Trump Calls for Intel CEO’s Resignation Over CCP Ties

We just mentioned that things are n't going well for Xi Jinping, but what about his good friend Trump? It's quite the opposite—Trump is basically having a smooth ride right now, hitting every target he aims for Just yesterday, Trump made a post that instantly blew up the internet in the US. He publicly demanded that Intel's CEO, Pat Gelsinger, who only took office this March, must resign. Early yesterday morning, President Trump posted on his social media platform—Truth Social, right? He put up a post saying that Intel's CEO has a serious conflict of interest and must resign immediately. He said there ’ s no other way to resolve this issue. His words were extremely tough. As soon as he posted that, Intel ’ s stock price immediately dropped sharply by more than 2 %. Of course, Trump ’ s post also sparked huge controversy online, especially among those who are more anti-Trump. A lot of public opinion criticized him, saying,'As a president, right? You don ’ t have the right to interfere in the personnel appointments of a private company. Isn ’ t this just what Hitler did? Isn ’ t this dictatorship? and so on, right? But is that really the case? Let ’ s keep looking. Why did Trump target Lip-Bu Tan so directly? The most immediate trigger was actually a Republican U.S. Senator named Thom Tillis. He had previously written a letter to Intel ’ s chairman. Regarding the issue of Intel ’ s newly appointed CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, he pointed out that Tan has very close ties with Chinese companies. For example, Lip-Bu Tan ’ s previous company, Cadence Electronics, was recently involved in a criminal case and other related issues. This has led to a lot of inquiries. So, in this letter, Cotton pointed out that Lip-Bu Tan controls dozens of Chinese companies and holds shares in hundreds of Chinese advanced manufacturing and chip companies. And among them, at least eight companies have been confirmed to have ties with the Chinese military. Then, Cotton specifically mentioned that Lip-Bu Tan was previously the CEO of Cadence Design Systems. And just last week, this company pleaded guilty and agreed to pay a fine of up to $ 140 million. What did they plead guilty to? They admitted that, without obtaining permission from the U.S. government, they illegally and privately sold some sensitive products to China ’ s National University of Defense Technology. Moreover, they also transferred this technology to a related Chinese semiconductor company. Just think about it, this is no small matter, right? Right now, even though the two major parties in the U.S. are fighting tooth and nail, when it comes to guarding against the Chinese Communist Party, they are highly united. Both parties see the CCP as the number one enemy. Against this backdrop, Chen Liwu ’ s background and his connections with the CCP are extremely, extremely noteworthy. So what exactly is Chen Liwu ’ s background? He is an ethnic Chinese born in Malaysia and raised in Singapore. He is known as the godfather of chip venture capital. Last night, Chen Liwu released an open letter to Intel employees, stating that for more than forty years, the United States has always been his home. He has established all kinds of relationships with many countries around the world. However, he has always acted in accordance with the highest legal and ethical standards. He also emphasized this point. So what about Intel? They have already communicated with the U.S. government to make sure they have a clear understanding of the facts, which is, of course, a way to clarify things for themselves. So, what exactly is Chen Liwu's connection to China that has sparked such huge doubts? First, let's go over and list out some information for everyone, and see what these points actually say. The first one is : We all know that in China, there's a company called SMIC—Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation. It's a state-owned enterprise, the largest and most advanced chip foundry under the Chinese Communist Party Chen Liwu is one of the founding board members of this company, and he served as a board member at SMIC for 18 years. That's not a short period at all. As we all know, SMIC's headquarters is located in the Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park in Shanghai. Back when SMIC first settled in Shanghai, the Party Secretary of Shanghai at that time was Wu Bangguo. And the general manager of the Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park Development Company back then—what was his name? It was Dai Haibo. This guy was a hardcore loyalist of Jiang Mianheng and had a very close relationship with him. In other words, SMIC as a company has extremely deep ties with the entire Shanghai clique and the Jiang faction. At the same time, there ’ s another chip manufacturer also based in Shanghai, ranked second only to SMIC. It ’ s called Huahong Group. The actual controller of Huahong Group is Jiang Mianheng himself. The first CEO of SMIC was a man named Zhang Rujing. In 2009, he resigned from his position as CEO for personal reasons, and then a man named Wang Linguo took over as CEO of SMIC. So what was Wang Linguo doing before he took over as CEO of SMIC? He was actually the CEO of Huahong Group. So you can see just how deep the ties are between SMIC and the Jiang faction, right? As we mentioned earlier, the real controller behind Huahong Group is Jiang Mianheng himself. Secondly, Chen Liwu founded his own venture capital company in 1987, called Walden International. This company has invested in more than 500 companies in China, including over 120 semiconductor companies. From March 2012 to December 2024, which is about 12 years, right? During this period, Chen Liwu invested at least $ 200 million in more than a hundred advanced manufacturing and chip companies in China. Because of this, Chen Liwu himself earned the nickname 'Mr. Chip' in China. Third, in July 2023, a Republican congressman named Gallagher accused Walden International of investing in a company called Yun Tian Li Fei. And this company, Yun Tian Li Fei, is a ... an AI company that was sanctioned by the U.S. government and blacklisted for assisting the Chinese Communist Party in carrying out large-scale surveillance in Xinjiang. Then, Walden International was also accused of— having a growing investment portfolio in Chinese quantum computing and semiconductor companies. Some of these companies are developing cutting-edge military applications, such as code-breaking, anti-submarine technology, and similar technologies. The report also points out that Walden International has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in certain Chinese companies involved in military activities or human rights violations. In fact, the Chinese Communist Party is behind all of this. The fourth point is about founding a company. He also started a company called Cadence Electronics and served as its CEO. In mainland China, this company is known as Yihua Computer. When you hear'Yihua,' it sounds like'benefiting China right? Obviously, it's a name that feels very close to the Chinese Communist Party. So, what does this company mainly do? Its main business is electronic design automation, or EDA for short in English. The company focuses on EDA software and engineering services. And if you think about it, EDA software is an essential tool for chip design. To put it simply, SMIC made a huge leap from the 65-nanometer to the 28-nanometer process, and the most critical technology came from Cadence Electronics, provided by Chen Liwu. And as for ZTE, everyone knows who its number one client is, right? Uh, it's the notorious Huawei, a very special company with both military and intelligence backgrounds. Fifth, not only that, Chen Liwu also has long-standing ties with an American organization called the Committee of 100. Ah, in English it's called C100, right? That's its abbreviation. He has been connected with this organization for decades. So, this Committee of 100? It claims to be a grassroots organization that speaks up for the interests of Chinese Americans, but in 2018 the Hoover Institution released a report, and in 2020, Newsweek also published a special feature, both pointing out that members of the Committee of 100 have already become important targets of the Chinese Communist Party's United Front Work Department. Let me give you an example. The former chairman of the Committee of 100, a man named H. Roger Wang, once served as the honorary chairman of an entity within the Chinese Communist Party's United Front Work Department. Moreover, H. Roger Wang, in multiple interviews with China Daily, has repeatedly praised Xi Jinping's Belt and Road Initiative, its planning, and so on. Another example is another important member of the Committee of 100, named Ronnie Chan. He serves as a board member of the China-United States Exchange Foundation. This foundation is quite special—what's special about it? It is explicitly registered as a foreign agent with the U.S. Department of Justice. To put it plainly, it is a bona fide United Front organization of the Chinese Communist Party. Moreover, the founder of this foundation comes directly from the CCP's United Front Work Department. And that's not all. Under the leadership of Liwu Chen, Walden International also invested in a startup company that is connected to the Chinese Communist Party's well-known Thousand Talents Plan. As everyone knows, the Thousand Talents Plan is a CCP initiative. To put it bluntly, it's actually a CCP espionage program, right? And what's more, he also invested in a Chinese semiconductor company called Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc.( AMEC), injecting $ 38 million in one go . This company, AMEC, has now been placed on the U.S. government's entity list for having ties to the Chinese military, and is subject to sanctions. And as for Liwu Chen, he once served as a board member of AMEC as well. When you put all this information together, you'll find that we can sum it up in one sentence. For the CCP's chip industry, Liwu Chen not only provided funding, but also talent and technology. Yeah, it's a three-pronged approach, providing support on all fronts. So it's not hard to understand why Trump was so anxious about this, right? To the point where, for the first time ever, he made a post directly demanding that Liwen Chen resign, saying 'This is just too much, your ties over there are way too close. Now we see that some public opinion is criticizing Trump, saying,'Look at Trump, is n't this dictatorship? You're abusing your power, this is the government interfering in the management of private companies,' and so on. But I think this is confusing a concept. What concept is that? Under normal circumstances, the personnel decisions of a private company are, of course, not something a president has the right to interfere with. However, if this is a personnel appointment that involves major U.S. national security interests, then it's a completely different matter. In other words, what Trump is concerned about is not, for example, whether appointing someone like Chen Liwu as the CEO of Intel will help increase Intel's revenue or how he will manage the company. That's not what he has an issue with. What he cares about is whether this appointment could become a backdoor or a weak point through which important U.S. military technology might be leaked to the Chinese Communist Party. That's the issue. Alright, next, let's respond to a question from everyone. That's about all for today's news discussion. Okay, so here's a question from a viewer. He said, if you follow Du Zheng's script, would the person accepting the power be willing? If it were you, would you be willing to become General Secretary while someone else is still the Chairman of the Military Commission? You would n't be that foolish, right? That's true. Right? So yesterday I actually shared and discussed with everyone about Du Zheng's revelations, including when he mentioned that some insiders in Beijing told him that Zhang Youxia and Xi Jinping might end up going down together, right? Of course, that's just a figure of speech. It means that both of them would step down at the same time. Uh, these two have the sharpest conflict right now, right? They're like arch-enemies—if both of them step down, then things can finally be settled. As for these revelations, in my view, I've shared all of them with you. But I ... I just gave you an example, meaning that right now, the revelations about Zhang Youxia are all over the place, right? They range from Xi Jinping holding all the power and Zhang Guixia having none at all, to Zhang Youxia and Xi Jinping being evenly matched in their struggle, and even to claims that Zhang Youxia is completely dominating and is about to bring Xi Jinping down. There are all kinds of versions out there, but personally, I really do n't agree with that kind of view. Just like this friend mentioned, because in fact, no matter who becomes the General Secretary—let me tell you this is actually something I might analyze in detail with everyone in the next step, right? In future episodes. Actually, even if Xi Jinping steps down now, the CCP would still have a hard time settling things internally They ’ re facing a huge problem, a major contradiction—just like this friend actually mentioned. Zhang Youxia, in order to protect himself. That's the first reason. The second reason is that he does n't want the military to keep getting dragged into party infighting. So Zhang Youxia has always put forward what he considers the most important stance: no matter who in the Party becomes General Secretary, no matter who it is, we support them, right? We follow the Party. But as for the military, we just do n't want to get directly involved in this anymore. Getting involved in political struggles. Of course, the unspoken implication is that no matter who becomes General Secretary, do n't meddle in military affairs—in other words, do n't try to also take on the role of Chairman of the Central Military Commission. He wants Chairman of the Central Military Commission and General Secretary separate. I once saw some revelations saying that, indeed, there were people within the Party who made such suggestions proposing a kind of separation of powers within the Party. That is, the General Secretary, the Premier of the government, and the Chairman of the Central Military Commission—these three major systems of the Party, government, and military—should each be held by different people. This actually has precedent in the CCP's past. For example, during the Deng Xiaoping era. That's exactly how it was. During Deng Xiaoping's time, the General Secretary was Hu Yaobang, and later, of course, Zhao Ziyang, right Deng Xiaoping himself served as the Chairman of the Central Military Commission, and the Premier was Li Peng So, back then during Deng Xiaoping's era, these three major powers were held by three different people. So within the Party, it was n't something abrupt; there was precedent, it was possible. Now, Zhang Ouxia might be more inclined to take this approach, but the current Chinese Communist Party is already very different from what it was in Deng Xiaoping's time. This brings up a problem, just like the one this friend mentioned about the new person coming in. No matter who the new General Secretary is—whether it 's Wang Yang, Hu Chunhua, or even some people speculating about Ding Xuexiang or others—regardless of who it is. Right now, in the current situation where the Chinese Communist Party is facing crisis after crisis. If you say he ’ s just the General Secretary, but he doesn ’ t control the military, he simply can ’ t do many things—he has no way to do them. Without military power, he could be removed at any time just like Hu Yaobang. He didn ’ t control the military, so Deng Xiaoping could remove him at any moment, then replace him. Zhao Ziyang was brought in, but when problems arose, he was replaced too. Then Jiang Zemin was promoted, and even Jiang Zemin was almost replaced by Deng Xiaoping a third time, right This is already public knowledge, right? Then Jiang Zemin was promoted, and even Jiang Zemin was almost replaced by Deng Xiaoping a third time, right This is already public knowledge, right? Everyone ’ s known about it for a long time. It's precisely because there have been such precedents . So now, if you tell the current General Secretary,'You 're just going to be the General Secretary, you do n't have control over the military, someone else does, he probably would n't do it, because he'd think, 'That's way too risky for me. In the CCP system, as we've said many times, the most fundamental thing, the thing that's embedded in its very DNA ... is that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. For the party leader, if he wants to secure his position and hold onto all the power, he absolutely must have the gun in his hand—he must control the military. Only then can he sit firmly in that seat. Otherwise, he could be ousted at any time, and could lose his head or end up in Qincheng Prison at any moment That's the basic idea. So, we can see that this so-called proposal to implement a separation of powers within the Party is, in reality, unworkable. But as we just mentioned, during the Deng Xiaoping era on the surface, it looked like there was a separation of powers, right? That was just on the surface, but in reality, everyone knew that during the Deng Xiaoping era, it was still a system where one person held absolute power. In fact, all the major and important decisions were still made solely by Deng Xiaoping. Whether it was Li Peng as Premier, or Hu Yaobang as General Secretary, and so on, what they said did n't really count; it was still Deng Xiaoping who had the final say. It was n't a true separation of powers in any real sense. This leads to a problem. That is to say, if Zhang Youxia insists on this, and even Liu Yuan himself has this tendency—Liu Yuan has always advocated for the nationalization of the military and does n't want the military to get involved in party infighting. If you really do things this way, then maybe no one will want to be the General Secretary. This problem could arise. Now, what issue does this involve? It directly touches on the CCP's system itself. The CCP's system, as we've said, is just one thing. It's a dictatorship—this is something inherent to the CCP. If you try to implement internal democracy or a separation of powers within such an inherently dictatorial system, it simply wo n't work. This is a contradictory proposition; it simply ca n't be sustainable, let's put it that way, right? So in this kind of situation, even if Xi Jinping were to step down completely, even if Xi Jinping left. Even within the Party, things probably still ca n't be settled; there will still be contradictions. If things go wrong, it could lead to more infighting among different factions, and it might even escalate further. In the end, what I'm saying is that the CCP has already reached a dead end—there's no way out for them, no matter what they do, they ca n't resolve these issues. No matter what they do, they'll feel like there's no way out. In this kind of situation, if the internal contradictions become extremely sharp, who knows, maybe one day—just like that—something could happen. Suddenly, the whole situation could break open. That thin layer could be pierced, and just like that, something big could happen again. Uh, for example, things like'the brave sneaks into the underground palace through the back door'—these kinds of scenarios, these kinds of scenes, really ca n't be ruled out in the future. It's entirely possible that something similar could suddenly happen, causing a major crisis for the entire CCP system. Because now, the CCP has already reached this late-autumn, end-of-days stage, and that's just how it is—no matter what they do, they ca n't smooth things over. So, regarding this question, I just want to respond to this friend. I think this friend actually touched on a key point, right? So, in the future, in the post-Xi Jinping era, how exactly will power be distributed? Right now, none of us know, nobody knows. At the very least, if you go by the plans they had in the past, just replacing Xi Jinping with a new General Secretary and thinking that would settle everything—it won ’ t work like that. There are multiple sides involved, like the military, and also, as we ’ ve discussed with everyone, whether or not to preserve the Party, right? It actually comes down to the question of whether to keep the Party or not, and whether to push for political reform. All of these issues will converge. All these conflicts will come together at this stage, and in the end, there will be a major eruption. There ’ s no way to resolve them; the only way out, the only solution, is for the Chinese Communist Party to disintegrate. As long as you want to keep the CCP system, there will be no way out—no matter what, there ’ s just no way out. That ’ s basically the idea. Alright, thank you, friends, for your interaction and feedback. That ’ s the end of our livestream for today. See you next time.