From Top Gun to TikTok: The China Challenge and the Character Test for America
Five years ago, in a speech at the Nixon Library, then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated that “if the free world doesn’t change China, communist China will surely change us.” On the issue of China, I’ve been heavily influenced by the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, a bipartisan committee in the House of Representatives, and the current chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Tom Cotton, who just published a book on the threat posed by China. As Sen. Cotton writes, “No living Americans knows what it’s like to live in a world where another nation calls the shots. Most of us take American global dominance for granted, without thinking much about it.”
To be sure, Hollywood films are hardly matters of life-and-death, but when thinking about a world dominated by China, it’s instructive to consider how the Chinese Communist Party pressured Paramount pictures to make changes to a favorite movie of mine, Top Gun: Maverick. In this instance, the pressure from the CCP resulted in a public relations backlash and, despite being banned from China, the sequel succeeded in the United States and elsewhere. One can hope that Maverick’s success provides a positive example of how to pushback against Beijing. But more often, Hollywood executives have kowtowed to the CCP.
Think of how changes were made to Pixels or how filmmakers rewrote Marvel’s Dr. Strange. An especially depressing example is the case of Kundun. Two days into the movie’s production, a representative from the Chinese Embassy complained about the film’s subject of the Dalai Lama and of atrocities committed in the 1950s. As a result, CEO Michael Eisner allowed the shooting to continue but limited its distribution. According to Red Carpet: Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy, Eisner apologized to Chinese officials. “We made a stupid mistake in releasing Kundun,” he said. “This film was an insult to our friends. The bad news is that the film was made; the good news is that nobody watched it. Here I want to apologize, and in the future, we should prevent this sort of thing.”
It isn’t just Hollywood. China has flexed its power over the NBA when an executive expressed support for protesters in Hong Kong. Gap fell over itself to apologize for selling a shirt and Marriott International backed down after listing Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet and Macau as stand-alone countries on an email questionnaire. In many respects, these are meaningless examples, but it’s problematic that China thinks it can dictate to us what we can and cannot say.
China also tries to influence the American education system. For instance, China has donated $5.6 billion to American colleges over the last two decades. China also funds U.S. schools by sending its teens to America, and these students often gravitate to America’s elite schools and pay the full tuition. (This may be changing as Secretary of State Marco Rubio is trying to revoke the visas of Chinese students, which numbered close to 290,000 in 2022-23.) Moreover, Chinese private equity firms have spent millions to purchase private schools throughout America. Indeed, Donald Trump’s alma mater, New York Military Academy, is now owned by China investors.
Furthermore, China partnered with the College Board, a company that helps to design AP courses, and managed to steer classroom discussions away from issues like Taiwan, Tiananmen Square, and the concentration camps in Xinjiang. Although the College Board eventually ended its work with the CCP, China continues to spend tens of millions of dollars on Confucius Institutes. These bodies began appearing on U.S. university campuses in the early 2000s and, according to American intelligence community, have engaged in espionage and intellectual property theft.
The CCP controls student groups on campus through the Chinese Students and Scholars Association. These chapters harass China’s critics and spy on Chinese students. Consider a recent investigative report by Stanford’s main student newspaper, which found overwhelming evidence that the CCP is orchestrating a widespread spying operation at Stanford. “The Chinese government spends a lot of time collecting data on its overseas students,” Matthew Turpin, a specialist in US-China relations at The Hoover Institution, told the Stanford Review. “It has a pretty good understanding of who is doing what and if someone is working in an area of interest. They use carrots and sticks. If you turn over information, you may get a reward; if you don’t, there is a punishment.” Former FBI director Christopher Wray has called the theft of academic research “one of the largest transfers of wealth in human history.” This theft has occurred, in part, because Chinese law mandates that all Chinese citizens support and cooperate with state intelligence work. Regarding the thousands of scientists and engineers who are studying in America, Senator Cotton sums it up well: “We should teach them the Federalist Papers, not artificial intelligence and quantum computing.”
Of course, China’s biggest influence campaign to change America occurs through TikTok. To be sure, Facebook and Instagram collect data, but TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is based in China and is legally obligated under Chinese law to comply with data requests from the CCP. Although TikTok’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, testified that TikTok does not share data with ByteDance, I trust the assessments of the Select Committee on the CCP and the Senate Intelligence Committee chairman more than Chew. In a crisis or military conflict, China could potentially exploit this information for espionage or cyberattacks. There is even the possibility that TikTok is building “digital dossiers” on American citizens—especially public officials, journalists, or military personnel—enabling potential blackmail, influence operations, or targeted disinformation.
It’s also problematic that so many young Americans get their news from TikTok, as the algorithm can be manipulated to suppress or promote content that aligns with Chinese state interests. Equally troubling is that several studies and lawsuits have revealed that within minutes of a teenager’s downloading the app—before the user expresses preferences or views any videos—TikTok recommends content related to pornography, eating disorders, and suicide. For example, a Wall Street Journal investigation created an account pretending to be a thirteen-year-old and TikTok bombarded it with nearly six hundred videos about drug use.
Isn’t it interesting that ByteDance doesn’t offer TikTok inside China? Instead, the Chinese version of TikTok, Douyin has voice reminders that prevent viewers from watching it too long. As Senator Cotton writes, “Douyin encourages Chinese teenagers, in effect, to eat their vegetables, do their homework, and respect their elders—and it’s available to them for only forty minutes at night.”
When I began writing this newsletter, I knew I would complain about TikTok. But what troubled me more and more was learning about a favorite company of mine— Apple.
Apple CEO Tim Cook often talks about Apple’s commitment to civil liberties and privacy. While Apple has refused attempts by American police departments and the F.B.I. to break into iPhones, it helps the Chinese government persecute its citizens. The New York Times found that tens of thousands of apps have disappeared from Apple’s Chinese App Store over the past several years, including foreign news outlets, gay dating services, and encrypted messaging apps. The Times also learned that Apple blocked tools for organizing pro-democracy protests and for skirting internet restrictions. On Chinese iPhones, Apple forbids apps about the Dalai Lama while hosting those from the Chinese paramilitary group accused of detaining and abusing Uyghurs, an ethnic minority group in China.
Apple has not only aided the CCP’s censorship efforts, Apple has built China into a manufacturing behemoth. As Patrick McGee, author of a recently published book titled Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company, explains, “Apple’s investment in building up China is on par with “The Marshall Plan” to rebuild Europe after World War II.” It is depressing to grasp the full extent of Apple’s investment of billions and billions to create the very Chinese manufacturing behemoth that now threatens America in existential ways. McGee refers to this investment as “The Cook Plan.”
The more I read about China’s dominant position—from critical minerals to child car seats—the more depressed I get. Two weeks ago I read something that depressed me further. Chinese firms have established control over warehouses and logistic infrastructure in America, which China’s military could leverage in the event of a conflict.
There are ongoing efforts to prevent federally funded U.S. research from being shared with people who have to the Chinese Communist Party. For instance, the Preventing PLA Acquisition of U.S. Technology Act would prohibit U.S. research agencies and federally funded universities and private companies from participating in STEM research or tech exchanges. But it may be too late. A September 2024 report from the House Select Committee found that “hundreds of millions” worth of federal research funding contributed to Chinese “advancements in dual use, critical, and emerging technologies like hypersonic weapons, artificial intelligence, fourth generation nuclear weapons technology, and semiconductor technology.”
I began with a quote from former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. I have a lot of respect for Mike Pompeo, who graduated top in his class at West Point and helped edit the Harvard Law Review in law school. I wish that the second iteration of the Trump administration had more Pompeos and fewer Pete Hegseths.
Pompeo is right to fear that a communist China will change us. If we fail to reckon with the challenge China poses, we risk waking up in a world remade in its image—less free and less open. But the threat to liberal democracy doesn’t come from China alone. President Trump has shown an alarming comfort with authoritarian tactics. If we respond to China’s rise by imitating its methods, we will have lost the contest before it begins. The challenge is not only strategic but moral: Can we resist a rising authoritarian power without becoming more like it ourselves?