Our Obsession With China . Ying Ma Talks to Armstrong & Getty

of that country and that leadership. Well, trillions of dollars in trade tends to make you feel a little more ambivalent about evil, But to discuss that in many other topics. Ying Ma joins us ying Ma the author of Chinese Girl in the Ghetto, contributor to Fox News, Washington Examiner, NBC dot Com, former columnists for The Wall Street Journals, China Blog, among a number of other interesting positions. Welcome, How are you good? Good? Good morning? Do you both

great to be back on with you. It's been too long. I know, I know, my gosh. I remember last time I was here, we were in the middle of the two thousand and sixteen campaign, and I was right in the middle of that working for the Ben Carson campaign in the pro Trump superpack and were now and we're

now back in another election year. So I was reading a little of your bio stuff um yesterday and you grew up under Mao And there was a phrase in there, and I don't know if you wrote it or whoever was writing about you wrote it, but you know, on the during the burgeoning time of becoming a capitalist society? Is that? So what year did you leave China at that time? Did it seem like it was heading the

way of capitalism? I left in the mid eighties, And so what was happening back then was the eighties was actually a great era because that was a time when a lot of garshoot pants Madonna, it was a great area. We had all that in China too, No I'm kidding, but the people of China aspired to have all that. And I think what was interesting about the eighties was that, um, it was when China actually be gave, really got um

got going with its economic reforms. And so there were lots of first you know, the first time people got to choose where to work, where to live, um, you know, what to buy on the market, and and those were very um the very very first beginnings with baby steps, and so I certainly it was not full blown capitalism in in any way. But what was happening was that capitalism was introduced to a very repressive, um, very closed

off society. And so you know, for instance, did you know that for the longest time farmers in China couldn't keep profits from you know, from their crops, and then so profit incentives were actually introduced in the eighties and and so from it was from that era that China um embarked on the road of what's called reform and opening and and you know, and it's one of the

reasons why China into the economic giant that it is today. Well, when they allowed incentives for production, production exploded, which is not surprised you would think that would keep a country from wanting to head back towards socialism when you got that perfectly good example of how capitalism works. But well, I think they are very well. I think one thing that they're very fond of is that nobody in China is opposed to making any opposed to making money. And

that goes for the Chinese Communist Party. They've now come to realize how much money can buy, advise you, influence overseas. Um. It makes the party stronger. Um. And you know, the good thing about introducing capitalism in China is that a lot of the Chinese people who have this great entrepreneurial spirit, they got to know what it is like to run their own business, to actually, you know, to actually participate in the market. Okay, well then there's the question then

right there. So the Stalin and In Lenin and his crew they in Russia, they were actually communists. It is now known from their own personal writings and and everything they actually believed in communism, and then they were trying to carry that out the Communist Party in China. Are they actually communist? Absolutely absolutely that they are a a new and improved version of communism. And I think, um, I think there is a lot of sophistication and a

lot of complexity that's not often understood. And and you've got all kinds of idiots writing around saying China is no longer a communist country. That is absolutely not true, because I think at the core of it, communism is about control. It is about controlling the ideas of the people who live under it. It isn't about controlling their lives, and it is about all kinds of things. And the Communist Party has at no point decided that it wants to seed political power in any way, and so it

is absolutely adamant about keeping that control. What it has done is that it has realized that if it kept on going the way that it did in the Cultural Revolution or the Great Leap Forward back in the fifties and sixties, all of its, but we're starving to death, and that that is no way to run a country. And so it has decided to over the past forty

years to introduce elements of market reform. But it is not at all a free market society, because you know, in the middle of all those market reform elements, the state continues to maintain control of vast chunks of the economy.

And so what the sophistication in all this is that the Chinese government has managed to find a way to make this sort of reforms work, to generate to generate profits, to generate wealth, to generate influence without having to face what the former Soviet Union faced, which is an overthrow of the regime well and as a regime to balance the openness to the free market in the global market. With the political control, there has to be an enormous sophistication.

Oh yes, absolutely, the the you know, the control mechanisms and there, you know, it's almost like recognizing that UM. The Hitler's war machine sweeping across Europe was a stunning bit of military planning. I mean, as loathsome and horrific as it was, it's just undeniably impressive. The Chinese regime, You've got to admire them. That's almost impossible what they're doing right now. There is so much sophistication and and

you know, I think it's important to recognize us. So even though there has been all these new UM forms of UM of liberation that didn't used to exist, right that people have more opportunities to live where they want to live, to buy what they want to buy, to say what they want to say in private. But what the regime has done is that it has continued to exert control in other ways. It's now, you know, it now censors the internet. The Internet did not exist when I,

you know, was growing up in China. UM. It now has very sophisticated surveillance technology UM, supplied in part by Western companies that want to make a profit in China, and it uh it is able to figure out where its citizens go, what they're doing, you know, what trains

they hop on and what trains there. So there is this social credit system in China that if you do things that the Chinese government does not like, they're all kinds of ways that it could, um, they could impede upon your ability to do basic things like by plane tickets for instance. So so it is a vastly sophisticated state in a way that I think a lot of people don't understand. Have you ever been to one of

those wet bat markets? Think I've been to. I've been to all kinds of wet markets, and I've eaten all kinds of things that you probably don't want that they think. Is that the and that I have not that I can. However, you know, I tell you all kinds of ways that people kill animals in their own homes in order to

eat them. And and you know, and so during the days when I used to grow up, people actually ate their pets in China, um, And you know, not when I was that was that was not not an eye opening experience at all, That was not at all, not at all and I had, you know, even though I was in the middle of the third largest city in China, I had chick in my kitchen that we would grab and kill if we wanted a meal from time to time.

That's pretty common as well. Um, I mean it's no longer the case now, but what markets are quite common. They're still enjoyed by the Chinese people. And then it's you know, but I hear that you know, the government wants to get rid of them because they are now just a hotbed for diseases. Um. So you were, we were emailing yesterday and you told me the story about this uh m m a fighter, yes, journalist and the coronavirus. We're gonna take a little break, but we got we

got to hear this story. This is what the Chinese Communist Party is capable of doing. It features at bat market and fighting market. That's kind of all the elements of the story that you need to keep you to stay tuned to the Armstrong, The Armstrong and Getty Show. If you get a chance to pick up a copy of Chinese Girl in the Ghetto by Yingma, you should

absolutely read it for a number for reasons. It's so for interesting about China's super interesting about uh, the United States is seen through the eyes of an immigrant, and race relations and all sorts of great stuff. But ying mon joins us talk about China and all sorts of good stuff. Yeah, this story because we're emailing yesterday, this kind of encompasses a couple of things that are in the news. Coronavirus, the guy I mean is government, whats

government is willing to do? Tell the story well, so um, and it encompasses m M A, which I know is a big deal for for lots of people across this country. So let me start with the coronavirus. I mean, as we all know, it's it's really become such a big problem. There are seventy five thousand cases in China that we know of, and the numbers coming out of China at all reliable, you know. Um, the answer is we can't

possibly just believe what they tell us. But even if even if we don't, seventy a lot I mean already that's what they're admitting to. And then they're the death toll is over two hundred, right, and and so look and and so um what there are couple of citizen journalists that have gone to the epicenter of the virus and have tried to done sort of video video youtubeing, YouTube videos and others to try to get get the word out, figure out what's going on. And and they've

been disappeared by the authorities. Yes, that's the word that And and speaking of China being a communist country, this is a word that's commonly used in you know, in in the former Soviet Union as well as other countries behind the Iron Curtain in the old days. That still happens in China. So don't anybody sort of get into the temptation of thinking that communism doesn't continue to exist

in China. And a camp or you don't know, because when people were disappeared, we have no idea where they are and what and what was their offense they went to. They actually risk their lives to go to these hospitals where all these people are dying with this coronavirus that

we don't know very much about. And they reported all kinds of things that we other people, including journalists from the New Times, had no idea of which is one that there is a shortage of hospital beds, two, there is a shortage of test kits, and so it's at the epicenter of the city where this virus started. You know, it becomes a problem right when you see corpses lying around in hospitals and they're not being cleared me enough

or that or that. Within a day, you know, from at a major hospital, you see the number of corpses go from two to eight in a short amount of time. That's the kind of reporting that some of these journalists have done. And what did the authorities do? Well, they rounded them up And now here's where the m M A guy got gets involved. Um. You know, this is actually a fascinating story with all these different angles there.

And for those of you who do any kind of martial arts, um, m M A is different, I think, And let me make a side tangent here. Um. A lot of people have have complained that even though Chinese martial arts has this distinguished history, you know, you've got all these people there you go, right, but one of the one of one of the biggest critiques of traditional Chinese martial arts is that is it practical? Can you fight?

If if a Chinese martial artist, all these people with their fancy moves get into the octagon, can you actually fight and So there is this Chinese um M M A fighter in China who have taken it upon himself to expose the fraud, the frauds of of Chinese martial arts to say that you find you know, and so do you think it's his words? His word? He feels that many of these esteem masters in China can't fight, and he's challenged and he's challenged them to real fights.

He's challenged them to real fights. And this is a guy, his name Isan. This is a guy who became famous because a couple of years ago he knocked out a Tai Tea master in twenty seconds, and since then he's gone on to challenge other masters. And and so he's cocky, he's arrogant, he's obnoxious and outright disrespectful. But he happens to be friends with one of the citizen journalists who

was disappeared. And this m M. A fighter actually is one of the few people who had who who actually has put his face on a video to say to the world that this person, you know, this friend of mine is doing this. He was trying to tell the truth about the coronavirus and the government rounded him up and the government, you know, used the excuse that this man was infected with the virus and hence he was quarantined.

And the m M A fighter says that's complete bs and so um and so he might be famous enough that they can't disappear him. That's what he was going for. Well, he his whole point was, I'm going to put this all out there and they're gonna come after me, but

this is my insurance policy. I don't know how well that's see you with just I think she has enough people with guns and other and listen, as long as we're kind of on the topic, I've heard it said that this is fomenting serious, possibly dangerous to the regime levels of unrest. Will the steam be let off and things you go back to normal or do you think this has the potential to drive real change. I would say it's fomenting serious discontent unrest. I don't think it's

gotten to the level of unrest yet. When you're talking about unrest, I you know, I'm thinking about mass protests, rallies. That's what we saw in Hong Kong, right right, And and I'm glad you brought up Hong Kong because I think um oh, and this MM a fighter. When the Hong Kong protests were at the their high he actually went out there and publicly supported the protesters in Hong Kong, which is a very rare feat as well. You don't see Jackie Chan doing that. Jackie Chan is running around

condemning the protesters. And so I think one I think it sometimes takes people who are a little bit crazy and perhaps kind of obnoxious in order to challenge the status quo to have the courage to actually say to this powerful government, you know, to give the give the government the middle finger. Now it comes to unrest and discontent in China, you are absolutely right that this um epidemic has stirred up all kinds of unrest. People have been calling for freedom of speech because if they don't

have freedom of speech, people die. You know. The government has been has been covering up the extent of the illness, and and so there's a lot of that. But I think what it reminds us of is that what that you have to that people who foment unrest or who challenge the government, they don't just do it as sort of a a a concept. It helps a lot more

when their lives are at stake. And and so, um and so I think for a lot of people in China, I don't think they Actually many people in China were not firmly behind the protesters in Hong Kong for a number of reasons. But I think with something like this, where their lives are at stake, it's stirred up all kinds of hostility towards the regime and all kinds of people asking the regime to actually, you know, make reforms.

We are just about out of time with Yeng Ma, author a Chinese Girl and the Ghetto, contributor to Fox News dot com, Washington Examiner, NBC News. Where do you want people to to find you, your website, your Twitter or whatever? Um so on Twitter, I am um at ge z t o ghetto gez to ghetto um and my website is Yingma dot org. That is why I m g m a dot org. We'll have the links that arm Strong and Ghetti dot com so people can find them. Really, question about a story in the news

about China or a book or whatever. She's the one that I always email or text or whatever and say, what do you think about this? You realize he only orders sweet and sour park But I thought I thought when I was on with you guys when my book first came out. We agree that I would take Jack to a Chinese restaurant, an authentic Chinese. Oh boy, alright now that's ridiculous, But this is the ugly American right here. Try the real authentic, or take me to a wet

bat market. I'll check and even the coronavirus is over. Fantastic. Thanks for going on so much, are strong and Getty