that they steal our military technology. So they don't have the [research and development] costs. They just steal what we invent and they're flooding hundreds of billions into building up their military. It is dangerous and we've got to treat them like the threat that they are." (Sen. Cruz, Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo, Fox News, 5/3/2020)

WATCH: Cruz with Judge Jeanine SLAMS Chinese Communist Party

WATCH: Cruz on Fox News: Coming Out of COVID-19, We Must Fundamentally Reassess of U.S.-China Relationship

Click here to learn more about Sen. Cruz's efforts to hold China accountable for its censorship, oppression, and human rights atrocities.

For COVID-19 information and additional resources, visit www.cruz.senate.gov/coronavirus/.

 

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