China Challenge

Keith Krach joined Fox News’ Shannon Bream on June 1, 2021 to discuss COVID-19 origin in Wuhan lab, and the need to pass the Endless Frontier Act.

Shannon Bream: Breaking tonight, British intelligence joining the growing chorus of credible sources lending credence to the plausibility that COVID-19 may have leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China. As the Guardian forecast potential seismic shifts in international relations under the headline. "If the Wuhan lab leak hypothesis is true, expect a political earthquake." Let’s bring in former Under Secretary of State Keith Krach to talk about that and more. Good to have you with us, sir.

Keith Krach: Great to see you, Shannon.

Shannon Bream: What is the political impact? If it is one day discovered that there was a leak or some other situation, that China should have been much more forthcoming with the US and with the rest of the world about.

Keith Krach: Well, I can tell you one thing, Shannon. I’m no virologists, but as a commonsense business man and a public servant, the pressure is on General Secretary Xi to prove the virus didn’t come from the Wuhan lab. It’s been 18 months. All roads lead to Wuhan. And I say the emperor has no clothes. And, you know, by the way, this is why Congress needs to pass the Endless Frontier Act so American taxpayers can invest in their own labs and not Wuhan lab lies. And why should taxpayers have to worry about that? And the Endless Frontier Act is really about national security. And at the end of the day, the winner is the American worker and the loser is General Secretary Xi.

Shannon Bream: OK, let me ask you about that, because I know there’s bipartisan support for it. There are detractors who have questions as well. And just so people have a little basic understanding is that about one hundred billion dollars would be spent within about five years within a research foundation within the National Science Foundation, as far as I understand it. But Senator Mike Lee says this. He said it would put a massive amount of money towards more government bureaucracy, producing a system where the government picks winners and losers of industry, creating artificial demand for inefficient technologies, crowding out the good research and development that the private sector already does and increasing our manufacturing costs. He said it’s too much like China and not enough like the US. How do you respond to that?

Keith Krach: Well, I can tell you as one of the originators of the bill, we started this a year and a half ago. We approached Senator Schumer and Senator Young. And also being a former CEO of public companies, Silicon Valley companies, we need this for our national security because the Endless Frontier Act is about investing one hundred billion dollars in our ten most critical technology security sectors. And, you know, you’re on the 90 day shot clock in the business world and we’ve got to do this for the sake of national security. And these are areas like semiconductors, quantum, biotech, cloud computing, all these different areas because, you know, the Chinese are being subsidized. So this is national security.

Shannon Bream: Yeah. And I think that a lot of Americans had real concerns about chain of command or chain of supply and all kinds of other things that happen when we started to have these problems with PPE and with production of pharmaceuticals and all kinds of other reasons. And they think the US could beef ourselves up on a number of those fronts. I want to ask you, though, about why this lab leak theory, in your opinion, is finally getting a different handling by the media? The Wall Street Journal, in an opinion piece says, "On what basis was the lab leak theory ruled out for months by the media, despite the lack of any evidence or logic for ruling it out? We in the press dismissed the lab theory because of an appeal to authority. By the way, when anti Donald Trump spokespeople ridiculed it, that was good enough for us." Do you think that’s why the scientific community was so quick to turn from that as a possibility?

Keith Krach: You know, Shannon, I think the onus is on Washington, D.C., Republicans, Democrats and everyone to take on China Inc. Just like my team did when I was Under Secretary of State and we beat the CCP’s masterplan to control 5G. Look, I’m just a commonsense businessman from from Ohio. Maybe it’s because I was raised that way. But in the real world, we don’t have time to ask if you’re Republican or Democrat. We have to work together on this. And I think really a great place to start is for Republicans and Democrats to put aside this kind of nonsense and put the onus on China Inc. and pass things like the Endless Frontier Act because the American taxpayer shouldn’t be on the hook for lab in Wuhan.

Shannon Bream: Well, we know that you’ve upset China enough with your opposition that they have sanctioned you. We will follow that and this Act as it makes its way through Capitol Hill.