Hollywood insider calls for fundamental shift in U.S.-China relationship

Hollywood insider Chris Fenton believes that the United States should recalibrate its relationship with China. Fenton, the CEO of Media Capital Technologies, formerly served as the President of DMG Entertainment Motion Picture Group and General Manager of DMG North America.

During an interview on the "John Solomon Reports" podcast he said that people have compromised American principles while pursuing the economic opportunities afforded by doing business with China. 

Fenton explained that "there's shareholders, there's investors, there's people that have very big motives when it comes to big uses of capital and investment. And if you have opportunities to figure out how to get a good return on that investment, sometimes that causes us to compromise the values and the national security principles that we hold dearly as Americans," he said.

He said that both sides of the political aisle must work together to address the problem.

"It's something we need to come together on, almost the same way as we came together for World War II—and I'm not saying this is a war, but this is a very serious situation where we need to back really strong principles and values and a rulebook that companies and industries need to follow in regards to their engagement to that market," he said.

Fenton noted that the U.S. needs to tackle "the supply chain issue," noting concerns about American dependence on Chinese pharmaceuticals and the gutting of American middle class jobs.

"We have seen the decimation of the middle class in large part because of our manufacturing push overseas in order to create products and services that are cheaper for Americans here," he noted.

While markets would suffer if the U.S. took needed steps towards recalibrating its relationship with China, the shift would "grow our sense of security as a nation" as well as "increase high-paid middle class jobs here in America."

"So if we somehow come up with a better ticker that we can put in the bottom of every cable news network screen than a Dow Jones Industrial Average, we might be able to put together the resolve to play the long game to get this done. Because remember, the [Chinese Communist Party] plays the long game. They're not on quarterly earnings reports, they're not on two or four year election cycles," he said. 

Fenton is calling for a fundamental shift across all business sectors to prioritize the national interest while doing business with China, though he openly admits that he has contributed to some of the problems he believes the U.S. must address by reconfiguring its engagement with China.

He explained that in retrospect he believes he "was complicit in a lot of the things I think we did wrong in regards to the U.S. and China exchange."

He said that the people of Wall Street "need to self-reflect and say, 'Hey look, let's continue pursuing it, but let's do it with the interests of America and Americans at first priority, and then let's figure out how we can create business and keep driving it forward. But let's make that a second priority. Let's make America number one.' And that's something we need to do in all industries," Fenton said.