On Tuesday (April 6), entrepreneur and Donald Trump supporter Peter Thiel slammed China during the virtual Nixon Seminar on Conservative Realism and National Security. The theme of the discussion was ‘Big Tech and China: What do we need from Silicon Valley’.
During the seminar, Mary Kissel pointed out that the Chinese regime had infiltrated the US campuses and are threatening the US dollar with its cryptocurrency. Kissel is the former Senior Advisor to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. While adding to the conversation, Peter Thiel emphasised, “I think if it was a fight between the U.S. and China, I think that’s a tough one for the U.S. But I don’t think that’s going to be the dynamic. I think it’s going to be China against the whole world. And it is one metaphor I heard from China.”
He added, “It’s a weirdly autistic country where everything is sort of drawn to the centre. And maybe they can strong-arm Taiwan, but I think it’s just — it’s profoundly uncharismatic and that’s a big limitation they have.” Thiel pointed out that the rising power of China can threaten other countries. He pointed out that countries such as India, Vietnam, Japan and Taiwan are more likely to side with the United States since they face no threat from the country.
“And they’re going to be much more naturally on the U.S. side and on the anti-China side. And so there’s something about the China dynamic that’s been extremely, you know, zero sum in a way that’s sort of borderline autistic,” the PayPal founder said.
Peter Thiel on China weaponising Bitcoin against the United States
Although Peter Thiel identifies himself as a ‘bitcoin maximalist’ (one that believes in its superiority over other cryptocurrencies), he expressed scepticism over China where 2/3rd of the mining takes place. “From China’s point of view, they don’t like the US having this reserve currency because it gives us a lot of leverage over Iranian oil supply chains and all sorts of things like that,” he said.
Peter Thiel concluded, “I think the Euro, you can think of is in part a Chinese weapon against the dollar. Last decade has not worked out that way, but China would have liked to see the two reserve currencies like the Euro. And, even though I’m sort of a pro-crypto, pro-Bitcoin maximalist person, I do wonder whether at this point Bitcoin should also be thought in part of as a Chinese financial weapon against the U.S. where it threatens FIAT money but it especially threatens the U.S. dollar and China wants to do things to weaken it.”