(NewsNation) — Bill O’Reilly said Monday that the United States has no choice but to work with China to prevent global conflict, despite the country’s history of breaking agreements and engaging in espionage.

“There’s no other alternative,” O’Reilly said on NewsNation’s “On Balance” after returning from meetings with what he called “the most powerful people” in China. “We’ve got to try to get a deal with China.”

O’Reilly said he briefed President Donald Trump for about 30 minutes following his China trip, though he declined to share specifics of that conversation. He said Chinese officials indicated that tariffs were not their primary concern, but Taiwan remains the central issue.

“2049, 100 years since Mao Zedong imposed communism, they want Taiwan under the Chinese flag,” O’Reilly said. “I told them that while President Trump is in office, it’s not going to happen militarily.”

O’Reilly proposed what he called a “plan for peace and prosperity” that would position the United States and China as global “enforcers” of peace, potentially sidelining Russia and Iran. He said Chinese officials appeared receptive to the concept.

When pressed about China’s surveillance state and human rights abuses, O’Reilly acknowledged the country’s authoritarian nature but distinguished Chinese leadership from Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he characterized as more “psychopathic.”

“I wouldn’t use the word evil across the board,” O’Reilly said of China. “It’s a police state, a surveillance state. Nobody has any rights. They justify it by saying, look, we got a billion and a half people.”