The Enemy Within: How America’s Elites Sold Us Out To China

One of Chinese dictator Mao Tse-tung’s favorite phrases was, “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” Today, as China plots to displace the U.S. as the world’s leading superpower, that gun is pointed at the heads of America’s middle class by American elites who are doing the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party. That’s the message of The Daily Wire’s new documentary series, “China: The Enemy Within,” the work of investigative journalist Lee Smith.

In a five-part series, Smith offers a panoramic view of the way the wealthiest and most well-connected members of society have hollowed out America’s economy, imperiled our national security, and refused to hold China accountable for the spread of COVID-19 in exchange for a piece of the China’s ever-expanding economy.

“What we’re describing here is an enormous network of American elites who draw their wealth, power, and prestige from their relationship with the Chinese Communist Party. That’s the actual enemy,” Smith told me in an exclusive interview.

Much of the ruling class’ influence comes from sapping the power, strength, and resources of the American people — of closing factories, foreclosing homes, and forcing U.S. citizens into a life of hopelessness to enrich the Chinese … and themselves.

American corporations and politicians have worked in tandem for decades to bolster China and lower the American standard of living, because employing Chinese workers instead of Americans padded corporate profit margins, Smith said. Industry titans long dreamed, in Smith’s words, that China’s “cheap pool of labor would be the centerpiece of this new order.” The trade deals brokered by politicians, whose donations come from corporations seeking to do business with China, left blue-collar Americans devastated.

America’s elites have exported America’s industrial base — even the capacity to manufacture everyday pharmaceuticals —to China. “What we have in exchange is fentanyl,” Smith told me. “That’s what the Chinese have given us in exchange for our jobs.” Fentanyl overdoses reached an all-time high in 2021, with 100,255 dying from the drug. Fentanyl is now the leading killer of young people between the ages of 18 and 45. And China is its leading source. Yet American elites often ignore the problem, because drug overdoses tend to cluster in rural areas and places beset by poverty. “Of the counties experiencing above-average overdose death rates in 2015, 646, or roughly two-thirds, were in rural America,” reported the Brookings Institution. While 41% of high-poverty counties had more overdose deaths than the national average, only 13% of well-to-do counties suffered the same way.

Smith’s documentary shows that the individuals pulling the strings of our China policy don’t care, because they don’t live there. “America’s ruling class is no longer on the side of Americans,” Smith says in a jarring monologue that introduces the series. “They are compromised by their dependence on China’s rise and so it’s our elites, and not China, that represent the greatest threat to our national security.”

Instead, politicians either rely on donations from corporations reaping the benefits of trade with China or — as Smith examines in one episode — they sometimes benefit directly. Hunter Biden’s private deals with the Chinese, one of which was inked during then-Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Beijing, are one example. Smith also highlights the case of U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), whose husband has deep business ties to China. It later emerged that one of her servants was a Chinese spy.

Smith turns a keen eye on how elites’ thirst for profit undermines national security. Big Tech sought to undercut the wages of America’s white-collar workers by expanding the number of immigrants eligible for such programs as the H-1B visa, which increased the number of foreign workers available to them. While allegedly temporary, the three-year visas have become a conduit for foreign workers to replace American workers in the high-tech field. Even one of the program’s sponsors, Rep. Bruce Morrison (D-CT), later lamented, “The H-1B has been hijacked as the main highway to bring people from abroad and displace Americans.” Many of these new employees hailed from China and, as Smith exposes, many had been sent to acquire sensitive technology the CCP could use to fuel China’s growing military. The CCP often coaxes those not willingly engaged in espionage by threatening their family members on the mainland.

Smith dedicates a full episode of the show to academia’s embrace of the CCP. China frequently bribes professors who work in advanced scientific fields. The influx of spies posing as Chinese exchange students — the most famous of whom is Eric Swalwell’s former lover Fang Fang — has enriched colleges and universities, whom Smith says have turned a blind eye to Chinese influence in exchange for cash.

While a war with China (thankfully) remains theoretical, China’s capture of American elites and institutions has impacted the world through the spread of COVID-19. The virus’ origins remain shrouded in mystery, although many believe SARS-CoV-2 spread after a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.  Smith exposes how Dr. Anthony Fauci supported a grant for controversial gain-of-function research at WIV, then stonewalled Senator Rand Paul (R-KY). “It’s Anthony Fauci and other American scientists who are standing in between the truth and the American people,” Smith said. “They’re protecting their relationships with Chinese Communist Party elites from whom they draw so much of their wealth, power, and prestige.”

Perhaps the greatest value of the series is that it pulls no punches. No guilty party escapes unscathed. Politicians, Big Business, Hollywood, academia, the U.S. medical establishment — even professional sports franchises — come under Smith’s unrelenting, fact-fueled critique. “This is the story of how America’s ruling classes attach themselves to a foreign power, China, in order to enrich themselves at the expense of the United States,” he said. “This is the enemy within.”

While Smith’s docuseries exposes the scope of China’s penetration of U.S. elites, the problem continues to deepen. Joe Biden tapped Anita Dunn, who has served six other Democratic administrations as well as Democratic megadonor Harvey Weinstein, as an adviser during his campaign and early presidency. Dunn made headlines in 2009, as President Obama’s communications director, when she told a D.C. commencement class about “two of my favorite political philosophers: Mao Zedong and Mother Teresa.” Thanks to Smith’s invaluable series, no one is confused about which one guides the modern Democratic Party.

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