Host: In terms of Muslims, I think it is related to other things, because when Trump is talking about Muslims, he means to not allow Muslims to enter into the United States. We have also seen that he wants to build a wall along the United States border with Mexico. In addition, he wants to reduce H1B. All of these are connected with each other and also are connected to immigration, cultural diversity, and nationalism. I feel that Trump is extreme on these issues. Many people think he is going against the core values of America. The United States itself is an immigrant country, focusing on cultural diversity. Trump violates it. What do you think of this issue?

Li: All the things you mentioned are important. I agree that they are connected, but they are actually very different. We have to see them separately. The common point is the way in which Trump talks. Trump is very different from Hillary. He is a businessman, a man who dares to say and act, and a man with distinct personality. He is not a policy person or a typical politician. So Trump is easily misunderstood. Of course, I am not defending him. I disagree with some aspects of his policy. But he is indeed easily misunderstood.

For example, if you think more about what he says about the Muslim immigrants, you will see that he does not propose prohibiting the entry of all Muslims. The Muslims he wants to prohibit are those whose background cannot be checked by the Department of Homeland Security, and those whose connection to terrorism cannot be denied. I cannot agree with this idea more. People who are friendly Muslims from Jordan, Turkey, and Indonesia, accounting for a high percentage of the Muslim population, are welcome to come here. Those people will not be affected by Trump's policy.

I encourage people to rethink what Trump has said. He is enthusiastic, but not a rigorous man. He is not a lawyer, like Hillary. When we listen to his speech, we should focus on his direction, rather than details. After Trump gets elected, many experienced Republicans, even Democratic politicians, as well as Congress will help. It is enough for him to keep on the right direction.

Host: This is your explanation, or, you explained for him in his shoes. I want to ask you a question that more concerns Chinese immigrants – H1B. Trump wants to reduce H1B. How do you explain that?

Li: H1B is one thing I disagree with Trump. I have two points to say. First, I was a student benefiting from H1B and the position of Asian.GOP is to increase H1B. We agree with Marco Rubio on H1B policy, which is to increase H1B by three times. Second, I think our Country needs STEM people. Increasing H1B is a good policy to keep our country competitive in the long-term.

I indeed realized that Trump intends to decrease H1B. I am against it. What's more important, I do not worry about it too much. The reason is that, as far as I know about the elections in the United States, badmouthing China is pretty usual. In the culture and history of the election, regarding China as an imaginary enemy is a common way to win hearts of voters. As Asian.GOP, it is also our responsibility to help Asian Americans learn more about history of the political process of the United States. Therefore, I think the China related H1B issue, is just a political approach to win the election. Trump is a businessman. I believe it is hard to say what exact policy he will enact after he realizes the importance of H1B to the development of technology. We are positive on this issue.

Host: Your attitude to this issue is also your position as a Republican and I understand why you speak for Trump. Now, let's touch upon a sensitive issue, which is also an issue both Chinese Americans and Chinese are concerned about, which is his attitude towards China. He made a speech on Tuesday in Pennsylvania, attacking global trade and China. He said he would call China a "currency manipulator" after getting elected and will levy punitive tariffs on China. I was surprised by his speech because he just made a long speech on trade policy saying totally different things from this one about one month ago. What do you think accounts for his change of attitude?

Li: The issue about China is always controversial during elections. They usually talk about three different things: Economy, International Politics, and Culture. Presidential candidates put priorities reflecting the first two. Asian Americans ourselves are also concerned about culture. Some candidates were extreme to attack Asian culture. I remembered that, in the 1990s, one candidate said on CNN, "we should militarily act tough with China, and capture Chinese on our warships, and choose to allow them to use chopsticks." That candidate was lacking cultural sensitivity. It is reasonable to talk about international politics at the time, because Capitalism was still fighting against Communism. However, it is not reasonable to make fun of using chopsticks, because lots of people use chopsticks all around the world. It shows the immature part of this candidate.

When I heard about this statement, it aroused my dislike for the Republican Party. So, as Asian.GOP, I hope to help the Republican Party on culturally sensitive issues. It is not desirable to unconsciously offend people. What I did is to raise the cultural issue first in relationship to the complicated US-China relationship issue. After 20 years, we are glad to see that candidates are already able to distinguish politics from culture, which is a big step forward.

In matter of economy, you talked about H1B and currency manipulation. If I get it right, Trump does business with Hong Kong companies and he has good business acumen. The reason why he mentioned currency manipulation is to make the complicated currency issue simple and clear to achieve his political goals. China has a mixed economic system of both communism and capitalism, so it absolutely does not depend on the market to manage currency. As we can see, under economic crises, many small countries like Malaysia and Thailand lost much of their foreign currency reserves because of the attacks from financial magnates. From this point, it is necessary for those countries to intervene in their currency system. After all, they are not mature capitalist countries like us. Trump talked about this issue only for politics. I believe he will rethink this issue and negotiate with China to formulate new policy and regulations after getting elected.

One difference between Trump and Hillary is that we are not familiar with Trump. We only start to know him from what he says. He also has said that he will consistently adjust his trade policy. We have confidence in Trump and believe that he knows what he is doing, because he wrote a book called, "The Art of the Deal," showing that he knows how to implement a strategy to achieve a win-win rather than a lose-lose.

Host: When you were answering, I feel like that you think we do not need to take what Trump said seriously because we do not know too much about Trump. However, you still have confidence in Trump, right?

Li: Sorry to interrupt you. I just hold a different view. The reason that I said that some Republicans and many Democrats didn't have confidence in Trump is that he is brand-new and we are not familiar with his political positions. However, actually, he was involved in politics since he was in his thirties. We found much of what he said at that time to be consistent with what he is saying now, such as on issues regarding economy, immigration, and on Islam. Some of his thoughts have been changing; so have this country. We are sure that he is constant and consistent in his message and direction. What we do not know is what exact policy he will enact.

Host: We can put your opinion towards Trump aside for a while. The past two questions are all about China. You speak for Trump from your position. From the bottom of your heart, do you think you are Chinese or American?

Li: Wow, this is a huge question. Can we talk more about the US-China trade issue before answering that?

Host: Sure.

Li: Ok, we talked about two aspects of the economy. One is currency, the other is trade. On the trade topic, we, Asian.GOP have a different direction from Trump's. We agree with the mainstream of the Republican Party, advocating, "Free trade and be fair." The extreme thought, "free trade is not fair," is wrong. Our economy will decline without a free trade oriented strategy. Our country is a beneficiary from free trade.

The interesting phenomenon here is that the positions on free trade cannot be easily classified by the right or the left. Relatively speaking, the left wing supports unions by protecting the interests of workers. The right wing supports the interests of corporation and enterprises. As Republicans, we do not want to isolate the interests of enterprises from those of workers. They should be mutually beneficial. If an enterprise goes bankrupt, it is unfavorable to both the employees and employers. Supporting both enterprises and workers should be a core value of the Republican Party.

It is deserving to note that even though Asian.GOP is a member organization related to the Republican Party, we do not necessarily support the way in which the top leadership operates with the party. We hope for a more grass-root oriented politics. We already saw that too many special interest groups influence party operations. The interests of those groups do not align with the interests of voters. Now, the operation of the party is not completely consistent with the core values of the party. We agree with the value and direction of our party, while we need to reform the way in which we operate it.

On trade, polls show that half of Democrats are for free trade and the other half are against it. On our side, more and more people are against it. Although, the traditional value of my party supports free trade, many grass-root Republicans do not. In the past twenty years, after signing NAFTA, the production of the manufacturing industry keeps increasing while the number of blue-collar jobs keeps declining. I think this is because of two things. One thing is automation and more and more jobs will be replaced by machinery, which is an inevitable trend of technology.

However, those workers who lost jobs do not think this way. They blame it on free trade and automation. I think we need to do two things to relieve this. The first one is to decrease the federal income tax to improve the competition of enterprises and individuals. The second one is that the government needs to stimulate enterprises to train workers to keep pace with the times. Also, blue-collar workers should improve themselves by adapting to technological progress.

Back to Trump, he made two speeches on trade. He originally opposed free trade, but clarified that he would support it only if it is fair. This confirms my statement again that he is not a typical politician. You have to understand how important his choice of words is in order to understand his positions.