China cannot be trusted in any of its interactions with the United States and the foreign policy goal should be to “bring the Chinese Communist government to its knees,” Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) said at the American Conservative Union’s CPAC 2020 on Friday in Oxon Hill, Maryland.

Perry, a retired Army brigadier general, said on another panel at CPAC that China has already stolen the designs for the U.S.’s most expensive weapons systems, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the C-17, and the F-22.

“For the better part of 40 years your government has told you that China is a strategic adversary so to speak or competitor,” Perry said at the discussion on China. “That if we just infuse them with the capitalist system and get them involved in our market and we got involved in their market that they would become like us.”

“Well, I’m here to tell you that’s all a lie,” Perry said.

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During the panel “What’s Mine is Mine and What’s Yours is Mine: Does IP Matter?” with Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA), Laura Peter (US Patent and Trademark Office), Perry slammed the Chinese Communist government and its continued theft of intellectual property.

“China does not respect our property rights,” Perry said. “They are prepared to obtain our intellectual property via any means possible – legally or illegally.”

“5G is the first step, but we won’t get to 6G if you let Huawei capture the 5G infrastructure,” Perry said. “They wish to interdict our military weapons capability ‘left of launch’ by controlling the networks.”

“President Trump is right to incorporate intellectual property protections in Phase I of the China trade deal,” McClintock said.

Moreover, Perry said, China does not see the U.S. as a partner.

“The Chinese view us as the enemy,” Perry said. “There should be reciprocity. If the Chinese won’t allow American students to study in China, we shouldn’t allow Chinese students to study here,” Perry said as the CPAC crowd rose to its feet.

“China is not a reliable actor and cannot be trusted,” Perry said. “They get to participate in our financial markets, but we’re not allowed to participate in theirs.”

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