In a recent episode of American Thought Leaders, host Jan Jekielek spoke with investigative journalist Peter Schweitzer, author of the recently published “Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills America.” Mr. Schweitzer breaks down the CCP’s disintegration warfare strategies to destroy America from within.
Jan Jekielek: Peter, fentanyl has become the number one killer of Americans under the age of 45, about 100,000 people overall per year. You make the case that the Chinese regime, the CCP, is deeply involved in every stage of the process leading to those deaths.
Peter Schweizer: People assume that the major problem with fentanyl poisoning in America is the Mexican drug cartels. The drug cartels are the junior partners. This is a CCP-run operation.
With the precursor chemicals that make fentanyl, 90 percent of them come from China. Those precursors mainly arrive in a single port in Mexico, Manzanillo. The international terminal at Manzanillo is run by a Chinese company. That’s one of the reasons they have a hard time stopping this flow of precursors.
Those precursors are then moved to a town in northern Mexico where they are combined to create this deadly cocktail of fentanyl. According to the Department of Homeland Security, some 2,000 Chinese nationals are helping the drug cartels do this.
The vast majority of people dying of fentanyl overdoses don’t know they’re taking fentanyl. It’s laced into illegally made pills that look like Vicodin and Adderall. For the drug cartels to do that, they need pill presses and molds that make these pills look like the real thing. The cartels get those from China.
Once they’ve created these pills, they smuggle them across the border. They use Chinese apps and Chinese communication devices because they know that China will not share those communications with U.S. law enforcement.
The final link in this chain is money laundering. The cartels use Chinese state banks to launder their money. Without China’s involvement, we wouldn’t be facing this scourge in America today. It’s part of disintegration warfare.
Mr. Jekielek: How does disintegration warfare fit into the picture?
Mr. Schweizer: “Unrestricted Warfare,” published in 1999, broadened the definition of warfare to include everything, including drug warfare. Nothing is off the table.
In 2010, two senior Chinese military officers published a book called “Disintegration Warfare.” On the cover is a quote from Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese strategist, that the best strategist defeats his enemy without actually fighting him. That’s disintegration warfare.
Essentially, it says, “We’re going to disintegrate the United States internally. We’re going to cause deaths by fentanyl or stoke internal violence in the United States. We’re going to pit American against American by exacerbating social divisions.”
Mr. Jekielek: Why isn’t the U.S. government doing anything about this?
Mr. Schweizer: The reality of what China’s doing makes life very complicated for political figures in Washington. They don’t want domestic lobbies, Big Tech, and Wall Street saying, “You can’t disrupt our ties to China.”
More specifically, figures in the United States have deep financial entanglements. One would be Joe Biden and the first family of the United States. Back in 2017, the Biden family received a $5 million interest-free, forgivable loan from a Chinese businessman who was partners with a Chinese gang leader who goes by the name White Wolf. His gang set up the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico in the fentanyl trade. Does Joe Biden want a conversation about Chinese involvement in the fentanyl trade? I doubt it.
China has been able to turn to our business community and effectively use them as de facto lobbyists against their own government. China calls this elite capture.
Mr. Jekielek: In “Blood Money,” you do a great job of detailing all the unconventional weapons that the CCP wields against America. TikTok might be the most pernicious and the most effective.
Mr. Schweizer: I would agree with your assessment. ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, is not just a Chinese company but is joined at the hip to the Chinese military/intelligence complex. The headquarters of ByteDance in Beijing is located not far from the Ministry of State Security. It’s the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, all rolled into one.
ByteDance actually does joint research with the Ministry of State Security. One of the things they research is how to manipulate people online. My favorite section of “Blood Money” is where I quote Chinese military and propaganda officials describing how they are using platforms like TikTok to manipulate people in the West.
Mr. Jekielek: A significant part of this far-Left protest movement which you document in your book is closely tied to the CCP.
Mr. Schweizer: China’s strategic thought here is captured in the phrase, “Watch the fire burn from across the river.” In other words, fan the flames, but detach yourself.
A lot of the radical protests in the United States even before 2020 is the work of two very radical groups. One is called FRSO [Freedom Road Socialist Organization]. The other is PSL [Party for Socialism and Liberation]. These organizations have explicitly pledged their allegiance to the CCP. Many of the violent radical protests in 2020 were organized by FRSO and PSL. According to reports in China, FRSO essentially took over Black Lives Matter and ended up radicalizing it.
They’re now pro-Hamas or pro-Palestinian rights protests. If you look at a lot of the organizers, they are FRSO and PSL. Look at the so-called trans movement. Two of the biggest funders of that movement are Chinese-based billionaires. They know it’s divisive, and they’re trying to push it in the United States.
Mr. Jekielek: Any final thoughts?
Mr. Schweizer: You and The Epoch Times have been at the forefront of this. I’m encouraged that people are becoming more attentive. But the clock is ticking. China’s strategy is working. This is not an abstract future war. It’s a war occurring right now. I encourage everybody to be vigilant and let your elected officials know what’s going on so they can take this seriously and confront it.
This interview was edited for clarity and brevity.
