Captain James Fanell: China’s desired end state is to displace the US

Captain James Fanell joins Secure Freedom Radio to share intelligence about China and the threat it represents to us. Capt. Fanell retired from the US Navy in 2015 concluding a 30 year career as a naval intelligence officer specializing in Indo-Asia Pacific security affairs with an emphasis on the Chinese Navy.

It is hard to comprehend that we are giving Chinese companies different sets of rules than US companies- which have to be very open and transparent about their dealings. We have the Securities and Exchange Commission, we have a very elaborate set of rules and regulations to ensure our stock market is open and transparent and trustworthy and that there are no shenanigans going on. Yet, the Chinese can essentially be on the stock market as participants but not comply with any of those rules. There seems to be a mindset that it is in the world’s interest to try and get China to become a major player and a responsible stakeholder, and that once they come along and join the rest of the world order they will adopt our norms and the rising tide will lift all boats. However, this has not been the past pattern of Chinese behavior. They’re predatory and their desired end state is to displace the US and put in the Chinese Communist Party as the new leader of this new global governance structure. Yesterday Xi Jinping spoke at the WHO virtual conference about global governance for world health issues. Well, China has these talks about global governance across many different areas of the instruments of national power and they are trying to seek leadership in all these areas to institute a system that basically benefits the PRC and puts everyone else at a disadvantage. The idea that we can assume China is a benign actor is not based on any fact. It is based really on a naivety and it is really hard to understand that we have people in senior positions that still believe this.

Captain Fanell also examines China’s increasing military activity in the South China Sea:

China is now greater than the US in terms of naval force in the South China Sea. For every 5 or 10 Chinese warships and planes that are down in the South China Sea, we may have one. The Chinese have built this up since I retired in 2015. However, I started watching this build up well before that, including when the Chinese navy started their activities in Scarborough Shoal and took that from the Philippines. They also built these seven artificial islands down in Spratly. Over the course of this last decade, China has built up their continuous presence in the South China Sea. So now, whenever we operate down there the Chinese characterize it in the international press as the US being the provocateurs and militarizing the South China Sea. But this is a complete reversal of the truth. It has been China who has militarized the South China Sea with these artificial islands. They are now shadowing any foreign military that operates down there, which is predominantly the US navy but it also our allies- including Australia, Japan, etc. China follows these ships and warns them that they need permission to operate in the South China Sea.

Listen to the full interview here