China 'uses elite capture to pay off' US oligarchs instead of 'head-to-head' conflict: Schweizer

China avoids direct conflict with the United States by instead convincing U.S. corporate titans to build relationships with Beijing that they can use to undermine America, said author Peter Schweizer.

Schweizer, author of "Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win," joined "Tucker Carlson Today" on Fox Nation to discuss his findings, and call out those wealthy Americans who he claimed are doing China's bidding whether they know it or not.

"I really wanted to look at the whole question of, 'Why is the United States so unresponsive to China's threat?'" Schweizer told host Tucker Carlson.

"I wanted to look at it from the China perspective, but then I also wanted to look at elites in the United States — what their motivations were, the sweetheart deals that they get from Beijing."

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Schweizer said the Chinese Communist Party leadership calls their strategy "elite capture" — looping in American business titans with lucrative contracts or deals that get them to look the other way as Beijing rises globally.

"If we can capture them with sweetheart deals, with other benefits, we can effectively lobotomize the United States by making them unresponsive to our threats," Schweizer said of Beijing's collective thought. 

"That became very clear, just looking at the Chinese literature. And there on the American side, I wanted to look at not just people in Washington, D.C., your political families like the Bidens who are kind of grubbing for money all the time."

President Biden has been long criticized for his family's past coziness with China, most notably his son Hunter Biden forging deals with Chinese firms.

Hunter Biden flew with then-Vice President Joe Biden on Air Force Two to China in 2013, while later that year, the Chinese central bank in conjunction with Rosemont Seneca, a firm co-founded by Hunter Biden and Pittsburgh condiment fortune heir Christopher Heinz, reportedly set up a $1 billion joint venture called "Bohai Harvest RST."

A representative for Heinz told Fox News at the time that he had a minority interest in Rosemont Seneca until 2015, but neither he nor any business in which he has or had an interest was involved in BHR/China dealings.

On Fox Nation, Schweizer also described how Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has gone "over to Beijing and say the most ridiculous things about President Xi and about the Communist system."

"I wanted to try to explain that — and that's what I try to do in the book by exposing all these deals," he said.

Schweizer called some of Gates's actions "shocking," adding that the tech sector is cognizant of China.

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He said the Microsoft billionaire among others has a "weird admiration for what they call the efficiency of the Chinese dictatorship."

"And I laugh because, of course, dictatorships are efficient because they don't have to worry about civil rights. They don't have to worry about property rights. They can do whatever they want," he said.

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"Bill Gates talks about how President Xi works so hard for the Chinese people, he has their best interests at heart. So he says those things, but he's also done a series of things that I find frankly alarming."

"BYD, in addition to doing other things, is involved in creating advanced guidance systems for Chinese missiles," Schweizer said. "You know, Bill Gates would have to know that. It's not that hard to find if you investigate."

Fox News' Hollie McKay contributed to this report.