China gets feisty with Feinstein.

Hi, welcome to China Uncensored,

I'm your host Chris Chappell.

This is Devin Nunes,

a US congressman from California.

He's been working to derail

Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation

into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Now imagine what would happen

if the FBI discovered that a staffer for Nunes,

who had worked for him for 20 years, had been spying for Russia.

And all Nunes did was quietly fire him and then keep it under wraps.

I think people would freak out.

Now, this is Dianne Feinstein, a US Senator from California.

Turns out, one of her long-time staffers was allegedly a spy—

for the Chinese Communist Party.

“The Chinese spy was Feinstein's driver for 20 years,

who also served as a gofer in her Bay Area office,

and who was a liaison to the Asian American community.

He even attended Chinese consulate functions for the Senator.”

Five years ago,

the FBI came to Feinstein with this information,

and she quietly dismissed the guy.

No one else on her staff even knew.

It only came out recently,

thanks to this brief blurb in a Politico article.

Now this was at a time when Feinstein

was the Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Not to worry.

“A spokesperson for Feinstein said...

no Feinstein staffer in California

has ever had a security clearance.”

Oh, well that is a relief.

A possible Chinese spy was close to a US senator

while she sat on a sensitive intelligence committee,

but his lack of security clearance means

he definitely never heard anything

at any point that could be a political advantage

to the Chinese regime.

Whew.

It's not clear right now how much this alleged spy

was able to communicate with his handlers,

and the FBI apparently didn't think

they had enough evidence to prosecute.

In fact, this San Francisco Chronicle story makes it seem like

he was more of an accidental spy...

who thought he was just talking to a friend,

who happened to work for the Chinese Ministry of State Security.

This is why I always say, never make any friends.

Remember that, kids.

But you know what?

The spying part...isn't even the most interesting part of this story.

We're just getting started.

See, the Chinese Communist Party has been working hard

to influence important people in the United States,

to guide our country on a more “China friendly” path.

China experts have called this strategy “elite capture.”

Getting the wealthy and influential on your side.

But you can't just capture elites by luring them into

a trap set with fine wine and caviar.

So how does the Chinese Communist Party do it?

Take a look at this Hudson Institute report,

The Chinese Communist Party's Foreign Interference Operations.

Under the section, “China's Willing American Enablers,” it says,

“For everyone from businesspeople to politicians,

the promise of market access to China....

is a powerful incentive to work with the Chinese government

and acquiesce to its broader agenda.”

In other words, money.

I know, what a surprise.

It turns out Senator Dianne Feinstein is

a perfect example of elite capture.

She knew that the Chinese government was taking an interest in her.

The FBI warned her of that back in 1997.

Why would the Chinese regime be interested?

Here's former FBI agent Josh Harp,

who used to run counter-espionage for the FBI in the Bay Area,

talking about Dianne Feinstein.

“You know anybody who sits on the House Intelligence Committee,

they all have a top secret security clearance and even higher,

and those people are all prime targets of opportunity.”

And Feinstein didn't exactly

make it difficult for Chinese officials

to get close to her.

Now I'm not saying Dianne Feinstein is a spy

or that she did something illegal.

I'm not accusing her of that.

But I am saying, records show Feinstein had

very close dealings with the Chinese Communist Party.

And in particular,

everyone's favorite mass murder and natterjack toad—

Jiang Zemin!

And the two of them made sweet music together.

I wonder what future dictators sing at karaoke.

What's that, Shelley?

“One Day When We Were Young”?

Well, that's disappointing.

I thought it would be something like “Highway to Hell.”

Or at least “We are the Champions.”

So how did this duet begin, you ask?

Well, Feinstein was the mayor of San Francisco from 1978 to 1988.

And the Chinese Communist Party is very interested in keeping

close ties to San Francisco's Chinese community.

As the LA Times wrote,

Mayor Feinstein had a close relationship with Jiang Zemin,

who was then the mayor and party secretary of Shanghai.

In 1980, Mayor Feinstein made Shanghai the sister city of San Francisco.

It was the first sister city relationship the US had with China.

In fact, the two cities are still sisters to this day,

thanks to Feinstein and Jiang's “lasting ties.”

But back when San Francisco's sister relationship with Shanghai began,

Feinstein was just a mayor,

and so was Jiang Zemin.

Jiang didn't become the leader of China until after 1989,

when he supported killing all those students in Tiananmen Square.

Ok, I know that sounds bad.

But, as Feinstein put it in 2010:

That whole Tiananmen Square incident is in the past.

And one learns from the past.

And China has learned a lesson.

And that lesson is, brainwash the next generation

into forgetting it ever happened.

That's not a joke.

That's what they did.

Anway, Feinstein and Jiang's relationship began

in the simpler times of the 1980s,

well before the alleged Chinese spy in her office,

and definitely before Jiang would rise to power

and launch a systematic campaign

to kill Falun Gong practitioners for their organs.

Apparently, “Feinstein became friends with Shanghai's mayor,

Jiang Zemin,

and the two visited each other regularly;

Jiang once spent Thanksgiving in San Francisco”

with Feinstein and her husband.

Why, Jiang even danced with Feinstein

during one of those visits.

Ok, dancing and singing together is one thing,

but did Feinstein's friendship with Jiang affect

how she treated US-China relations?

Well, back in the 1990s, a lot of US officials

were reluctant to normalize trade with China

because of that whole Tiananmen Square whoopsie-daisy.

Congress had to re-approve trade with China every year.

But Feinstein wanted to change that.

In 1996 she wrote this op-ed for the LA Times called,

“Most-Favored Status Is Not a Perk.”

It's not?

I'm pretty sure becoming most favored anything is a perk.

Anyway, she wrote,

“We should grant most-favored-nation status

to China on a permanent basis and get past

the annual dance that is proving to be extraordinarily divisive.”

Also, remember,

this was only seven years after the Tiananmen Massacre.

Surely the Communist Party had completely changed by then!

Well, according to Feinstein, it had.

“The positive changes in China have been dramatic.

Chinese society continues to open up

with looser ideological controls,

freer access to outside sources of information

and increased media reporting.

More people in China vote for their leadership on the local level

than do Americans.”

Um...you realize that the local “voting” doesn't count

when the Communist Party picks all the candidates, right?

Fortunately for Feinstein,

she wasn't alone in her support for China...

and Jiang Zemin.

There was also this guy.

Then-president Bill Clinton wanted China

in the World Trade Organization.

Or, you could say, American corporations

wanted access to the China market,

and Bill Clinton did his best to represent

his well-funded constituents.

But when trade talks with China started going sour,

in August 1999,

the White House sent Feinstein there meet with Jiang Zemin

and encourage him to resume negotiations.

And eventually, Clinton and Feinstein successfully got China

to join the World Trade Organization.

And now—as you know—

China plays by all the international rules,

has a vibrant democracy,

respects human rights, and...haha, no.

It was a total failure.

Although that's not how some see it.

Senator Feinstein told the Washington Post in 2010

that China has gotten soooo much better.

She said, “There was originally

this kind of anti-communist view of China.

That's changing...

China is a socialist country but one that is

increasingly becoming capitalistic.”

Well, I guess selling people's organs for profit is capitalistic.

And that kind of optimism spreads to the people around Feinstein.

I mean, besides that alleged Chinese spy.

In 2011, her former aide,

Peter Ruffo joined the Chinese telecom giant ZTE

as their first in-house political lobbyist.

Ruffo is still ZTE's lobbyist.

Even though the House Intelligence Committee

has been warning for 6 years that ZTE

poses a national security threat to the US.

But it's not just Feinstein's former staff who

are enamored with totally-not-communist China.

This may shock you,

but while Dianne Feinstein

was arguing for more trade with China,

her husband Richard Blum was making

an awful lot of money...

in China.

“In 1986, Feinstein and Jiang designated several corporate entities

for fostering commercial relations,

one named Shanghai Pacific Partners.

Feinstein's husband served as a director.”

That project also involved state-run Shanghai Investment Trust Corp.

And it “was cited by Chinese officials as a testament

to the friendly business ties between Shanghai

and San Francisco that Feinstein had initiated.”

And business grew.

In May 1994, in a speech delivered on the Senate floor,

Feinstein urged President Clinton to increase

favorable trade relations with China—

at the same time her husband Blum planned to invest

up to $150 million there on behalf of several clients.

Now, both Feinstein and her husband said that his businesses

did not benefit from her China relationships.

And that he had his own relationships in China.

But their behavior still raised eyebrows.

“Feinstein took three trips between 1995 and 1997 to China,

in addition to trips earlier in her mayoral service,

to meet with top communist officials,

including Jiang [Zemin].

Blum often attended the meetings with her,

an arrangement the Times described as 'unusual.'”

In one instance, in 1996, Jiang Zemin took Feinstein

and her husband to the home of Mao Zedong.

They were the first foreigners to see his bedroom and swimming pool.

It was very historic.

Like, if you got to see Stalin's old bedroom and swimming pool,

the first thought on your mind would be how historic it was.

All these private meetings with Jiang Zemin

and the couple were very good for Blum's business,

according to American experts in Chinese business practices.

Now a spokesperson for Feinstein said that by 1999,

her husband had gotten rid of his last holdings in mainland China.

Which is good because at the time she was really pushing

for China's entry into the WTO,

and that would be a conflict of interest, right?