Here’s How Trump Can Leverage the CCP’s Greatest Vulnerability | Ambassador Sam Brownback

American Thought Leaders

The Epoch Times

Government, News, Politics

4.9 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 29 October 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What if the most potent weapon that America has against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) isn’t nukes or tariffs?

“This isn’t a competition between the largest economy and the second largest economy. This is a competition of ideals—and we’ve got the better ones,” says former Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback.

“If you want to hit them where it hurts, hit them on human rights issues, genocides in their own country, religious freedom that they don’t grant any of their people—whether they be Buddhist, Muslim, Falun Gong, Christians. That’s where they’re the weakest. It’s where they’re the most vulnerable.”

Ahead of President Donald Trump’s expected meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, I sat down with Brownback to understand what he sees as the Chinese regime’s greatest vulnerabilities, its deepest fears, and how those can be strategically leveraged by the United States.

Brownback is co-chair of the International Religious Freedom Summit. He previously served as governor of Kansas from 2011 to 2018 and as a U.S. senator from Kansas, 1996 to 2011. His upcoming book is titled, “China’s War on Faith.”

Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Ronald Reagan win at the Soviet Union before he was president,
0:04.0	and he went at him on their values and their rights.
0:07.0	There is a moral core here.
0:10.0	This isn't a competition between the largest economy and the second largest economy.
0:14.0	This is a competition of ideals, and we've got the better ones.
0:18.0	Ahead of President Trump's expected meeting
0:21.3	with Xi Jinping, I'm sitting down with Ambassador Sam Brownback,
0:25.3	co-chair of the International Religious Freedom Summit,
0:28.1	and author of the upcoming book, China's War on Faith.
0:31.4	Religious believers are the only community left,
0:34.0	that we can work with inside of China
0:36.9	that would stand up to this regime and that's why the regime
0:40.3	spends billions of dollars to oppress and suppress and control every single religion.
0:45.3	I think it is our most powerful tool in undermining the regime.
0:51.3	Support the Tibetan Buddhist, support the Muslim Uyghurs, support the Christians
0:56.4	that are in prison, ask for their release. We support the fallen Gong people being able
1:01.4	to practice their faith in China as they see fit. It will drive the Chinese communist nuts.
1:06.8	This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Yanya Kellick.
1:12.6	Ambassador Sam Brownback, such a pleasure to have you back on American Thought Leaders.
1:16.9	Thanks, Sean. Good to join you.
1:19.2	Recently, the Chinese Communist Party arrested a whole number of leaders of the Zion Church in China.
1:33.3	You know, part of their overall constant crackdown on faith. But why this group, why now?
	...

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