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The CCP and the problem of "elite capture"

(Peter Schweizer, HarperCollins, January 2022)An astonishing and disturbing new book has just been released that describes how the Chinese Communist Party has been able to suborn elite figures in the United States to the extent they are effectively collaborating in the regime's bid to become a global totalitarian hegemon, dominant industrially, technologically, and militarily, able to control and manipulate information flows not just in China but the wider world.

Titled Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich  Helping China Win, the book is now available on Kindle, with the print version due for release on 4 May. It is an excellent companion volume to Clive Hamilton's two books on CCP influence operations in Australia and the West (see the interview I did with Hamilton for the Blackheath Philosophy Forum).

The scope of these elite capture operations is extraordinary. It includes figures at CEO level in big tech, including corporations like Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and Google, who have agreed to extensive technology transfers including military applications. It includes all the big operators on Wall Street, who continue to pour investment funds into China, as well as key figures in higher education, media, sport and entertainment. It extends to senior political figures on both sides of the aisle, and influential political families including the Bidens and the Bushes, as well as current and former senior government officials including in the intelligence services

Truly shocking is the extent to which some of these figures not only have dealings with the regime, but are prepared to act as apologists for it, overlooking the atrocities being perpetrated such as the incarceration of hundreds of thousands of Uighurs, the largest mass internment of an ethno-religious minority since the fall of the Third Reich, and the vicious persecution of dissidents.

The book opens with the famous quote attributed to Lenin: "The capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them", which apparently he did not say, though the author cites the actual quote, which is actually more apposite.

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“The capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them.” There is little evidence that Vladimir Lenin uttered those exact words. What he did say, however, was more precise, if less catchy: “They [capitalists] will furnish credits which will serve us for the support of the Communist Party in their countries and, by supplying us materials and technical equipment which we lack, will restore our military industry necessary for our future attacks against our suppliers. To put it in other words, they will work on the preparation of their own suicide.”

In 2015, the CEOs of America’s largest tech companies gathered at Microsoft’s glass and steel headquarters just outside of Seattle. The leaders from Amazon, Airbnb, Apple, and Facebook were all present to welcome a very special guest. For President Xi, the visit to Seattle was a stopover; he was en route to meetings with President Barack Obama in Washington, D.C. The purpose of visiting Seattle first was to cultivate Beijing’s relationship with America’s tech titans. The Technorati waited patiently for his arrival. When he entered the room, the titans of Silicon Valley were thunderstruck. “Did you feel the room shake?” asked Apple CEO Tim Cook.

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