Emanuel's Presidential Campaign featured on Jeff Brown's "China Rising"

It is a great honor to be interviewed on Jeff Brown’s “China Rising” and to be featured as a candidate for president of the United States who will not accept the false choice between COVID-19 truth coupled with anti-China rhetoric or engagement with China and embrace of WHO COVID propaganda. The US and China must come together to fight the parasite class. We need a president who is a near-native speaker of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. We do not need the cynical peddlers of “yellow peril” rhetoric.

See below.

Link to show

China Rising with Jeff Brown

January 22, 2023

Why Asia is America’s Future

Video

Interview with Emanuel Pastreich

Independent Presidential Candidate

Transcript

Jeff J. Brown: Good afternoon, everybody. This is Jeff J. Brown in Normandy on the D-Day beaches. Today I have a very special guest. I’ve never had a presidential candidate on the show today, but today I have with me Emanuel Pastreich. How are you doing?

Emanuel Pastreich: I’m great. Thanks for having me.

Jeff: You and I got in touch through Substack and you made a comment on my mine and I made a comment on yours. And we connected. I thought, “My gosh, It’s about Asia and here is someone who has experience in the region and an interesting CV for political office. And so I thought, what the heck? Let’s see what’s going on here.

So, Emanuel, tell us a little about yourself, and your background. As much as much as you’d like, or as little as you’d like.

Emanuel: I’m honored to have this opportunity, Jeff, to speak with you and with everyone out there and to say that this is not about the two of us. It’s about all of us imagining what the United States could be and especially it is about Asia. China, of course; I was originally a Chinese major at Yale, and I spent a year in Taiwan. I write and I’m reading and speaking in Chinese all the time.

After I graduated from college, I went to Japan, where I received my master’s degree. And then I decided tended to work as a professor, although I’m not one anymore.

I then started Korean when I was at Harvard for my PhD. I went to Korea and ended up marrying a Korean. I lived there for about 14 years of my life. And that’s all to say that this interest in Asia was not a romantic or indulgent interest in the exotic East. I came to sense that America’s future was with Asia and that we would need to have people who understood Asia. I wanted to be someone who actually knew that part of the world.

Later on, when I started thinking about politics, I wanted that to be my selling point, right? I didn’t start thinking about being a politician. I’m not fond of politicians.

But running for office is also a means of expression. I thought about running for office earlier when teaching at University of Illinois. I taught Japanese literature at University of Illinois for eight years and then for two years at George Washington University.

I grew interested in how universities are run, which is linked to how the United States is run.

I became profoundly aware of two things. One was the degree to which the system for education is falling apart, and our thinking is fuzzy. Our education system no longer educates, government no longer serves to govern, and corporations have been infected with the virus, that mind-numbing, short-term, profit seeking mentality. It was already like that at University of Illinois when dinosaurs run the earth, in 2000.

I felt that Americans had to take Asia seriously, and treat Asia as a real partner.

That does not mean Asia is entirely benign, we have to be aware that there’s evil and corruption everywhere. Yet we Americans have to understand this enormous geopolitical shift. Asia is the center, not just in technology, not just in education, but increasingly in culture, civilization, and values. We need to know Asia well, to be able to understand the languages. And to engage.

Jeff: Tell us about the Asia Institute. I looked at the website a bit. And it is obviously your baby because you are the president. Tell us about it when you started the Asia Institute, who are the people involved, and what is its mission? I noticed there was an homage to Henry Rosovsky on the front page. Tell us about the Asia Institute and what it does.

Emanuel: We started the Asia Institute after I ended up in Korea in 2007—when I could no longer do anything in D.C., We put together the Asia Institute, myself and a few friends in Korea, the United States, and Japan, to provide accurate reports, research about Asia as it is, and to help Americans to understand and to interact with Asians.

We started with a focus on science and technology. We also covered international relations and culture, because my background originally was in Chinese literature, and then Asian literature—starting with classical culture.

Most of the activities were held in Korea, mainly in Seoul, and we used to hold four or five seminars a month. But we have a presence, at times, in Washington, D.C., in Tokyo, in Bangkok, and in Hanoi. Basically now Asia Institute is just Seoul and Bangkok. But we want to be a think tank that actually thinks about Asia, about our age.

I’m sorry to keep pounding on that theme, but that’s what I had in mind when I thought about running for president. I did not want to only be a novelty, the idea of a political candidate who knows Asia. I wanted to say that this should be a condition. You should not be allowed to run for office in the United States if you don’t know three Asian languages fluently, that this is the future of the United States.

Jeff: Impressive. Well, tell us about your books. I know that you have talked about “I shall Fear no Evil” and “How to take down the Billionaires.” Why should why should we read them?

I have Emanuel’s email epastreich@protonmail.com, his personal blog www.circlesandsquares.asia, his campaign blog www.emanuelprez.com, the U.S. Provisional Government www.usprovgov.asia, and also links to his books to download.

Tell us about your two books.

Emanuel: My first book, “I shall Fear No Evil,” is a collection of twelve speeches that I delivered after I declared myself a candidate. I was in Washington, DC in January of 2020, and I saw what was happening to the United States as the COVID 19 project got rolling. I thought, this is a catastrophe. Clearly, both Biden and Trump were—I don’t want to be respectful; they’re both senior, well established, sock puppets—a false choice. I thought there’s no future for the United States. And I didn’t have any future. I was then unemployed—all my work had been shut down. And so I said to myself, I’m going to just go forward, try and make a declaration, based in fact, as to where the United States should be going and identify the real threats, and opportunities, that are out there. That book is collection of my speeches that would be interesting if you want see what someone would write if they gave us an honest speech about what the United States is, not pandering to their funders.

And that was the whole point. I was cut off. No one was going to fund me. So I tried to make that status into an advantage. I was saying that since no one’s going to fund me, no one’s going to tell me what to write. I can write about what is really going on.

Jeff: What about other one, “How to Take Down Billionaires?” Sounds interesting because that’s the root of all the all the world’s problems right there.

Emanuel: Absolutely. Obviously, the billionaires are a product of a corrupt, decadent system, but they are easiest part to identify. The complicated question of how they got there is a bit harder for people to understand. So I tried to manual consisting of 11 steps for how you take them down and do so systematically. I write in the last chapter that if you haven’t taken the first ten steps, then you’re not going to be able to take them down. You can’t just go to their houses and arrest them because first you have to systematically establish an independent system within the United States: an independent economy, independent thinking, and independent organizations that are not influenced by billionaires, multinational corporations, and, all these parasitic private intelligence firms that do their dirty work.

Jeff: That’s the $64,000 question there. I call them the “trillionaire dictators” in my writing. They basically own planet Earth, although there are some countries that are more independent than others. I would like to read that book. You have a free download –so I’m going to read that one for sure.

I plan to interview a lady out in California who also wrote a book “How to Take Down an Empire.” Her name is Tereza Coraggio. After reading her book, I can compare notes with what you propose. I’ll send you the link about her later. We’re trying to schedule an interview.

Emanuel: Excellent.

Jeff: So what do we need to do to get the United States back on track?

Emanuel: Right. It’s no simple question. And, the United States is not really the United States anymore. On the one hand, we have all these evil plans being hatched in the United States. But on the other hand, a lot of this is not about the United States anymore. There is this financial spider web were the assets of all these so-called “American” corporations—they are not American at all. They’re based in the Bahamas, or overseas, in that shadowy land between the UK, the United States, and Israel that does not belong to any country. But they shift around trillions of dollars in that spider’s web economy. And that is who’s in charge, this shadow empire, which you can’t really nail down.

In the case of Ukraine and Israel, the money is going to Israel, or its going to Ukraine. But it’s not going to Israel and it’s not going to Ukraine. It’s going to this shadow empire, to this spider web economy.

I’m not a magician. I can’t solve your problems for you, but I can give some hints, working with other thoughtful people like Jeff or Tereza, that suggest a way forward.

I think the first step is to recognize the truth, recognize where we are. Speak honestly about it with your friends and family. First be honest with yourself.

Recognize that as citizens of the United States we are essentially the equivalent of incest victims, or rape victims. We’ve been abused by institutions and the people around us whom we trusted.

It is sexual abuse. We have been violated. And because the violation has so profoundly impacted our own identity, we’re unable to confront the reality of the abusive relationship we are in.

And as a result, whether it’s 9.11, COVID 19, the Oklahoma bombing, or any number of similar incidents in which the crime is right in front of your eyes, we cannot see it. It doesn’t require a Ph.D. to figure it out. You don’t have to be an expert in engineering to understand what is going on.

We have to get over the trauma that has crippled us.

That’s, I think, really the number one priority. We overcome the trauma, then it’s not so hard to create an independent institutions and communities.

This is what it takes to get the United States back.

First, we have to go back to being a republic. In that sense I want to be a “Republican.”  I no longer a member of any party, although I have been a member of Democratic Party and the Republican Party many years ago. But I am “republican” in the sense that we are not an empire. We need systems for global governance. But this dark empire, this shadow empire hanging between the UK, Israel, the United States, has got to be conquered, and you’re not going to be able to conquer it until you recognize that it exists. We must make the invisible visible.

Jeff: There this black hole in the West, and in the United States, as well as in Europe, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea—all are, unfortunately, vassals of the of the United States. There’s this black hole.

We are not an empire. No one wants to admit that we’re an empire. But in fact we are the largest ever.

And unfortunately, the evilest empire that has ever existed. And we just took the baton from the Brits after World War Two. They were the evilest empire in the 19th century and early 20th century. They dragged us into colonialism, etc.

It is such a hard nut to crack, because one wants to crack it. No one wants to admit it. We need something like Alcoholics Anonymous, where we can come forth and admit that, “I am an alcoholic.”

Emanuel: Well, that’s true.

Jeff: Americans need to be able to say, “I live in an empire.” That would be a big step forward.

Emanuel: I totally agree. I mean, imperialism is an infectious disease. And we witnessed how it was passed on to the United States, as you mentioned. Carroll Quigley’s book Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time details the process by which the United States was brought back into the British empire.

When addressing American audiences, I emphasize the Constitution and Declaration of Independence because, although they’re not perfect, they define what our country is.

Ultimately, it’s going to come down to that. We will confront forces that are ready to slaughter us, and they are going to claim authority as government to do this to us. I do not know if it will be six months, or two years. We’re going to have to say to them, “No, you’re not the government. This is the Constitution. This is the Declaration of Independence. It declares our independence from the empire.”

It is a free floating, shadow empire, which was the British Empire and it still is the British Empire. We added the United States, added Israel, and some other players to that empire, what we call the “five eyes.” Today, the shadow empire even controls parts of China. China is supposed to be our arrival, but parts of it have been absorbed in this global invisible empire.

We will have to stand up and say, “No, we are the government. We are the legitimate ones because we follow the Constitution. We follow that Declaration of Independence from the empire.

Jeff: You mentioned this invasion of China, and I’d like you to explain. You say that the United States and China have a “Frankenstein alliance” of the bad guys with the bad guys. What you mean by that?

Emanuel: I was recently in China for a month. I had a chance to speak with quite a few people. I saw that people are very aware of what’s wrong in China, of how the people in China are under assault. They’re also aware of the role of the United States, of this shadow empire. It is not the United States anymore. It’s a cancer that’s taking over a large part of the world.

But the United States plays a big role in the shadow empire. Large parts of China are controlled by it. You see this control in the demand for QR codes to enter buildings and the efforts to control people, to limit their interactions and their ability to travel.

It’s sad to see all these Chinese who are unable to go visit their families, even neighboring cities have had their transportation interrupted when these lockdowns are enforced.

But the question we need to ask is, what is really going on? Based on what I’ve witnessed, and what people have said to me off the record, it seems pretty clear that what we’re looking at an attempted takeover by large American multinationals and billionaires. I like to separate billionaires from multinational corporations because they’re not always the same thing. Some billionaires use their private intelligence firms to penetrate China.

China is under attack from Walmart and Goldman Sachs and, private equity firms like Blackstone, many based in Shanghai. And they’ve taken over large parts of production and manufacturing. The government of China is no longer able to completely stop these attempts to create a colonized economy.

That “New Cold War” media campaign is basically an effort to hide this reality. It’s sort of like the “Stop thief” routine. Blame the victim.

Something similar happened at the end of the Qing dynasty—early 20th century. I discuss this strategy in my article “The Third Opium War.” I make an analogy between the rabid attack by multinationals on China, and then blaming the victim, on the nineteenth century and today.

Blame the victim is a classic strategy. You rape China and then you say, “Oh, it was the Chinese who did this to us. The Chinese made up COVID 19. It’s their Chinese totalitarianism that is being imposed on the world.”

That is precisely what was done in the 1840s. British multinationals pushed opium as a drug in China. They got people to try it and become addicted.

The British rolled out their medical experts, the Faucis of that time, who said that this medicine cured stomach aches, headaches, basically everything that was wrong with you. They distributed opium in different forms to the people as an advanced Western medicine.

In addition, they seduced and made deals with local gentry so as to get them over on their side. And thus they slowly seized pieces of the Chinese economy, and local government, and put them under British control through British agents from the 1840s on, as part of a “modernization.”

China had to detail with the Taiping Rebellion, which was to some degree set up by the British, although it eventually spun out of British control. Then you had the neo-colonial conquest of China.

It is a similar pattern. This time the approach has risen to a new stage. It involves these days a large number of corrupt Chinese operatives who are involved in this scheme, making a lot of money from it. Now the plan extends to the United States. Americans are being victimized in the same way as Chinese, often following the same game plan.

If you want to look for the precedents for what’s being done in China today, the suffering that ordinary people are subject to, there is nothing in Mao Zedong’s writing, nothing in Lenin’s works. There are two precedents that explain what we see in China.

Jeff: I remember that lock-down. Houses and houses illegally locked down.

Emanuel: So that is the precedent for what’s being done to Chinese cities today. Nothing like that ever happened under the under the Chinese Communist Party.

The second precedent is what’s being done in the West Bank and Gaza by the Israeli government. I saw it being done in China. I’m no expert. No one showed me classified documents. But was I saw happening in China was modeled on what’s being done in Israel. And It’s my guess that the same firms, the same private intelligence firms, who handle QR coding and contact tracing in Gaza are in Shanghai and Beijing. That is my educated guess.

Jeff: Well, luckily for the Chinese, if what you’re saying is true, at least the Chinese have a vanguard party, the Communist Party of China. And if they stay true to their mission, they will be able to overcome this. It’s a fascinating it’s a fascinating theory.

Now, much to my surprise, they have removed all of the COVID restrictions. But I know many Chinese who are now worried about even going outside, even though there are no restrictions. I know people who will not travel, even during the Chinese New Year because they’re worried about variants.

I think that the Chinese government knows that they were attacked with a bioweapon by the United States.

So Chinese are more sensitive to COVID than, for example, Italy, France or Canada because in China they know about bioweapons better than anybody in the world.

I think that if what you’re saying is true the government must be aware of it. And that may be one of the reasons that they stopped the COVID measures was to pull the rug out from under these people who trying to run their country. We will have to see what happens.

Emanuel: Maybe I could say a word about the Chinese Communist Party in that respect.

Jeff: Of course.

Emanuel: Obviously, the Chinese Communist Party is an enormous organization. There are corrupt sections of it that have sold out to this global shadow empire. But there are also parts that are very bravely fighting against it. If you walk around the city like Shanghai, you’ll see these posters up that tell people how to live a healthy life. They encourage decent values. And then you see these posters put up by multinational corporations with their consumer narcissism. It’s a battle going on in China between those who are trying to uphold a more decent life and those promoting narcissistic consumerism.

Jeff: Yes.

Emanuel: One thing we run into all the time in the United States is people who say, “Oh, well, the government is the Communist Party in China.” But actually, this is a much healthier situation than in the United States where we are run by the Republicans and Democrats, and corporations. There is not a word about role in governance of these institutions in the Constitution. We have a Constitution that doesn’t mention Democrat or Republican anywhere. Yet the laws are being made and implemented by these criminal syndicates that are not described anywhere in the Constitution.

So at least China has a government. The United States doesn’t have a government. It’s run by political parties that work on a pay-to-play basis for multinational corporations and investment banks. It’s a terrible system.

Jeff: I absolutely agree. We’ll see what happens. I tend to have faith in China.

China has deep Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist roots, going back over two thousand years. It upholds ethical governance, not moral governance.

I just listened to the first volume of Xi Jinping’s writings on governance of China. I listen to audio books while I am swimming. It was excellent.

I must say, after listening to Xi’s book, I said to myself, “You know what? I think China’s going to be okay. Chinese have this attitude of work hard, don’t waste time, and seek truth from facts.

Emanuel: Correct.

Jeff: Chinese get down to work and get busy. They have a much better chance of surviving and thriving in the 21st Century than the West does. The West is so focused on the individual: The Marlboro Man, individualism and hedonism.

Emanuel: I find it disgusting.

Jeff: Yes, very. All this identity politics and confrontation. Our democracy is so confrontational with no cooperation. And even Franklin Delano Roosevelt had to fight like crazy just to help during World War Two. He had people fighting against him for his entire tenure.

When were you in China?

Emanuel: It was the month of October.

Jeff: So just about three months ago.

Emanuel: I wrote about my observations in the article “The third Opium War” for Global Research. I saw what it going on and I would say it is a war.

I wouldn’t underestimate the severity for many Chinese. I wanted to respond to that.

Chinese politics does have real potential. I listen to the speeches of Chinese politicians. Chinese politicians are allowed to, and even encouraged to, give speeches for an hour. They give speeches the way that Frederick Douglass or Abraham Lincoln did in the old days and they actually talk about policy and they link it to a philosophical goal for the nation. In America, that sort of politics is totally impossible.

You can’t speak for more than three minutes. In America we have just platitudes, no policy. American newspapers don’t report policy. They report only fluffy garbage. So you can’t figure out how America works.

I have some idea of how America works, but I had to work for it. The understanding certainly wasn’t given to me by Bezos’ Washington Post.

Jeff: I see you are very active on Substack. I subscribe to your Substack channel.

Emanuel: Thank you. And I subscribe to yours.

Jeff: So you were a professor of classical Asian literature and now you’re a journalistic writer and a public speaker. What are you planning next? You told me you’re leaving next week to travel to Korea.

Emanuel: I will in Japan for a month, then in Korea, and then probably back to DC.

But to be honest, I’m debating where the best place is for my activism to be effective.

I know how pessimistic you can be, Jeff, about Washington DC, but I would like to say to everyone out there that are some very brave people here in DC who trying, against tremendous odds. But political reform is so hard in America because of this deep decadent culture and deep trauma. And I think there were the terrible blows of the Oklahoma and 911 attacks, the fraudulent Iraq war, and finally COVID 19.

Each one of these operations was a profound violation of our contract with the systems of administration in which people in government, industry, and academics were forced to repeat things that they knew were fraudulent and untrue. Those acts damaged the psyche of America. They ripped the fabric of our culture and civilization apart. We still haven’t recovered.

That problem is linked to the civilizations of West and East, as you suggested. Americans see the potential in Confucianism for ethical governance, for a commitment of intellectuals to society, and for a government that really is a government, and not a false flag operation or a criminal syndicate.

Confucian and Buddhist ideas about being at peace with oneself and self-awareness, Daoist ideas about freedom—I could go on at length—have inspired me because I started out studying classical Chinese literature.

The classes in Asian studies I took at Harvard transformed me. Asian civilization offers tremendous opportunity to the United States.

Moreover, understanding the Chinese tradition allows us to understand ourselves.

The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are the texts that define the United States and they are based on the idea that you can establish a meritocracy, more accurately a noocracy (rule by the wise).

That Confucian idea of meritocracy, noocracy stood in opposition to what you had in Europe. In Europe you had the monarchy on the one hand, and the Catholic Church standing in opposition. Those were your only choices.

So what inspired the Constitution and the United States? Well, you could say it was Greek thought or the Enlightenment. But a large piece of the inspiration, as is clear in the writings of Benjamin Franklin, and the writings of Voltaire and Rousseau, was Confucian ethical governance.

The examination system, the model for promotion based upon virtue and ability was a major inspiration. Right before the French Revolution there was an explosion of interest in Chinese culture.

Our American system was to some degree based upon Chinese Confucian ideas. In the case of Britain, the first civil service exams started in 1871 and the law establishing it states explicitly that it was modeled upon the Qing dynasty’s examination system. Chinese Confucianism offered a functional government that was not a monarchy, that did not require titles or a hereditary aristocracy—and it was not the church.

Jeff: A system based on ability and accountability. And that’s something that’s just doesn’t exist in Western governance anymore. Nowhere. Just look at Anthony Fauci, America’s doctor, who sat there for 7 hours and lied through his front teeth to the House of Representatives. Nothing happened to him; Nothing will happen. He’ll still have his stock options with Moderna and Pfizer, as will everybody else.

Emanuel: Let us consider our Eastern roots. From the Middle Ages Europe was dominated by this idea that you had to choose either the monarchy or the Catholic Church. This idea that you could have another way, based upon virtue and knowledge, that idea, core to modernity, was profoundly influenced by China, by the Confucian tradition. To some degree, it was also influenced by the Ottoman administrative system, which was indirectly referenced. In any case, the influence of Asia was great.

If we look at the clash of civilizations term (I hate that term) then we must conclude that although Western civilization had a good run, and there is some good stuff in there so we should not say, “trash it,” basically the gangrene goes too deep. Western Civilization in this form cannot really be saved.

We have to look to the great traditions of Asia for cultural fresh blood to revitalize this corpse.

Jeff: You are obviously inspired, experienced, and well-informed. You offer Americans a unique vision.

I will definitely read your book, “How to Take Down the Billionaires.”

I admire what you’re doing and I encourage you to keep at it.

I am anxious to hear how things develop for you here in the United States, and do keep writing on Substack.

I’m really impressed. I learned Latin, Portuguese, Arabic, French and Chinese. Still I am impressed that you’ve learned Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. You know three non-European languages.

Any closing comments?

Emanuel: I appreciate the opportunity and I hope we’ll continue to work together. This new Cold War paradigm, this confrontation with China, it’s all basically made up for Americans. It’s a large-scale false flag operation to keep you from seeing what’s going on. And the “New Cold War” derives directly from the “Yellow Peril” campaigns from the 1840s on.

So what was Yellow Peril, the presentation of China as an evil force, about? Yellow Peril rhetoric was started when Westerners discovered that the Chinese civilization was at least equal, if not more sophisticated, than Western civilization.

When they figured that out, they had to stop it because they knew that once people realized that the Chinese system of administration, of governance, of education, was that sophisticated and had survived for so long, it would serve as an alternative. So, effectively, they didn’t want this option to be there on the table. Now it is happening again, rebranded as “New Cold War.”

I see many Americans are deeply interested in Japanese Buddhism, Chinese philosophy, Korean food, etc. The civilizational shift in America has already started—whatever the politicians may say.

As a result, the reactionary defenders of Western tradition are fighting tooth and nail to keep us from realizing the potential to be found over there.

Jeff: Thanks for being on the show, Emanuel and all the best.