American Thought Leaders

The values Americans hold dear—such as freedom of speech, religious liberty, and democratic elections—are weaponized by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), says Tianliang Zhang, an author, historian, and popular commentator on China affairs.

In this episode, he argues that the CCP devised a master plan called “America against America” to exploit those very freedoms and openness in order to undermine U.S. interests.
The concept was developed by Wang Huning in 1989, chairman of China’s top political advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).
“But how to implement that, that’s the unrestricted war,” Zhang says.
Unrestricted warfare is a CCP doctrine of leveraging everything as a tool of war, whether it be fentanyl, the media, or election integrity.
How is this war waged in practice? The transnational repression targeting Falun Gong practitioners is one such example.
The Falun Gong meditation practice was popular in China during the 1990s. An estimated 70 million to 100 million people took it up, crediting it for health benefits and mental well-being. In 1999, the CCP unleashed a nationwide persecution, subjecting the practitioners to various abuses, including slave labor and forced organ harvesting.
“CCP sees it as [the] number one threat in its history … so they use American media, they use the freedom of speech here, they use the justice system here to persecute Falun Gong [practitioners],” Zhang said.
The CCP’s goal, Zhang says, is to “eliminate all the independent thoughts” that do not conform to communist ideology.
Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

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“The Cuban regime has been very successful at portraying itself as harmless,” but in reality, Cuba’s intelligence service is “more formidable than the KGB,” says John Suarez, the executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba.
A new 100 page State Department report details the full scope of Cuba’s operations, penetrating all levels of the U.S. government, including the CIA and State Department.
How did a country like Cuba become what the State Department describes as the “capital of 21st century communism?”
Suarez says the regime’s long-term infiltration operations recruit agents early, especially via university exchanges.
For instance, Ana Belén Montes spied for Cuba for 17 years as a senior Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, leaking critical information that compromised U.S. intelligence operations.
In another case, a high-ranking U.S. diplomat, Victor Manuel Rocha, shaped American foreign policy for 40 years to benefit Havana until his arrest in 2023.
The Chinese Communist Party is among Cuba’s top backers, installing infrastructure in Cuba to spy on U.S. communications.
In this episode, we trace how this small island built a global intelligence network and how sympathizers in free societies help whitewash the regime.
Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

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Taiwan faces millions of cyberattacks and intrusion attempts every day, as well as a dizzying onslaught of disinformation from Beijing.
There are few people who understand what Taiwan is really up against better than Taiwanese legislator Wang Ting-yu, a leader in the Taiwanese Parliament’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee.
He’s been sanctioned three times by Beijing and repeatedly threatened for speaking out.
In this episode, he reveals Taiwan’s three-step strategy to withstand the Chinese Communist Party’s psychological onslaught.
Winning the battle for truth, he believes, is imperative to preserving the life of any democratic nation.
And he also breaks down the importance of this tiny island nation. Taiwan produces two-thirds of the world’s semiconductors—and nearly all of the advanced ones—but its importance stretches far beyond this single product. Wang details Taiwan’s strategic position, its role in critical supply chains, and its role as a frontier of human freedom.
Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Historically, America was always one of the friendliest countries towards Jews compared to many countries in Europe, says Batya Ungar-Sargon.
But in recent years, there’s a major shift on the left with anti-Semitism on the rise, she says.
In this episode, she breaks down the ideological shifts reshaping American politics and explains why she rejects the modern “victimhood hierarchy.”
Ungar-Sargon is the author of "The Jews and the Left" and host of “Batya!” on NewsNation argues.
Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Katharine Birbalsingh has been deemed “Britain’s Strictest Headmistress”—and she wears the title proudly. Founder of Michaela Community School in London, Birbalsingh has built one of the UK’s top-performing schools by rejecting the educational fads of the last generation and returning to older principles: discipline, personal responsibility, and patriotism.

The Michaela Community School is an inner-city, non-selective charter school. Despite three and a half years of opposition from unions and councils, Birbalsingh fought to be able to provide a good schooling alternative for London’s poorer communities. And she’s succeeded. Her school has repeatedly ranked No. 1 in student progress in the entire country, and thousands of visitors from around the world have come to study and learn from her model.
In this episode, Birbalsingh reveals how Western institutions have quietly abandoned the moral formation of children. This, she argues, has driven civilizational decline more than any policy failure. Birbalsingh argues that many of today’s schools immerse children in a culture of grievance and victimhood rather than agency and duty.
Birbalsingh details the three pillars of Michaela’s educational approach: discipline, teacher-led instruction, and what she calls “small-c conservative values,” such as self-sacrifice, ownership, and accountability.
Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.