Former CIA Agent Mike Baker on China's 2049 Plan

I'm very excited to talk to you because I had a guy on Jamie Metzli, a survey scientist, who scared the shit out of me, talking about China. He's talking about China. We were talking about China amassing naval power. China's taking over tech companies and how huge they're getting and how much influence they have over their people as opposed to the way we do it. Well, he's not wrong. Yeah, I can't spot the line in what you just said. There's so much we can talk about. If you think about it, just in the past handful of months, there was this SolarWinds hack by the Russians. The Russians go in. They hack into a company called SolarWinds. It's an IT management software company that happens to be fairly deep into government organizations, agencies, treasury, and a variety of others throughout the U.S. government. They're also into parts of the intel community, defense department, and a lot of commercial sectors. The Russians figure this out. Around about December or January, Microsoft identified this as a problem. I think it was the head of Microsoft said, this looks like the most sophisticated attack we've ever seen. This is December, January timeframe. They're still trying to figure out the depth of this hack by Russians. At the same time, and going back months and months and months and months before, the Chinese had been engaged in a more sophisticated attack that while everyone is focused on what's going on and so fully aware that we got problems from nation states out there who don't like us, everybody's talking about SolarWinds. They've just now released information about the Chinese attack against Microsoft Exchange servers running the Exchange email systems. This thing is enormous. The Chinese, yeah, we've been so focused for four years on the Russians. They're out there to cause us all sorts of problems, so we should be focused on them. But it's China that's the biggest problem. This guy is absolutely right. It was terrifying. Listen to what he was talking about, the way he was explaining how they have this plan. I think he said 2049 to be the global superpower of the world and essentially take the place of what America used to be. Do it their way. Do it their way, which means we're going to bypass all the costs and the heavy lift of research and development over the years, and we're just going to steal everything. They've been doing it for decades. They think, oh, China, it's a problem. We've talked about this before, this idea that perhaps this is just something relatively new or it's popped up during the previous administration of Trump. And honest to God's truth, it's been going on for decades. And they decided that that's how they're going to get to the top of the food chain, is by stealing shit because it's a lot easier to hoover up everything and then reverse engineer it. And the technology has made it even easier. It used to be old school. They'd go out and recruit somebody. They'd find some Chinese American working for a company here in the States. They'd appeal to sort of, you know, you got to help the motherland. And they would. And that was the old school way of doing it. But cyber theft is incredible what they're able to do. And this latest attack, they're still trying to sort out the mess. So when they do this, so if they get into this email server, are they targeting anything specific? Is there specific companies? Are they just like throwing a net out there and seeing what they catch? Yes, is the answer to both of those. It looks like what happened here was that their initial point of attack or initial focus was intelligence. So then it branched out and it branched out very, very quickly to hit everything. Small companies, medium sized companies. And that's kind of the MO for the Chinese. The Chinese regime and their intel operations. They've got this long vision. And they've also got the resources. And they've got the desire to hoover up everything and then sort it out later. We take, as a country, we take a very sort of targeted approach. We say, okay, this is a piece of information that's a priority tasking for the U.S., for our national security. We're going to go out, we're going to figure out who has access to it. We're going to develop a very sort of surgical strike to figure out how do we get to somebody who's got this piece of information. That's typically how we or some of our allies would operate. The Russians, the Chinese, have always had a different approach. I mean, the Russians is less elegant. The Russians are just throw shit at the wall and see what sticks, right? But the Chinese, they've got this long view and they've also got this ability. So in this particular attack that they're still trying to assess that was perpetrated by Chinese state-sponsored hackers based in China, they're just going to take everything and then they'll sift through it. They'll figure out what they got. A lot of it's going to be just chafe, not of interest, but they're going to find a lot of gold in there too. And they're willing to do that because they've got the patience to do it. They'll develop a target. They'll develop a potential recruit for years and years and years, or they'll infiltrate a society or an organization. They'll put a student out here who's actually working for the PLA, for their intel operations, and they'll put him out as an undergrad. They'll go to school and they'll get good grades and they'll go to a grad school and they'll get a job and they'll get another job. And then 30 years down the line, it may pay off, but they're willing to make that investment. So we should be scared. Well, we shouldn't be scared, but we should be. I don't think we should be scared, but I think what we should be is pragmatic and understand why, for instance, there was a lot of, you know, human cry over the past four years. I can't believe I just said human cry. I don't even know what that means. It's old-timey. Is it? Oh, my golly. What is human cry? Look at me. It's like the cat's pajamas. So, you know, four years of Trump and sort of his antagonistic relationship with China, and people were all wringing their hands in Washington, D.C., you know, sort of the think tankers and the traditional pundits and the diplomats of the U.S., you know, the long-term people. They're, oh, my God, we've got this adversarial relationship with China. Well, you know what? We better, right? So that's not a bad thing. So I'm hoping the current administration maintains to some degree, and we'll see what happens. They still haven't responded to the SolarWinds, to the Russian hack, right? They're talking about it. Now they're saying they're going to engage in several clandestine retaliatory acts. Well, it's not that clandestine because they've announced that they're going to do it. And so, you know, but I'm hoping that they will take serious action against the SolarWinds Russian act, but they've got to with China. They've got to maintain this posture. We've got to make it clear and understood to the Chinese regime that we're not going to put up with this shit. They're going to keep doing it, but we've got to make it painful for them. So how do you make it painful? Well, you know, it's the old word sanctions. You've got to go with the sanctions because there's not much else. Trade wars, you know, I know everybody hates a trade war, not everybody, but you've got to find a way, because the problem with cyber shenanigans is that there's no real clear definition, right? We know if we if if a country fires a ballistic missile off, you know, we know what the rhetorical retaliatory act is. We know what appropriate response is in cyberspace. When you're talking about warfare, coming up with a definition is very difficult and hasn't been done yet. We've got cyber command, right? And we're still trying to sort out what are appropriate responses because they can escalate quickly, right? Next thing you know, they get shut down our infrastructure, right? Well, that's what I wanted to talk to you about supposedly what they did in India. So if you could explain that to people, they shut down the power grid in India allegedly. They said they didn't do it, but apparently there was some sort of a warning about the power going out, right? Yeah, they've done it. I mean, the Russians did it famously in Ukraine, right? I mean, not that long ago. And China's ability to interfere in infrastructure here in the U.S. or in India or with our allies is because for years now they've been probing. There's been testing going on. You know, we we talk about a good example. We talk about how in the U.S. we have three grids. And I think people were stunned to find out that Texas has its own power grid. Well, yeah, but it's not so much people were like, oh, my God, look at Texas. They're terrible because, you know, they wanted to make it a political thing. They wanted to make it sound like the reason why it's so terrible is because it's Republicans and they've got they want their own independence. Well, no, all three grids are fucked. The east and the west and the and the Texas grids are all cobbled together over the years. So it's a very sort of it's like a patchwork quilt. And they were never built to withstand physical attacks. I mean, you could drive by any substation, right? You could get close enough to pee on it. And there's they certainly were never designed to withstand a cyber attack. So over the years, what goes on is essentially a mapping exercise where whether it's the Russians, whether it's the Chinese, whether it's the North Koreans using Chinese capabilities, whether it's the Iranians, whomever, they're in there probing and trying to understand the weaknesses and they're drawing up a map. Now, the reason why they're doing that is to have a game plan. Right. And I guarantee you sitting on the desk somewhere not too far from, you know, she's office is a playbook that says if this thing escalates, here's what we're going to do. And if you think that it was bad in Texas, you know, a couple of weeks ago when the power was out and it was bad. But think about that lasting for eight, 10, 12 weeks around the country. Power grid shut down. What happens? You can't transport shit. You can't get cash. Fuel doesn't get to the gas stations. Food doesn't get to the stores. Depending on the time of year, heat issues, obviously, water supplies. And that's where the next big battle is going to be fought. Right. They're going to bring it to the homeland. And we will do the same thing. Right. It's not like we're not doing it because people always say when I say that, you know, well, the U.S. does it too. I think, well, fuck yeah, the U.S. does it. We better. We better hope we're prepared. Does that frustrate you when people say that? Well, the U.S. does it too. Yeah, it does in a sense because this is where I think, you know, that now personal opinion comes into it. Look, I spent most of my my adult life overseas. And I like to think that I've got a fairly pragmatic view on things. I do admit that I, you know, obviously look, I look at the U.S. and I like to think and I have seen on occasions we do a lot of things for the right reasons. Sometimes we don't do it properly. Right. We make mistakes. Of course, we make mistakes. But we try to self correct. I guarantee you, if we're talking about the major powers out there, if we're talking about China and us, we're talking about the Chinese regime. I'm talking about obviously if we're talking about the Russians, the Iranians, North Koreans, we better hope that we stay up there. Right. And are able to exert influence in the world. Exert influence and leverage and control the top. Right. Because if it's if it's. And again, maybe I'm wrong here, but the Chinese don't feel anything in an altruistic manner. The Chinese regime. Right. It's all about self interest. And sometimes I'll tell you what's frustrating sometimes is we seem to be the only country out there that apologizes for that sort of thing. And so when we act in our own best interest and we go, well, we're really sorry about that. You know, we're kind of acting in our best interest. Well, every other nation does it and they don't give a fuck. Yeah. But shouldn't we be the moral high ground for the world? I think we should. I think it's nice if we do all the same shit they do. We say sorry. Yeah. Yeah. I guess it doesn't cost anything to say sorry. It's not a bad thing. It's not a bad thing. We're setting a tone. Yeah. I guess that's true. As long as we're as long as we're also then at the same time acting in our own best interest. Yeah. Because we have to be again, we have to be pragmatic. If we think that somehow, you know, look at climate change. It's obviously it's back on the table. It's a big issue. It's a major policy direction. Hey, fine. Great. Who doesn't want clean energy? But, you know, to act as if China's not the number one polluter out there is insane. Yeah. That's where it gets weird. Yeah. It does get a little weird. Giant difference between the amount of particulates, the amount of pollution, the amount of CO2. You know, I think they've tried hard to mitigate that over the last few years in particular. Remember when they had the Beijing Olympics? Yes. And they had to shut everything down because the air quality was so bad that the athletes, you know, would it would actually be dangerous for the athletes to to perform and to compete. Catch new episodes of the Joe Rogan Experience for free only on Spotify. Watch back catalog JRE videos on Spotify, including clips easily, seamlessly switch between video and audio experience. On Spotify, you can listen to the JRE in the background while using other apps and can download episodes to save on data costs all for free. Spotify is absolutely free. You don't have to have a premium account to watch new JRE episodes. You just need to search for the JRE on your Spotify app. Go to Spotify now to get this full episode of the Joe Rogan Experience.