An Interview With Political Commentator Gordon Chang

3 min readJul 16, 2020

Gordon Chang is an author and political commentator. I first learned of him when I heard about his book The Coming Collapse of China. Then in 2015, I met and interviewed him for the Talking Taiwan podcast. We will re-share that episode at a later time. Recently, I invited Gordon back on to share his thoughts on the Hong Kong Security Law, India’s ban of TikTok, Zoom’s ties with China and the confirmed case of bubonic plague in China’s Inner Mongolia. Will the U.S. ban Tiktok? At the time this interview was recorded that question was unanswered.

Here’s a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

What is the Hong Kong Security Law?
What does the Hong Kong Security Law mean for Hong Kong and its democracy movement?
What has happened since the law was enacted?
What has been the reaction to the law by people in Hong Kong and around the world?
China’s violation of the Sino-British Joint Declaration signed on December 19, 1984
How can the international community hold China accountable for what’s happening to Hong Kong?
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s offer to give British citizenship to up 3 million people from Hong Kong
Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen’s offer to provide refuge to the people of Hong Kong
What the Hong Kong Security Law means for Taiwan
How willing and able is China to take Taiwan by force?
India’s ban of 59 different Chinese apps including Tiktok and WeChat
Why the concern over Chinese apps?
The Chinese Communist Party’s 2017 National Intelligence Law
How Tiktok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company which is subject to the National Intelligence Law
How Zoom has sent information back to China, and canceled the accounts of activists who used Zoom to commemorate the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square
The confirmed case of bubonic plague in China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and the G4 Swine Flu
China’s handling of COVID-19

Related Links:

Gordon Chang on Twitter: https://twitter.com/gordongchang

Gordon Chang’s website: www.gordonchang.com

The Hong Kong Security Law: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/world/asia/hong-kong-security-law-explain.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-52765838

Articles about concerns that the Chinese Communist Party could be mining the data of Tiktok users: https://qz.com/1613020/tiktok-might-be-a-chinese-cambridge-analytica-scale-privacy-threat/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2020/06/26/warning-apple-suddenly-catches-tiktok-secretly-spying-on-millions-of-iphone-users/#69134f8934ef

https://theprint.in/tech/tiktok-caught-spying-on-iphone-users-in-india-and-around-the-world/450339/

Zoom’s data has gotten routed through China: https://www.businessinsider.com/china-zoom-data-2020-4

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2020/04/03/warning-zoom-sends-encryption-keys-to-china-sometimes/#4a901a0d3fd9

Why Zoom closed an account of a group that held a Zoom event commemorating the 31st anniversary of the June 4 Tiananmen Square Massacre: https://www.axios.com/zoom-closes-chinese-user-account-tiananmen-square-f218fed1-69af-4bdd-aac4-7eaf67f34084.html?fbclid=IwAR2-8R2Jz9bb_iskXAJcO4mmBXrAeltYKs7CfZNna4h0Ko7TakrLB1sgH7k

U.S. Secretary of State Mike’s appearance on Laura Ingram’s Fox News Show stating that the US is considering banning Tiktok: https://www.cnn.com/videos/business/2020/07/07/tiktok-app-china-us-pompeo.cnnbusiness/video/playlists/business-news/