WEBVTT 1 00:00:30.079 --> 00:00:33.840 Welcome to mid Rats with sal from Commander Salamander, an Eagle one from Eagle 2 00:00:33.880 --> 00:00:38.840 Speak at Seer Shore your home for a discussion of national security issues and all 3 00:00:38.840 --> 00:00:44.520 things maritime. And good day everybody, and thank you very much for joining 4 00:00:44.600 --> 00:00:49.200 us for another edition of mid Rats. We appreciate you taking time today to 5 00:00:49.280 --> 00:00:52.719 listen with us, whether you're with Live or you subscribe to the podcast, 6 00:00:52.799 --> 00:00:57.560 and maybe we're joining you on your commute this week in this beautiful springtime. 7 00:00:57.719 --> 00:00:59.759 It's uh. I don't know about where it is where you are, but 8 00:01:00.200 --> 00:01:03.880 we've just had a great weekend. Hope your weather has been as nice as 9 00:01:03.920 --> 00:01:07.599 ours. And if you are with us Live, I'd like to go ahead 10 00:01:07.640 --> 00:01:11.239 and do my usual alter call and extend an opportunity for you to go over 11 00:01:11.239 --> 00:01:17.400 to the chat room. We've already got Paul and anyc there sitting there waiting 12 00:01:17.400 --> 00:01:21.519 for you to arrive, and that's a great place where if during the course 13 00:01:21.560 --> 00:01:23.840 of the show, if you have some observations you'd like to share, or 14 00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:26.719 there's a question you would like for us to point to our guests in the 15 00:01:26.719 --> 00:01:30.599 course of the next hour, that's the perfect place to do it because we'll 16 00:01:30.640 --> 00:01:34.200 both be monitoring during the show. And speaking of which, won't we just 17 00:01:34.239 --> 00:01:38.879 go ahead and roll into the show right away when when you look at the 18 00:01:38.879 --> 00:01:45.760 first two decades of this century, time isn't marching on quite quickly. As 19 00:01:45.799 --> 00:01:49.640 the US, the West and all of our friends were pretty distracted on some 20 00:01:49.719 --> 00:01:53.079 of our policing actions and small wars and Central Asia and the Middle East. 21 00:01:53.640 --> 00:02:00.799 The People's Republic of China in the open really slowly, deliberately and steadily grew 22 00:02:00.799 --> 00:02:06.200 her economic, diplomatic and military power to the point that she does even have 23 00:02:06.280 --> 00:02:08.960 the world's largest navy, which is even more impressive when you look at it 24 00:02:09.080 --> 00:02:15.199 when it's localized to the Western Pacific. And in the last year, really 25 00:02:15.199 --> 00:02:21.439 throwing on our third year, a lot of the brain trust and attention in 26 00:02:21.479 --> 00:02:27.639 the US and the West again has been focused on the largest conventional land war 27 00:02:27.680 --> 00:02:30.919 in Europe since the Second World War. In the last half year it's been 28 00:02:31.159 --> 00:02:36.759 back to the Middle East that just can't seem to leave anybody alone. However, 29 00:02:36.919 --> 00:02:40.280 in the background, the People's Republic of China has, as it's been 30 00:02:40.360 --> 00:02:49.039 doing, slowly, steadily and deliberately growing her power and influence, and she 31 00:02:49.080 --> 00:02:53.439 does have her own challenges but she doesn't seem to be interested in playing all 32 00:02:53.439 --> 00:02:57.599 the games that everybody else does. And we've got a returning guest today to 33 00:02:57.719 --> 00:03:01.080 revisit this topic and to give everybody anuther state, and that is Dean Chang. 34 00:03:01.520 --> 00:03:06.199 He is a senior fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, a 35 00:03:06.240 --> 00:03:09.639 senior advisor for the United States Institute of Peace, and a non residence fellow 36 00:03:10.000 --> 00:03:16.400 at George Washington University's Space Policy Institute, and all sorts of great things. 37 00:03:16.599 --> 00:03:21.159 But today he's with us on mid Rats Dean, welcome back. It's great 38 00:03:21.159 --> 00:03:25.120 to have you on board. Thank you for having me. And like I 39 00:03:25.199 --> 00:03:30.479 kind of prattled on a bit in the intro, it's been a busy quarter 40 00:03:30.560 --> 00:03:36.080 century so far, at least for us and our friends. That the People's 41 00:03:36.080 --> 00:03:38.520 Republic of China has decided that we can do what we want to do, 42 00:03:39.080 --> 00:03:46.080 but they're more interested in other things, especially in the last year. She 43 00:03:46.120 --> 00:03:51.400 has not been standing still waiting for everybody to get an extra couple of minutes 44 00:03:51.400 --> 00:03:54.479 of attention to look at what she's up to. So while everybody's been distracted 45 00:03:54.479 --> 00:03:59.560 with other things in the last year, what has she been up to that 46 00:03:59.599 --> 00:04:02.960 people really should be aware of. Well, it's almost a question of what 47 00:04:03.039 --> 00:04:09.800 hasn't she been up to. We've seen China become ever more active around the 48 00:04:09.840 --> 00:04:14.360 world, first and foremost not militarily. We can get to the military in 49 00:04:14.400 --> 00:04:18.199 a minute. But we've seen their expand further their Belt and Road initiative, 50 00:04:18.240 --> 00:04:24.680 which is in economic play, going far beyond where the historic Silk Road went. 51 00:04:24.800 --> 00:04:30.279 The BRI involves investments in Africa and Latin America. There's no actual history 52 00:04:30.319 --> 00:04:35.680 of any Chinese silk trade along those regions in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. 53 00:04:36.199 --> 00:04:41.279 We've seen them go to the Moon and to Mars. One of the things 54 00:04:41.360 --> 00:04:46.920 folks may not realize is that China is the first country to be able to 55 00:04:46.279 --> 00:04:53.439 have its first shot at Mars work. Everybody else has had their first couple 56 00:04:53.439 --> 00:04:58.680 of efforts, including US fail. The joke is that Martian air defense is 57 00:04:58.800 --> 00:05:02.879 very efficient, but the Chinese mana should not only put something in orbit, 58 00:05:02.959 --> 00:05:11.240 but more importantly to land on Mars and have their little rover work. That's 59 00:05:11.600 --> 00:05:15.040 a huge statement about their overall space capabilities. They've also landed on the far 60 00:05:15.120 --> 00:05:21.399 side of the Moon, which again nobody actually has done before, and when 61 00:05:21.439 --> 00:05:26.680 it comes to the military. They now have the largest navy, they're working 62 00:05:26.720 --> 00:05:30.839 at developing the world's largest air force. They have deployed a lot of nuclear 63 00:05:30.879 --> 00:05:38.399 weapons, several hundred ICBMs out in Western China, and scarily, they put 64 00:05:38.439 --> 00:05:43.480 a hypersonic glide vehicle in orbit. That's something we in the Russians chose not 65 00:05:43.560 --> 00:05:47.920 to do during the Cold War because it's incredibly destabilizing. It creates the real 66 00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:53.519 question, how do I know that the satellites that are up there or will 67 00:05:53.560 --> 00:05:58.639 be up there in the future aren't going to be weapons? Right, Because 68 00:05:58.680 --> 00:06:00.959 if you put a hypersonic glide vehicle in orbit, you could bring that thing 69 00:06:01.079 --> 00:06:08.439 down with almost no notice. Maybe it's orbiting over Washington, d C. 70 00:06:08.839 --> 00:06:14.439 Or over Omaha or over Norfolk, and you could do a heck of a 71 00:06:14.480 --> 00:06:18.040 lot of damage if you sent that thing screaming in at anywhere from Mock five 72 00:06:18.079 --> 00:06:25.160 to Mock twenty five with pretty much no warning. Yeah. One of the 73 00:06:25.199 --> 00:06:28.240 things that I think I've heard you talk about before but probably need to talk 74 00:06:28.279 --> 00:06:34.079 about is the way China is trying to change or impose its idea of the 75 00:06:34.920 --> 00:06:40.800 rule of law on everybody else. And I think with space especially with their 76 00:06:40.839 --> 00:06:46.480 mission to the Moon and their intention to set up a permanent base there and 77 00:06:46.560 --> 00:06:50.480 a few other things, and like their idea of what the law of the 78 00:06:50.519 --> 00:06:55.439 South Chinese Sea should be. Let's talk about how that affects what they're up 79 00:06:55.480 --> 00:07:01.720 to. So China's attitude towards the South China Sea is everything within what's sometimes 80 00:07:01.839 --> 00:07:06.199 termed the nine dash line or the ten dash line really should be treated as 81 00:07:06.360 --> 00:07:13.319 Chinese territorial waters, sort of like Chesapeake Bay. And the problem there is 82 00:07:13.319 --> 00:07:17.680 that the water that is encompassed within that line reaches within three miles of the 83 00:07:17.759 --> 00:07:24.160 Vietnamese and Philippine shores. It essentially says those countries pretty much don't have right 84 00:07:24.199 --> 00:07:30.399 to territorial waters or exclusive economic zones. The entire South China Sea the way 85 00:07:30.399 --> 00:07:35.879 the Chinese behave should be theirs. That's very scary because five point three trillion 86 00:07:35.920 --> 00:07:41.560 dollars worth of trade passes through the South China Sea. It is the means 87 00:07:41.600 --> 00:07:46.680 by which Japan, South Korea, Taiwan get food, get energy, get 88 00:07:46.720 --> 00:07:53.079 access to markets. What we are potentially looking at in space is a similar 89 00:07:53.120 --> 00:07:59.040 rewrite of the rules. The Chinese basically are asking the following question, if 90 00:07:59.079 --> 00:08:01.800 we get to the Moon before the Americans get back. If we start having 91 00:08:01.839 --> 00:08:05.560 regular service to the Moon, because we're definitely going to not be one and 92 00:08:05.680 --> 00:08:09.040 done. We're going to land, We're going to set up long term facilities. 93 00:08:09.079 --> 00:08:13.399 We're going to you know, not only recruit them rotate crews, but 94 00:08:13.519 --> 00:08:20.879 resupply them. What should be the language a space traffic management in that world? 95 00:08:20.959 --> 00:08:26.759 You know, if you fly from Brazil to Spain, two countries that 96 00:08:26.800 --> 00:08:33.440 aren't English speaking native English speakers, air traffic control. The talk out of 97 00:08:33.440 --> 00:08:39.559 the cockpit, that's all in English. English is the language of terrestrial air 98 00:08:39.600 --> 00:08:43.879 traffic management. What the Chinese are hoping to do is to say, that's 99 00:08:43.919 --> 00:08:48.799 fine, you can have the Earth when you go beyond you know, Earth's 100 00:08:48.879 --> 00:08:52.039 bounds. When you start going to space, hope you learn Chinese because that's 101 00:08:52.039 --> 00:08:58.639 going to be the language of space traffic management. Yeah. That bowls into 102 00:09:00.080 --> 00:09:05.120 what you see with a lot of things with the international community and the People's 103 00:09:05.159 --> 00:09:09.559 Republic of China, where they say, you know, those are your rules, 104 00:09:09.720 --> 00:09:13.759 and those are nice for your rules, but we had no say or 105 00:09:13.840 --> 00:09:16.360 play in the development of your rules, and we are going to have our 106 00:09:16.399 --> 00:09:22.039 own rules. So we see that and what they would like to do outside 107 00:09:22.080 --> 00:09:28.600 of Earth the orbit we see that in something is as simple as all the 108 00:09:28.639 --> 00:09:39.320 Philippines with water cannon. What are some other things that in the international order? 109 00:09:39.440 --> 00:09:43.799 For what people are used to thinking it is that the Chinese aren't technically 110 00:09:45.559 --> 00:09:52.080 trying to manipulate, but simply to ignore and create a new reality. Well, 111 00:09:52.360 --> 00:09:58.159 one of the biggest examples is intellectual property, and the Chinese basically have 112 00:09:58.279 --> 00:10:03.919 said, why can't we borrow quote unquote other people's intellectual property? You did 113 00:10:03.919 --> 00:10:07.320 it when you were growing up, why can't we do it? They do 114 00:10:07.360 --> 00:10:11.919 actually have a point. If you take a look at the early nineteenth century, 115 00:10:11.440 --> 00:10:16.559 the early eighteen hundreds, we were not We the United States were not 116 00:10:16.679 --> 00:10:20.080 very respectable of other people's intellectual property. The problem here, of course, 117 00:10:20.159 --> 00:10:24.559 is that with computers and thumb drives, you know, before stealing intellectual property 118 00:10:24.679 --> 00:10:31.320 literally meant trying to steal physical blueprints. Today you can download terabytes of data 119 00:10:31.639 --> 00:10:37.519 in seconds, maybe minutes, and walk out with a thumb drive literally the 120 00:10:37.559 --> 00:10:43.200 size of your thumb, or maybe a physical hard drive that is the size 121 00:10:43.240 --> 00:10:50.120 of a wallet. I could, in theory steal pretty much all the stuff 122 00:10:50.159 --> 00:10:54.080 that's worth stealing out of a major corporation that way, and that's one of 123 00:10:54.159 --> 00:11:03.159 the fundamental areas that China has been engaging in overturning the rules. Another aspect 124 00:11:03.240 --> 00:11:07.840 here is we are watching how they are behaving towards a variety of other countries 125 00:11:07.840 --> 00:11:15.120 with regards to loans and things where they make loans. To be fair to 126 00:11:15.159 --> 00:11:20.360 the Chinese, the loans are pretty clear in many cases, but if you 127 00:11:20.440 --> 00:11:24.279 fail to pay up, they repossess, and they have repossessed entire ports. 128 00:11:26.360 --> 00:11:31.559 That is something we really haven't seen in the twentieth century. Well, post 129 00:11:31.559 --> 00:11:33.759 World War Two, there was a lot more of that early on, and 130 00:11:33.840 --> 00:11:39.159 again it's not unique to China. Teddy Roosevelt was showing the big stick in 131 00:11:39.200 --> 00:11:43.320 South America, not against the locals, but against countries like Germany who wanted 132 00:11:43.320 --> 00:11:48.399 to would have liked to have done essentially the same thing towards local states. 133 00:11:50.200 --> 00:11:52.519 The big question I think right now is whether or not Russia China is going 134 00:11:52.559 --> 00:11:58.320 to rewrite the rules with regards to aiding Russia. We're hearing more and more 135 00:11:58.720 --> 00:12:05.440 room and reports that the Chinese are slowly amping up their aid to Russia in 136 00:12:05.480 --> 00:12:09.000 its invasion of Ukraine. They haven't gone as far as North Korea. North 137 00:12:09.080 --> 00:12:13.840 Korea is just openly selling munitions. The Chinese so far seemed to be more 138 00:12:13.879 --> 00:12:18.960 in the dual use aspect. But they're also buying a lot of Russian stuff 139 00:12:20.039 --> 00:12:26.080 oil grain, and that's providing Russia with the most important resource of all money. 140 00:12:28.919 --> 00:12:37.919 How much of what we see with China is a perpetual information gathering system 141 00:12:37.960 --> 00:12:43.279 where they and I think we talked shortly before the show started about the Red 142 00:12:43.320 --> 00:12:48.320 Sea where they sit. They sit in the in the Arabian golf for the 143 00:12:48.360 --> 00:12:52.000 northern part of the Indian Ocean, doing the anti piracy patrol. But you 144 00:12:52.039 --> 00:12:56.480 know they're collecting information about how the us NS allies are responding to the who 145 00:12:56.559 --> 00:13:00.679 the missiles and stuff, talking a little bit about how they go about this 146 00:13:00.720 --> 00:13:01.919 and what they do with it, because it looks to me like they're really 147 00:13:01.960 --> 00:13:09.279 working hard to get inside everybody's udo loop and find a way to get their 148 00:13:09.360 --> 00:13:15.159 first a lot of stuff. So people will often point out correctly China hasn't 149 00:13:15.200 --> 00:13:20.000 fought a war since nineteen seventy nine. But unlike US, specially Americans, 150 00:13:20.240 --> 00:13:24.600 they pay a lot of attention to history. If you ever watched Jeopardy. 151 00:13:24.879 --> 00:13:30.240 You'll notice that the categories that the players often do least well on is history, 152 00:13:31.120 --> 00:13:33.879 and the Chinese are the opposite. They pay a lot of attention to 153 00:13:33.039 --> 00:13:35.559 other people's wars, they pay a lot of attention to history. And so 154 00:13:35.600 --> 00:13:43.639 what we're seeing in places like the Red Sea Israel versus Hamas Ukraine is they 155 00:13:43.679 --> 00:13:50.679 are watching their biggest potential adversaries, namely the United States and the West, 156 00:13:50.679 --> 00:13:56.360 but also Russia. How are they militarily operating? What is the shot doctrine 157 00:13:56.639 --> 00:14:03.559 for Thad and Patriot in Russian ballistic missile attacks and cruise missile attacks? What 158 00:14:05.240 --> 00:14:09.679 is the behavior of US and British escorts when they are intercepting Huti missiles? 159 00:14:11.440 --> 00:14:18.279 So you can be sure that they are factoring all of that into their own 160 00:14:18.759 --> 00:14:22.559 doctrine with regards to what if I have to use my missiles against Taiwan, 161 00:14:24.360 --> 00:14:28.159 knowing how the Americans are likely to behave, knowing how we have probably trained 162 00:14:28.200 --> 00:14:33.679 the Taiwanese that allows them to figure out how to work against how to get 163 00:14:33.720 --> 00:14:37.559 inside both our doctrine. But as important as you, says the Udulup, 164 00:14:39.000 --> 00:14:43.600 the other piece of this is that we in here, I'm going to include 165 00:14:43.639 --> 00:14:48.000 the Russians. We the West plus Russia have a very different approach to intelligence 166 00:14:48.279 --> 00:14:54.200 than the Chinese do. We're always looking for the golden ticket, right we 167 00:14:54.240 --> 00:15:01.559 are looking for Shijin. We would be looking for Vladimir Putins closest confidant. 168 00:15:01.600 --> 00:15:07.799 They're looking for Joe Biden's secretary chief advisor. Who does he talk to? 169 00:15:09.240 --> 00:15:13.720 Because if we can get that golden ticket, all will be revealed. The 170 00:15:13.840 --> 00:15:18.159 Chinese are really very much like a Hoover vacuum cleaner. The joke goes that 171 00:15:18.159 --> 00:15:22.320 if the Chinese were going to invade an island, they'd first send one hundred 172 00:15:22.320 --> 00:15:28.080 thousand tourists over. Each would take one spoonful of sand. They'd bring it 173 00:15:28.120 --> 00:15:31.519 back to China, and then they would rebuild the beach with that one hundred 174 00:15:31.519 --> 00:15:37.919 thousand spoonfuls of sand to analyze how deep is the sand and how hard is 175 00:15:37.960 --> 00:15:43.720 in will it support amphibious vehicles from the like. They recruit people that not 176 00:15:43.960 --> 00:15:50.320 even recruit. They establish relationships with people politicians when they're mayors, politicians when 177 00:15:50.320 --> 00:15:54.559 they're city councilmen. But a whole lot of mayors and a whole lot of 178 00:15:54.639 --> 00:15:58.600 city councilmen on the assumption that thirty years from now, some of these folks 179 00:15:58.679 --> 00:16:04.679 may be i'm us representatives, governors, corporate executives, maybe even you know, 180 00:16:06.120 --> 00:16:11.159 vice president or somebody on the National Security Council. So it's a very 181 00:16:11.200 --> 00:16:15.840 different, longer term hoovering up lots and lots of small pieces as opposed to 182 00:16:17.440 --> 00:16:26.279 focusing on that one skeleton key tellnel like how you mentioned their their approach to 183 00:16:26.679 --> 00:16:32.600 Intel, because you know one of the classic examples of that, and you 184 00:16:33.120 --> 00:16:37.200 just have to ask the question if you if you see it, this clearly 185 00:16:37.279 --> 00:16:41.600 wants you know how many hundreds of thousands of times it's being replicated. Is 186 00:16:41.799 --> 00:16:49.080 you know people like to make funny jokes about Representatives Wallwell and his social activities 187 00:16:49.120 --> 00:16:56.000 with somebody who turned out to be a Chinese agent, thang Thing or whatever 188 00:16:56.039 --> 00:17:00.480 her full name is. That's what people generally know her as. That wasn't 189 00:17:00.480 --> 00:17:04.359 when he was in Congress, That's when he was a local official. However, 190 00:17:04.440 --> 00:17:08.359 when you looked at his family, his CV and influence, you could 191 00:17:08.400 --> 00:17:12.279 see how when they were racking and stacking, how do we get access to 192 00:17:14.039 --> 00:17:21.000 potential future important politicians. He had the family background, and you know, 193 00:17:21.039 --> 00:17:26.839 you talked about they're flooding the zone with tourism. You know, one of 194 00:17:26.839 --> 00:17:33.799 the things that we've seen, as opposed to most of the decades of people 195 00:17:33.799 --> 00:17:38.079 coming across the southern border were predominantly from Central and South America because that was 196 00:17:38.119 --> 00:17:42.519 the easiest way to get there. Then we started seeing other nations come in, 197 00:17:44.440 --> 00:17:48.240 Russians, Ukrainians, Haitians, Cubans, flying New Mexico come up here. 198 00:17:48.640 --> 00:17:53.680 In the last few years, we have seen tens of thousands of not 199 00:17:53.920 --> 00:18:00.799 all but mostly military aged males the People's Republic of China. But people were 200 00:18:00.799 --> 00:18:03.160 first raised an eyebrow with it. I raise an eyebrow that I'm going these 201 00:18:03.160 --> 00:18:07.119 are just folks that are trying to come here to the US because they got 202 00:18:07.160 --> 00:18:11.440 a cousin in Chicago that they can get them a job. But when you 203 00:18:11.480 --> 00:18:19.519 look at the long game that Chinese intelligence plays, there might be something there 204 00:18:21.160 --> 00:18:26.920 there. What are your thoughts about all these undocumented residents that People's Republic of 205 00:18:27.039 --> 00:18:30.640 China that we have coming up from the south, mixed in with all the 206 00:18:32.160 --> 00:18:37.440 ducks, Could there be a goose or too? So The official number that 207 00:18:37.480 --> 00:18:45.680 I saw was something like thirty thousand Chinese males of military age have been identified 208 00:18:47.279 --> 00:18:49.559 crossing the southern border, So I don't know if that figures correct, but 209 00:18:49.640 --> 00:18:53.759 let's work with that, okay, and let's leave aside those are the ones 210 00:18:53.799 --> 00:18:57.359 that we saw coming over, so that doesn't touch on how many did we 211 00:18:57.440 --> 00:19:03.400 not see? Right? Thirty thousand, so one percent. My math is 212 00:19:03.000 --> 00:19:07.400 not great, but so check me on this. One percent of thirty thousand 213 00:19:07.880 --> 00:19:12.400 is three hundred. Okay, so ninety nine percent of the people coming over 214 00:19:12.519 --> 00:19:19.480 that we've identified could be going to work with their cousin in Chicago or Muskegee 215 00:19:19.640 --> 00:19:26.359 or Sacramento. All right, but that still LEAs three hundred. How many 216 00:19:26.359 --> 00:19:37.240 men and a Special Forces eighteen six so that's fifty special forces eighteens a year 217 00:19:37.559 --> 00:19:42.400 who might be just gathering intel. Let's assume that all they're doing is gathering 218 00:19:42.440 --> 00:19:48.599 intel. What would the head of so Calm give for fifty Special Forces A 219 00:19:48.680 --> 00:19:53.400 teams to be able to penetrate China every year? But let's let's assume that 220 00:19:53.400 --> 00:19:56.799 that's just too high a number. Let's go with thirty. Okay, it's 221 00:19:56.839 --> 00:20:03.359 zero point one percent. That's five teams. How many people could you target 222 00:20:04.599 --> 00:20:11.240 if you had five teams a year operating in the United States. How well 223 00:20:11.279 --> 00:20:22.960 prepared do you think Weightman, Galveston, Baltimore, Omaha, Tinker are for 224 00:20:25.160 --> 00:20:30.640 one or more a teams to come in over the wire. I mean, 225 00:20:30.680 --> 00:20:34.119 and that's not even counting all of these tourists who just find themselves driving around 226 00:20:34.160 --> 00:20:41.960 on US bases, sometimes running away from the checkpoint security folks and just say, 227 00:20:41.039 --> 00:20:45.319 oh, I'm a tourist. I'm sorry. I didn't realize that this 228 00:20:45.480 --> 00:20:52.160 large facility that says, you know, US military base Force Protection Status Bravo 229 00:20:52.359 --> 00:20:56.480 was a military base. What do you think SOCOM would give for that kind 230 00:20:56.480 --> 00:21:04.599 of capacity In China? Well, it's I mean, we're when we're talking 231 00:21:04.599 --> 00:21:11.559 about their desire to get information and their continual probing, which I mean, 232 00:21:11.559 --> 00:21:15.200 I think we could talk about a lot the Chinese. He says, there's 233 00:21:15.200 --> 00:21:18.119 not much going on in the Taiwan streets right now, but you know they're 234 00:21:18.160 --> 00:21:22.519 always sending aircraft out. They're always surrounding Taiwan with ships. You know, 235 00:21:23.240 --> 00:21:26.680 how much of this is? You know, if we see it often enough, 236 00:21:26.720 --> 00:21:30.279 do we begin to ignore it because it becomes an everyday event? How 237 00:21:30.359 --> 00:21:33.319 much of it is? You know, as as we've already talked about, 238 00:21:33.319 --> 00:21:37.559 they're they're collecting the information they need to know what's the response time if we 239 00:21:37.640 --> 00:21:44.400 send a fast aircraft right up to the edge of you know, the the 240 00:21:45.160 --> 00:21:51.359 jat where the Japanese Self Defense Force will respond? I mean, is this 241 00:21:51.519 --> 00:21:53.119 And they do it with They do it with I've made a list of the 242 00:21:53.119 --> 00:21:56.519 places you discussed in various articles. They do it with India, they do 243 00:21:56.559 --> 00:22:00.720 it with the Philippines, they do it with with Japan, they do it 244 00:22:00.759 --> 00:22:04.480 with Taiwan, and they do it with us all the time. Every time 245 00:22:04.519 --> 00:22:08.480 we do you know, they just keep probing and probing and probing. And 246 00:22:08.960 --> 00:22:12.200 I guess that you know, it's like the Boy who Cried Wolf. If 247 00:22:12.200 --> 00:22:15.240 you if you every now and then a real wolf shows up, you've got 248 00:22:15.279 --> 00:22:18.039 to be able to pay attention to it. But how much of this is 249 00:22:18.079 --> 00:22:23.359 that as part of that whole of government approach to getting what information they can 250 00:22:23.759 --> 00:22:32.119 and somebody's been going together, and you know, I think that it's important 251 00:22:32.119 --> 00:22:36.960 to so they can assess on the stuff. As the phrase goes, embrace 252 00:22:37.000 --> 00:22:40.720 the power of And I don't think it's in either war. I think on 253 00:22:40.759 --> 00:22:42.880 the one hand, they're probing, they're probing us. They're probably our allies 254 00:22:42.920 --> 00:22:48.680 are probing their neighbors to gather information because you never know who the bad guy 255 00:22:48.799 --> 00:22:52.559 might be. Maybe not next year, maybe five years from now. You 256 00:22:52.599 --> 00:22:55.400 don't know who's going to be in charge, so you can be sure that 257 00:22:55.400 --> 00:23:02.160 they're correlating. Huh. So that's how this American ad reacts when we probe 258 00:23:02.200 --> 00:23:06.440 him. Let's see, you know what, what will the next admiral do? 259 00:23:06.599 --> 00:23:10.160 What will the next captain do? What will the next commander do? 260 00:23:11.279 --> 00:23:15.759 He's worked with the Japanese. Let's see how they're Japanese counterparts operate. But 261 00:23:15.880 --> 00:23:22.880 the other part, and you've mentioned dulup observe, orient decide act. What 262 00:23:22.039 --> 00:23:29.440 can I do when during the Cold War we wanted to get inside the Soviet 263 00:23:29.519 --> 00:23:33.240 Udulu. We figured all those command and control assets, all that you know, 264 00:23:33.359 --> 00:23:41.119 better communications gear would get would enable us to make decisions faster. I 265 00:23:41.119 --> 00:23:47.000 think that the Chinese approach is the flip side. How can I get you 266 00:23:47.039 --> 00:23:52.039 to respond slower? Maybe it means getting you to think that, oh, 267 00:23:52.759 --> 00:23:55.960 no big deal, I don't need to raise my alert level. We've seen 268 00:23:56.039 --> 00:24:00.720 them do this before. Maybe it's political warfare. I can influence you through 269 00:24:00.759 --> 00:24:04.319 a constant drumbeat of you know, we're bigger than you, We're stronger than 270 00:24:04.319 --> 00:24:11.200 you. The future belongs to us. Maybe it's downright personal. I'm gonna 271 00:24:11.240 --> 00:24:14.799 pay you a lot of money to look the other way to the next fifteen 272 00:24:14.839 --> 00:24:18.240 minutes. Or I'm gonna pay you a lot of money to take this thumb 273 00:24:18.319 --> 00:24:22.519 druft, don't ask what's on it and inserted into a computer at work. 274 00:24:22.920 --> 00:24:26.880 I think all of these are parts of what we are seeing, and it's 275 00:24:26.039 --> 00:24:29.799 very comprehensive, and like you said, it's not just whole of government, 276 00:24:29.880 --> 00:24:37.119 it's a whole of society, right Because Chinese universities are state run, China's 277 00:24:37.160 --> 00:24:41.920 media is state run. Chinese shipping companies that work out of places like Boston 278 00:24:41.240 --> 00:24:48.079 are state run. China's space program is state run. So I can get 279 00:24:48.119 --> 00:24:53.759 a whole lot of folks to work off the same sheet of music. I 280 00:24:53.759 --> 00:24:57.000 think that's the mistake that a lot of people have is they see a lot 281 00:24:57.160 --> 00:25:04.880 of what the pr does through a mercantilist view, because they do operate that 282 00:25:04.960 --> 00:25:11.319 way in a variety of ways. But and we saw it when did it 283 00:25:11.400 --> 00:25:15.240 start? Dean? About five years ago they really started to crack down on 284 00:25:15.279 --> 00:25:18.240 some of their billionaires that were getting a little bit too big for their breeches 285 00:25:18.559 --> 00:25:25.200 for the CCP, but they've got control over there. If it's a significant 286 00:25:25.400 --> 00:25:33.880 economic force in the PRC, it's it's controlled directly or indirectly. Are by 287 00:25:34.000 --> 00:25:40.680 threat of force by the CCP who's running things over there, and one of 288 00:25:40.720 --> 00:25:42.599 the you know talking about the slow and the steady, we're going to take 289 00:25:42.640 --> 00:25:48.720 our time. The future is now the Belton Road Initiative. A lot of 290 00:25:48.759 --> 00:25:52.960 people, myself included, for a while, we're perhaps being too optimistic, 291 00:25:53.039 --> 00:25:57.440 thinking that they're going to get too far over their skis. People are going 292 00:25:57.480 --> 00:26:03.119 to see what they're up to. Their debt games aren't going to work out. 293 00:26:03.920 --> 00:26:08.359 But you can see it from Cambodia west into Africa that appears the optimists 294 00:26:08.400 --> 00:26:18.240 were wrong. Is that what you're seeing with the Belton Road Initiative that tendril 295 00:26:18.519 --> 00:26:25.119 continues to grow in length and strength, regardless of the occasional little hiccup here 296 00:26:25.119 --> 00:26:29.400 and there. So it's belt and Road initiative. I think it's always important 297 00:26:29.440 --> 00:26:33.119 to keep in mind how this thing started. It didn't start as a foreign 298 00:26:33.160 --> 00:26:38.279 investment program. It started as a jobs program. So I'm China, I 299 00:26:38.359 --> 00:26:41.720 have built bridges. I have built airports, I have built ports. I 300 00:26:41.759 --> 00:26:47.119 have built entire ghost cities. I have built cities for five million people, 301 00:26:47.240 --> 00:26:51.200 eight million people, and that have like two hundred thousand residents. Why am 302 00:26:51.200 --> 00:26:55.160 I doing this Because I've got steel plants and some implants that i want to 303 00:26:55.240 --> 00:26:59.799 keep open. So after I've built literally bridges to nowhere and airports to nowhere 304 00:27:00.079 --> 00:27:03.519 cities for no one, what do I do next? Well, I could 305 00:27:03.559 --> 00:27:10.119 build infrastructure for other countries. Cool, that's great, But why do these 306 00:27:10.160 --> 00:27:15.400 countries not have infrastructure already and why haven't Westerners built it for them? Because 307 00:27:15.400 --> 00:27:18.720 they have no money. Well, I have these massive trade surpluses. So 308 00:27:18.880 --> 00:27:22.440 tell you what, I'm gonna take a piece of that. I'm going to 309 00:27:22.519 --> 00:27:26.599 recycle it by loaning it to these countries that they can then buy steel and 310 00:27:26.680 --> 00:27:30.759 cement plants, sorry, steel and cement from my steel mills and cement plants. 311 00:27:32.200 --> 00:27:34.440 That's great. Okay, So now I've got and by the way, 312 00:27:34.720 --> 00:27:37.960 all those projects are going to be built by Chinese laborers. They're not going 313 00:27:38.000 --> 00:27:41.920 to be built by locals in Africa and South America and the Middle East and 314 00:27:41.960 --> 00:27:45.039 Southeast Asia. Now I'm going to send my own workforce over there, because 315 00:27:45.079 --> 00:27:49.160 I that's what worries me. I'm trying to keep people employed because people who 316 00:27:49.160 --> 00:27:55.119 are employed are not going to riot against me the government. Okay, So 317 00:27:55.200 --> 00:27:57.160 fast forward a couple of years, and now the bills start coming due, 318 00:27:57.519 --> 00:28:04.519 and now it's like, hey, I've got this debt thing that if you 319 00:28:04.640 --> 00:28:08.599 pay me back, that's fine. I make money off of this project. 320 00:28:08.839 --> 00:28:15.000 If you don't pay me back, Now I've got a legal basis for making 321 00:28:15.039 --> 00:28:18.279 some claims. But I think it's important to realize it didn't start as a 322 00:28:18.279 --> 00:28:23.319 debt trap. It started as a jobs program for Chinese steel workers and cement 323 00:28:23.480 --> 00:28:30.680 workers. Now, though we're in a situation where the bri tendrils are definitely 324 00:28:30.720 --> 00:28:37.440 coming home to roost, you are definitely getting more and more countries where they've 325 00:28:37.440 --> 00:28:42.519 got infrastructure that you built. In some cases they're having trouble paying it back. 326 00:28:42.680 --> 00:28:47.720 In other cases, you've cut interesting deals. At one point, Angola 327 00:28:47.759 --> 00:28:53.079 had pretty much mortgaged its future oil sales for years to China to pay back 328 00:28:53.519 --> 00:28:56.839 projects that the Chinese had built for them. Now, it is important to 329 00:28:56.880 --> 00:29:02.039 remember though the Chinese actually built these projects. They actually built the bridges and 330 00:29:02.079 --> 00:29:04.599 the dams and the railways and all of that, and they use that for 331 00:29:04.680 --> 00:29:08.720 propaganda bology to say, look, we built this railroad in your country, 332 00:29:10.039 --> 00:29:17.119 it's your railroad now. So they figure out many of the angles, they 333 00:29:17.160 --> 00:29:22.359 play off many of the angles, but that doesn't mean it always started from 334 00:29:22.400 --> 00:29:27.559 the angles that they're playing now. Yeah, but that that reminds me of 335 00:29:27.759 --> 00:29:33.440 the recently the US is saying we don't want Chinese cranes because we know that 336 00:29:33.519 --> 00:29:41.200 there's a software program there that could could could misdirection I say, important cargoes 337 00:29:42.640 --> 00:29:48.480 and you know the whole what's the name of that hu way uh five G 338 00:29:49.079 --> 00:29:53.599 telephone stuff. I mean, you know, they develop these things and they 339 00:29:53.599 --> 00:29:56.319 look good, but then they also use them for for a guess, for 340 00:29:56.359 --> 00:30:03.119 that information gathering or maybe even control. So kind of talk about that. 341 00:30:03.279 --> 00:30:11.000 So partly I agree with you in part but let's take Huawei as an example. 342 00:30:11.079 --> 00:30:15.960 Huawei. We talked earlier about China not obeying the rules. Huawei started 343 00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:25.200 off basically exploiting massive cyber theft from a company called Nortel as well as from 344 00:30:25.359 --> 00:30:30.799 Cisco. The computer folks are not the food folks. But part of the 345 00:30:30.799 --> 00:30:37.440 problem here is they come in through the unlocked front door and the open side 346 00:30:37.440 --> 00:30:41.319 window. Nortel, they're computer security people at the time, said there are 347 00:30:41.400 --> 00:30:47.519 people rummaging through our intellectual property. There are people who are just literally stealing 348 00:30:47.599 --> 00:30:51.400 us blind. And they went to the C suites. They went to the 349 00:30:51.440 --> 00:30:55.240 young chief financial officer and the chief operating officer and said, hey, guys, 350 00:30:55.519 --> 00:31:00.920 there's somebody in our system just pulling out data. Teil's attitude was, 351 00:31:00.400 --> 00:31:04.559 you're just looking for more money for security, aren't you, because you're overhead. 352 00:31:06.559 --> 00:31:11.640 Eventually the company goes bankrupt and the Chinese bought up the rest. So 353 00:31:11.559 --> 00:31:17.000 Huawei. You know, we complain a lot about Huawei, but Huawei makes 354 00:31:17.079 --> 00:31:21.200 a five G network from soup to nuts, phones, tablets, computers, 355 00:31:21.680 --> 00:31:26.880 all the way through the servers and the routers and the five G based stations, 356 00:31:26.359 --> 00:31:30.319 and they all work and they work together because it's a single integrated set 357 00:31:30.359 --> 00:31:34.200 of systems. And we say you shouldn't buy Huawei to various countries, and 358 00:31:34.240 --> 00:31:38.920 those countries say, okay, I get what you're saying. Who what should 359 00:31:38.960 --> 00:31:42.640 we buy? And we also look at each other because there is no American 360 00:31:42.680 --> 00:31:48.880 equivalent to Huawei in five G. Some companies make bits and pieces, but 361 00:31:48.960 --> 00:31:53.119 nobody offers the whole thing. And then the Chinese offer financing, so I 362 00:31:53.160 --> 00:31:59.400 will sell you a five G network cheap. And you're talking about countries who 363 00:31:59.400 --> 00:32:01.759 look at this and say, okay, America, what have you got. 364 00:32:02.119 --> 00:32:08.720 Larry Summers said, we show up, we bring lectures. The Chinese show 365 00:32:08.799 --> 00:32:13.279 up, they bring airports. You might have also said, they bring five 366 00:32:13.319 --> 00:32:16.279 G networks. That's a heck of a thing. It's like, the cranes. 367 00:32:17.079 --> 00:32:23.960 Don't buy Chinese crans cool. Chinese cranes work, and Chinese cranes are 368 00:32:24.200 --> 00:32:30.960 relatively inexpensive. What you got, what you got for me to I want 369 00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:35.960 my port to run, I need cranes. So it's really hard to fight 370 00:32:36.039 --> 00:32:42.079 something with nothing. And the Chinese, partly through smart plays, partly through 371 00:32:42.200 --> 00:32:47.240 predatory and you know, subsidize economic policies, and partly because of our own 372 00:32:47.240 --> 00:32:53.720 short sightedness, they get a corner on key parts of key supply chains. 373 00:32:53.720 --> 00:32:58.559 And we're all like, oh, it's about chips. No, chips are 374 00:32:58.599 --> 00:33:02.039 the thing, you know, Chips are what gets headlines. Cranes. Cranes 375 00:33:02.079 --> 00:33:07.279 are boring. Cranes are dull. Cranes are just steel. Till you think 376 00:33:07.319 --> 00:33:14.279 about what's offloading all those computers and all those containers and ports from you know, 377 00:33:14.640 --> 00:33:20.000 Shanghai to Savannah. It's not just you know, people like to talk 378 00:33:20.039 --> 00:33:22.519 about the whole of government approach with so many of these things, it's a 379 00:33:22.839 --> 00:33:30.839 whole of society approach when you look how they it's horizontally and vertically integrated into 380 00:33:30.880 --> 00:33:37.640 this real solid block. Uh. And it's almost as if it's it's creeped 381 00:33:37.720 --> 00:33:43.000 up on us in the last couple of years. A few months ago one 382 00:33:43.039 --> 00:33:49.240 of the best examples I saw this is Joshua Steinman. He put out a 383 00:33:49.279 --> 00:33:55.440 graphic where you look at our missiles, our precision weapons that everybody says, 384 00:33:55.440 --> 00:34:00.960 well, bas upon we've seen in the Ukraine, we need this many tea 385 00:34:00.039 --> 00:34:06.559 lambs, we need this many patriots sm missiles, and they're all made by 386 00:34:06.559 --> 00:34:09.719 our primes in the US. And what he did is the graph goes back 387 00:34:09.880 --> 00:34:16.719 in the supply chain to the different providers and where those materials and those chips 388 00:34:16.800 --> 00:34:22.599 come from, and he pulls it back three or four layers, and when 389 00:34:22.599 --> 00:34:25.360 you get back it starts at layer at layer three, when you get a 390 00:34:25.400 --> 00:34:30.360 layer four of the supply chain to produce these weapons that we're going to we 391 00:34:30.400 --> 00:34:32.760 tell ourselves that we're going to need to rely on in case we find ourselves 392 00:34:32.760 --> 00:34:37.320 in a shooting war west of the International date line. It's yeah, there's 393 00:34:37.320 --> 00:34:44.280 American flags there, but there's a lot of Red PRC flags. So you 394 00:34:44.360 --> 00:34:49.400 know, industrial policy is in a lot of parts, for good reason of 395 00:34:49.440 --> 00:34:52.679 our political spectrum, a no go rule. But it looks like if you 396 00:34:52.760 --> 00:35:00.800 were really planning for a serious economic and military, very challenged to establish world 397 00:35:00.960 --> 00:35:06.719 order, that you would want to not only make sure that your supply chained 398 00:35:06.760 --> 00:35:12.559 are inside your lifelines, but you find a way to put your competitors supply 399 00:35:12.760 --> 00:35:17.880 chains at significant risk. And that's a lot more important for serious things than 400 00:35:17.880 --> 00:35:22.760 what everybody saw on a retail level with COVID when all of a sudden we 401 00:35:22.800 --> 00:35:29.000 couldn't get enough gloves and mask masks. So the Chinese take exactly what you 402 00:35:29.159 --> 00:35:30.920 just said and flip it on its head. And this is the so called 403 00:35:31.000 --> 00:35:36.039 policy of dual circulation. And the idea is I am going to create an 404 00:35:36.199 --> 00:35:40.079 internal Chinese market, and in that market, I'm going to as much as 405 00:35:40.119 --> 00:35:45.159 possible not allow anyone from the outside in. You may have heard of made 406 00:35:45.199 --> 00:35:50.679 in China twenty twenty five that identified ten key technology areas that the Chinese said, 407 00:35:50.760 --> 00:35:54.719 we want to be something like eighty percent self sufficient in we may have 408 00:35:54.800 --> 00:35:58.599 to buy a few things from the outside world, but we don't want to 409 00:35:58.679 --> 00:36:01.639 and we're going to work to prevent us from ever becoming really dependent. By 410 00:36:01.639 --> 00:36:06.920 the way, those ten technology areas again, we think, well, aerospace, 411 00:36:07.079 --> 00:36:15.000 right yes, microchips right yes, but also agricultural machinery, railway technology, 412 00:36:15.679 --> 00:36:21.119 ocean shipping, all this old, boring, yesterday tech that is still 413 00:36:21.159 --> 00:36:25.000 how you move stuff from the factory to the warehouse, to the port to 414 00:36:25.039 --> 00:36:29.599 the customer. So that's one part of dual circulation. I am going to 415 00:36:29.679 --> 00:36:35.000 be dependent on just China for this stuff. But the other piece of dual 416 00:36:35.320 --> 00:36:39.880 circulation is I want to be an indispensable part of everybody else's supply chains. 417 00:36:40.719 --> 00:36:45.199 I want you to buy my stuff. And whether that's because I'm going to 418 00:36:45.239 --> 00:36:50.960 offer you great prices or good quality, sufficient quality, not that it's a 419 00:36:50.960 --> 00:36:54.920 great quality, but sufficient quality, or I'm going to play off of the 420 00:36:55.039 --> 00:37:00.559 well you have to be in the Chinese market. And still I'll hear that 421 00:37:00.880 --> 00:37:07.400 from some companies, and all of that establishes a foothold and sometimes a dominant 422 00:37:07.440 --> 00:37:12.920 position to the point where it's not clear you can make a seat of minifin 423 00:37:13.599 --> 00:37:19.559 Kailomol. It's not clear you can make ibuprofen without at some point going to 424 00:37:19.639 --> 00:37:27.679 Chinese companies to get the precursor chemicals. One of the countries that has resisted 425 00:37:28.000 --> 00:37:31.079 some of this stuff in China is one of their neighbors and the world's second 426 00:37:31.079 --> 00:37:36.599 most populous country. But let's talk a little bit about the relationship between what 427 00:37:36.639 --> 00:37:39.440 I think is probably a key to the future in many ways in the Indo 428 00:37:39.480 --> 00:37:43.920 Pacific, which is India itself. I mean, they've got a twenty one 429 00:37:44.000 --> 00:37:49.119 hundred mile long border with China. They're an armed border on both sides. 430 00:37:49.519 --> 00:37:54.440 They have control over various islands. India has controlled for various islands that lead 431 00:37:54.519 --> 00:38:00.800 into and out of the Middle East, which would be on important slocks for 432 00:38:00.880 --> 00:38:07.360 the Chinese. I'll know about what India is up to and what their relationship 433 00:38:07.400 --> 00:38:10.159 is with China, and where is that going in your view, So, 434 00:38:10.280 --> 00:38:15.719 the Sino Indian border is probably the scariest border nobody's ever heard of. Why 435 00:38:15.800 --> 00:38:20.679 do I say that? If you think back to the Cold War, we 436 00:38:20.719 --> 00:38:24.880 in the Soviets worked really, really hard never to fight each other directly. 437 00:38:25.039 --> 00:38:30.199 We had proxies, we had allies. You had Vietnam, you had Afghanistan. 438 00:38:30.840 --> 00:38:35.639 But both sides pretty much said, let's not kill each other directly because 439 00:38:35.639 --> 00:38:39.079 you have nuclear weapons and I have nuclear weapons, and things could get out 440 00:38:39.079 --> 00:38:45.360 of hand and where would we be. The one time was a Cuban missile 441 00:38:45.360 --> 00:38:51.440 crisis, and the Cuban missile crisis saw both Kennedy and Khrushchev take steps in 442 00:38:51.480 --> 00:38:55.280 the middle of the crisis to pull back. Right. Why am I bringing 443 00:38:55.280 --> 00:39:00.719 this up in the China Russia China India context, Because the Chinese have crossed 444 00:39:00.760 --> 00:39:06.920 the so called line of actual control with their troops for the last eleven years. 445 00:39:07.119 --> 00:39:14.480 They have sent troops into Indian territory or Indian control territory in some cases 446 00:39:14.519 --> 00:39:19.880 carrying banners that say this is our land. They have been resupplied some twenty 447 00:39:19.920 --> 00:39:25.679 miles inside the Chinese the Indian side of the border of the disputed border region. 448 00:39:27.400 --> 00:39:30.840 And now we have had cases where Chinese and Indian troops have killed each 449 00:39:30.880 --> 00:39:37.719 other directly. They tried. They both maintained patrols along the border that are 450 00:39:37.840 --> 00:39:40.840 unarmed. They have guns, but they are unloaded. So instead what happened 451 00:39:42.079 --> 00:39:46.639 they used rocks. They used iron rods to beat each other to death and 452 00:39:46.679 --> 00:39:53.039 in some cases to throw people over cliffs to fall a few hundred feet down 453 00:39:53.079 --> 00:40:00.280 into ravines. The point here is the Chinese are willing to push on this 454 00:40:00.440 --> 00:40:09.360 to the point of confronting a nuclear armed power directly. That should scare people 455 00:40:09.840 --> 00:40:16.320 because that says we have a leadership that doesn't think that this is too dangerous 456 00:40:16.639 --> 00:40:24.159 to undertake. India, depending on who you ask, might actually already be 457 00:40:24.239 --> 00:40:30.280 the most populous country. The problem with India is that, unlike China, 458 00:40:30.360 --> 00:40:36.960 it has nowhere near exploited the full potential of its population. You have millions 459 00:40:36.960 --> 00:40:43.480 of people who are illiterate. You have a society that treats various casts as 460 00:40:44.239 --> 00:40:52.239 subordinate. You have a system that treats women extremely badly. That is holding 461 00:40:52.320 --> 00:41:00.920 back India's ability to really take on China is miltary industrial complex, has a 462 00:41:00.920 --> 00:41:07.000 lot of failures, has a lot fewer successes. All of this adds up 463 00:41:07.000 --> 00:41:10.400 to a lot of potential, which, if it converted into actual power, 464 00:41:10.800 --> 00:41:16.079 economic power, military power, would be huge. But you know, and 465 00:41:16.159 --> 00:41:22.079 part of this is because India is a democracy. Indian analysts will tell you 466 00:41:22.119 --> 00:41:24.679 we cannot do what the Chinese have done. We cannot force people to not 467 00:41:24.719 --> 00:41:30.800 have children, we cannot force people to become educated. But what that means 468 00:41:30.880 --> 00:41:36.719 is that until the Indian society figures out how it wants to mobilize, if 469 00:41:36.719 --> 00:41:44.360 it wants to mobilize its own populations to a fuller extent, it's you know, 470 00:41:44.440 --> 00:41:49.559 it's going to be potential, it's not actual power. And an additional 471 00:41:49.599 --> 00:41:52.079 element here is that, you know, Prime Minister Modi, the current Indian 472 00:41:52.159 --> 00:41:59.480 leader, has really decided that Chinese is not a friend, partly because of 473 00:41:59.599 --> 00:42:04.239 Chinese act activities, partly because he does see China as posing a challenge to 474 00:42:04.280 --> 00:42:09.119 fundamental Indian interests. But they're democracy. There's no guarantee that the next Prime 475 00:42:09.119 --> 00:42:15.360 Minister of India is necessarily going to view the Chinese as a problem. There 476 00:42:15.360 --> 00:42:20.480 are elements in Indian politics who think we should join with China. We would 477 00:42:20.519 --> 00:42:23.360 be unstoppable, We would be the two most populous countries. We are all 478 00:42:23.400 --> 00:42:29.639 of the global South. Why should we work with the global North who exploited 479 00:42:29.719 --> 00:42:36.199 us instead of working with the global South. That resonates in some quarters of 480 00:42:36.280 --> 00:42:39.880 the Indian political system. So ten years from now, is India going to 481 00:42:39.880 --> 00:42:50.920 be opposed to China? Hard to say. And culture and government does matter, 482 00:42:50.960 --> 00:42:55.000 and you have to give I guess you don't have to. But the 483 00:42:55.079 --> 00:43:05.480 CCP, especially after now past and dun King onward, they did an incredible 484 00:43:05.519 --> 00:43:09.679 thing with a lot of challenges in bringing the Chinese people's standard living up into 485 00:43:09.679 --> 00:43:15.039 bringing their country to the status that it is today. Uh, they got 486 00:43:15.119 --> 00:43:19.119 a lot wrong. And I don't think anybody here will really want to live 487 00:43:19.159 --> 00:43:22.199 there or be a citizen there. But culture matters, and you look at 488 00:43:23.639 --> 00:43:31.239 it's not necessarily the communist culture either. You can look at two predominantly Chinese 489 00:43:31.559 --> 00:43:36.880 nations small compared to the PRC. Of course, you look at you look 490 00:43:36.920 --> 00:43:42.599 at Taiwan and Singapore what they have done, and uh, it's it's incredible 491 00:43:42.639 --> 00:43:49.159 if you had a type of political and social cohesion UH and system that those 492 00:43:49.199 --> 00:43:54.960 two have evolved to in our decade, and it could replicate with the incredible 493 00:43:55.320 --> 00:44:00.960 thing in a variety ways. But when you look at East Asias the challenges 494 00:44:00.079 --> 00:44:09.320 of transitioning to a higher income country, you know another another East Asian nation 495 00:44:09.519 --> 00:44:15.280 that at the edge of living memory was completely broken down to parade rest. 496 00:44:15.559 --> 00:44:21.440 South Korea one of the most modern countries on the planet. You also have 497 00:44:21.639 --> 00:44:25.599 Japan after the Second World War, wasn't as devastated as say Germany was, 498 00:44:25.679 --> 00:44:32.280 but still highly advanced society. They're all facing. As you know, Korea 499 00:44:32.519 --> 00:44:37.239 and especially Japan already have turned the corner on being quote rich unquote nations. 500 00:44:37.960 --> 00:44:44.360 The PRC is still grasping for that, but they have the demographic challenge on 501 00:44:44.440 --> 00:44:50.039 top of it, and there's been some interesting scholarship recently about how Japan has 502 00:44:50.199 --> 00:44:58.199 leveraged technology and policy to address their demographic challenge that they're kind of ahead of 503 00:44:58.239 --> 00:45:02.960 everybody else's. South Korea hasn't quite done as much as Japan has, but 504 00:45:04.360 --> 00:45:10.440 I haven't seen much coming out of the PRC about this demographic cliff that they 505 00:45:10.679 --> 00:45:15.760 and their economy is going to face here pretty soon. And again it depends 506 00:45:15.800 --> 00:45:17.719 upon whose data set you're looking at, but I believe it was twenty twenty 507 00:45:17.719 --> 00:45:24.760 two their population actually peaked and is contracting in an accelerating manner right now. 508 00:45:25.079 --> 00:45:31.639 For the PRC's great long term dreams, is that demographic headwind they're going to 509 00:45:31.719 --> 00:45:37.800 run into be what do you think more or less of an issue than a 510 00:45:37.800 --> 00:45:42.719 lot of people think here today. I think it's going to be a huge 511 00:45:42.719 --> 00:45:46.440 issue, but it's also going to be taken very differently in China than how 512 00:45:46.519 --> 00:45:52.360 we think about it. A very good friend of mine is an economist and 513 00:45:52.400 --> 00:45:54.440 he had an opportunity to talk to a POMABIA member, so one of the 514 00:45:54.480 --> 00:45:59.760 top twenty four members of the Chinese leadership. Now this is a while ago, 515 00:46:00.079 --> 00:46:04.400 but I think his question answer was very revealing. He was said, 516 00:46:04.440 --> 00:46:07.639 look, you guys are better data than we do. You know you are 517 00:46:07.639 --> 00:46:12.320 facing a demographic challenge. You know that you're going to fall off a cliff. 518 00:46:14.679 --> 00:46:20.559 Where's the concern. This POLYPIRO member looked at him and said, you 519 00:46:20.639 --> 00:46:24.719 have to understand where not you do? You know what old people don't do. 520 00:46:25.719 --> 00:46:37.400 They don't riot. That sentence right there should tell you that the Chinese 521 00:46:37.480 --> 00:46:43.079 look at problems differently than we do. They understand that an older population, 522 00:46:43.239 --> 00:46:49.079 an aging population, is less productive, is less innovative, that when you 523 00:46:49.239 --> 00:46:53.320 have the overhang that they do, it makes our social security and medicare problems 524 00:46:53.400 --> 00:46:58.920 paal by comparison, because everybody's got to pay as you go. Social welfare 525 00:46:58.960 --> 00:47:01.840 system and in China's case, you have what's known as four to one four 526 00:47:01.880 --> 00:47:08.360 grandparents and two parents are being supported by one grandchild, one worker, and 527 00:47:08.880 --> 00:47:15.440 couple. That is almost unsustainable. It may well be unsustainable. So that's 528 00:47:15.440 --> 00:47:21.639 one of the reasons why the Chinese official estimates of economic growth have been sliding 529 00:47:21.960 --> 00:47:30.079 over time. Also, China is not particularly open to immigration. We have 530 00:47:30.280 --> 00:47:34.480 a demographic problem in this country, but a lot of it has been addressed 531 00:47:34.760 --> 00:47:43.199 through legal immigration policies. Japan is very very much opposed to immigration. That's 532 00:47:43.239 --> 00:47:49.400 why they've pushed for robotics to replace it. South Korea is going to face 533 00:47:49.440 --> 00:47:54.880 a demographic problem. The Chinese clearly are pushing robotics. They are cutting edge 534 00:47:54.920 --> 00:48:00.679 on artificial intelligence. Part of that I suspect is how are we going to 535 00:48:00.679 --> 00:48:02.440 solve the demographic problem. We're going to be like the Japanese. We're going 536 00:48:02.480 --> 00:48:07.400 to do robotics because we're not going to import. We are not going to 537 00:48:07.480 --> 00:48:12.480 allow massive immigration. And frankly, it's not other people want to immigrate to 538 00:48:12.599 --> 00:48:19.840 China, but they are very while, they are very concerned, and it's 539 00:48:20.679 --> 00:48:24.000 there are multiple reports that the Chinese have classified census results because they are not 540 00:48:24.079 --> 00:48:29.920 prepared to publicly talk about a decline in population or the idea that they might 541 00:48:29.960 --> 00:48:34.320 have fewer people than India. At the same time, they also see it 542 00:48:34.360 --> 00:48:39.159 as reducing stress on the CCP and its ability to stay in power. An 543 00:48:39.199 --> 00:48:45.400 older population, shrinking population doesn't need eight percent GDP growth anymore. It can 544 00:48:45.440 --> 00:48:50.880 get by on five percent, maybe even less. It doesn't have to constantly 545 00:48:50.880 --> 00:48:57.000 create new jobs because there are tens of millions of new workers coming online like 546 00:48:57.039 --> 00:49:04.119 there were in the nineteen nineties and two thousands. So from a CCP control 547 00:49:04.199 --> 00:49:13.239 perspective, it's not clearly all a bad thing. Well, let's uh, 548 00:49:13.440 --> 00:49:15.639 let's shift focus a little bit. What what are they doing? What's China 549 00:49:15.679 --> 00:49:22.239 up to in the Latin America. I mean, we've got they own substantial 550 00:49:22.199 --> 00:49:29.679 iron mining capacity in Peru. I gathered, they've got these satellite control stations 551 00:49:29.719 --> 00:49:32.519 in Argentina and a few other places. They're they're talking about putting troops in 552 00:49:32.559 --> 00:49:37.639 Cuba. I don't know what their situation is with Venezuela, but with the 553 00:49:37.639 --> 00:49:40.840 Guiana Venezuela thing, I just can't help feel there's a Chinese thumb in there 554 00:49:40.920 --> 00:49:45.360 somewhere. Talk a little bit about what China is doing in Latin America. 555 00:49:46.079 --> 00:49:52.519 Again a whole of society approach China. Huawei we talked about earlier. Huawei 556 00:49:52.559 --> 00:50:00.719 has wired up a good chunk of South America. The combined cloud compute centers 557 00:50:00.800 --> 00:50:07.159 for Huawei for China Telecom, etc. Equals or rivals that of Amazon Web 558 00:50:07.199 --> 00:50:14.079 Services and Google down there, at least I believe that's the case. I 559 00:50:14.079 --> 00:50:15.639 don't have the statistics in front of me, suffice to say they have a 560 00:50:15.679 --> 00:50:21.559 substantial presence in Latin America in terms of cloud computing centers, and you can 561 00:50:21.599 --> 00:50:25.039 be sure that that data the PRC can access it if it needs to. 562 00:50:28.679 --> 00:50:30.639 You mentioned some of the raw materials. One of the big things to keep 563 00:50:30.639 --> 00:50:35.119 in mind is lithium. Lithium, of course, is important for batteries. 564 00:50:35.199 --> 00:50:42.360 The Chinese sign deals with Bolivia years ago to basically lock down the Bolivian not 565 00:50:42.400 --> 00:50:46.079 just copper, but also lithium production because Bolivia is one of the largest producers 566 00:50:46.199 --> 00:50:51.679 of lithium out there. So what you are seeing is a Chinese effort, 567 00:50:51.719 --> 00:51:00.760 again not military, but economic, financial, technological partnership to basically make these 568 00:51:00.800 --> 00:51:07.199 countries look at China as a friend and as important make sure that they don't 569 00:51:07.320 --> 00:51:13.760 turn on China if the US puts pressure on them now it doesn't hurt. 570 00:51:13.800 --> 00:51:16.239 Of course, if you have a president as you now do in Brazil who 571 00:51:16.320 --> 00:51:23.320 is fairly the very socialist and outlook and looks at China as a good partner, 572 00:51:23.559 --> 00:51:29.360 potentially for all sorts of reasons. Conversely, you have a new president 573 00:51:29.440 --> 00:51:36.360 in Argentina who are press hates. But one things he did, unlike his 574 00:51:36.440 --> 00:51:39.840 predecessor, is say I'm not interested in joining bricks the Brazil, Russia, 575 00:51:39.880 --> 00:51:46.039 India, China, South Africa grouping that the Chinese are using as a stalking 576 00:51:46.119 --> 00:51:52.400 horse. Instead, President Mela is basically saying I'm not sure I want to 577 00:51:52.400 --> 00:52:00.320 get in bed with the Chinese. So you see a variety of reacts, 578 00:52:00.360 --> 00:52:07.559 partly based on politics, partly based on ideology. Milay is much more libertarian, 579 00:52:07.800 --> 00:52:12.079 partly based on finance and other aspects. But what you see is a 580 00:52:12.239 --> 00:52:16.440 China that is making major plays, but not necessarily military. Might they put 581 00:52:16.440 --> 00:52:22.360 troops in Cuba, Yes, it's certainly possible. I suspect that a Chinese 582 00:52:22.360 --> 00:52:30.719 military presence would arouse the US. I would hope so. But they can 583 00:52:30.760 --> 00:52:35.679 get really far without using military means and They understand that if there's one thing 584 00:52:35.719 --> 00:52:39.159 that might arouse reaction, it's deploying Chinese missiles in Venezuela. I mean, 585 00:52:39.199 --> 00:52:43.039 you know, sort of replay the Cuban missile crisis or something like that. 586 00:52:43.480 --> 00:52:47.760 They're more than happy to use money to end technology and politics to win the 587 00:52:47.800 --> 00:52:55.679 friends that they feel they need. Well, while we're looking at the New 588 00:52:55.760 --> 00:53:02.239 World, one thing that's come out in an interview with the President of Mexico, 589 00:53:02.320 --> 00:53:08.000 and it's been a regular topic, is that's been fentanyl here in the 590 00:53:08.119 --> 00:53:15.920 US that mostly comes across the Mexican border. But those precursor chemicals, when 591 00:53:15.960 --> 00:53:22.880 you follow the rat line, they go back to the PRC, and whether 592 00:53:22.920 --> 00:53:30.559 you're talking about cocaine from South America or heroin that's coming from Central Asia and 593 00:53:30.639 --> 00:53:37.320 other locations organized crime crimical networks. If there's a demand, somebody's going to 594 00:53:37.360 --> 00:53:45.679 find the supply, and you couldn't make finanyl without those precursor chemicals coming from 595 00:53:45.559 --> 00:53:52.719 the PRC. However, very little in my understanding, especially in the last 596 00:53:52.719 --> 00:53:59.440 few years, can come out and be transported out of the PRC without the 597 00:53:59.480 --> 00:54:06.000 government having a say and an overview of that. There are people who think 598 00:54:06.119 --> 00:54:13.440 that the PRC is willingly, if not intentionally, helping this this trade of 599 00:54:13.440 --> 00:54:19.079 fitanyl come into the US, just like the British Empire helped enable opium getting 600 00:54:19.119 --> 00:54:24.239 into China a couple of hundred years ago. But part of me also realized 601 00:54:24.239 --> 00:54:30.400 the fact that there's with this amount of money and the international networks of crime 602 00:54:31.159 --> 00:54:36.239 that maybe they're having, they would have as difficult time clamping down on this 603 00:54:36.320 --> 00:54:43.480 as we did on the rum running back in the twenties and thirties. What 604 00:54:44.079 --> 00:54:46.239 on the on the Chinese side? Because I know you follow a lot of 605 00:54:46.360 --> 00:54:52.920 the Chinese press and reports and stuff we've heard from Mexico, but I really 606 00:54:52.960 --> 00:54:59.599 haven't heard much about the precursor chemicals that are used to create fitanyl coming from 607 00:54:59.719 --> 00:55:02.119 China sources. Did it made it to open source over here in the States, 608 00:55:04.519 --> 00:55:07.440 I might have to admit I don't track the fentanyl issue particularly closely. 609 00:55:07.519 --> 00:55:13.239 What I would say is the following. If you are trying to sell opioids 610 00:55:13.360 --> 00:55:19.840 in China, the penalty for drug running in China's pretty clear. It's a 611 00:55:19.840 --> 00:55:25.639 lot like Indonesia elsewhere, it's death. So but if you're selling drugs abroad, 612 00:55:25.760 --> 00:55:30.800 if you're a criminal gang it's a lot less risky, and if you 613 00:55:30.840 --> 00:55:34.519 are the government, there's a lot of money to be made in corruption. 614 00:55:35.440 --> 00:55:37.960 And to be fair to Huging being, one of his big things is anti 615 00:55:38.000 --> 00:55:43.840 corruption. And while a lot of that is a mask for political moves of 616 00:55:43.880 --> 00:55:47.079 his, you know, you disagree with my policies, you're obviously corrupt. 617 00:55:47.559 --> 00:55:52.480 We'll take care of that. To be fair, there is also an actual 618 00:55:52.519 --> 00:55:59.320 anti corruption effort underway. But now all that being said, are the Chinese 619 00:55:59.320 --> 00:56:04.719 particularly learned about precursor chemicals, which, by the way, have a number 620 00:56:04.719 --> 00:56:12.239 of legitimate uses being exported and then being used by criminal elements to sell fentanyl 621 00:56:12.320 --> 00:56:16.679 and other opioids in the United States, the main adversary of China. Something 622 00:56:16.760 --> 00:56:23.960 tells me that's not a high priority for them. And history, you know 623 00:56:24.239 --> 00:56:28.960 what is it. History doesn't always repeat itself, but it often rhymes. 624 00:56:29.519 --> 00:56:31.760 I think that there is probably an element in the Chinese system that says, 625 00:56:32.000 --> 00:56:36.960 yeah, you pushed opium in our streets. And by the way, it 626 00:56:37.000 --> 00:56:39.960 wasn't just the British. There were Americans who participated in the opium trade. 627 00:56:43.199 --> 00:56:45.599 Karma man, you know, you know what the saying. I'm not sure 628 00:56:45.639 --> 00:56:49.119 that you can say this on a family radio program. Yah, so I 629 00:56:49.159 --> 00:56:53.800 will simply say karma could be like a female dog. Yeah. I think 630 00:56:53.800 --> 00:56:58.719 it was the Roosevelt family. What do they eupimistically call it the quote China 631 00:56:58.800 --> 00:57:02.880 trade unquote. Yes, there's some American fault in that as well. You 632 00:57:02.960 --> 00:57:07.679 are correct, Yeah, so, you know, I mean the thing here 633 00:57:07.800 --> 00:57:15.360 is there's supply and there's demand, and the Chinese have a lot of influence 634 00:57:15.400 --> 00:57:19.519 over supply, but there's an awful lot of demand, and what does that 635 00:57:19.559 --> 00:57:23.599 say about our system that we have this demand? And then finally, you 636 00:57:23.639 --> 00:57:28.440 know, you do have to ask from a policy perspective, how important is 637 00:57:28.480 --> 00:57:32.480 stopping fentanyl for the United States. I mean, when the President of the 638 00:57:32.559 --> 00:57:37.559 United States and one of his top advisors keeps saying, you know, even 639 00:57:37.639 --> 00:57:44.679 nuclear weapons they're danger, but climate change is the existential threat, and I 640 00:57:44.760 --> 00:57:49.599 want to work with China on the existential threat, kind of makes me wonder 641 00:57:49.840 --> 00:57:53.000 just how high a priority puts on getting the Chinese to cut back on fentanyl 642 00:57:53.039 --> 00:58:01.599 precursor chemicals. Well, speaking of existential climate change threats and stuff that China 643 00:58:01.639 --> 00:58:07.679 has taken a real interest in in Antarctica, I think doctor Elizabeth U. 644 00:58:07.719 --> 00:58:12.280 Chan has been doing a bunch of research on that. Are you familiar with 645 00:58:12.320 --> 00:58:15.159 any of this stuff? And should we be concerned? Because there's a whole 646 00:58:15.159 --> 00:58:24.119 lot of national but worthwhile things down in that area, including fishing and various 647 00:58:24.159 --> 00:58:30.280 good minerals and stuff. So the Antarctic Treaty will be a for renegotiation. 648 00:58:30.719 --> 00:58:35.920 The Chinese have, at this point, I think, tied with us in 649 00:58:36.000 --> 00:58:39.880 having the most Antarctic research stations and are building more. So they may well 650 00:58:39.920 --> 00:58:44.960 have more stations, and like the Moon, I suspect at that point they 651 00:58:45.000 --> 00:58:47.880 will say, look, I got more presence than you do. I think 652 00:58:47.920 --> 00:58:53.159 I should have more of a voice than you do. Now what might that 653 00:58:53.239 --> 00:58:57.719 mean with regards to access to resources, oil, fishing, et cetera. 654 00:58:57.840 --> 00:59:04.159 Is unclear. Strongly doubt the Chinese, with their demonstrated behavior about everything from 655 00:59:04.159 --> 00:59:09.679 building coal fire power plants to overfishing in the destruction of and collapse of fishing 656 00:59:09.760 --> 00:59:16.199 stocks, I don't think they're premier environmentalists. But there's also again an interesting 657 00:59:16.239 --> 00:59:22.199 space element to this. When you look at orbits. There are some satellites 658 00:59:22.239 --> 00:59:25.039 that are in polar orbits that go from pole to pole. They're very important 659 00:59:25.079 --> 00:59:32.360 for maintaining observation over particular targets. They're not typically nuclear early warning type things, 660 00:59:32.360 --> 00:59:37.480 but they do do a bunch of other missions, and those polar orbits 661 00:59:37.519 --> 00:59:43.119 often mean that they are particularly close. Their closest approaches at the south pole 662 00:59:43.840 --> 00:59:51.719 and their slowest moment is actually over the north pole. So an interesting question 663 00:59:51.800 --> 00:59:54.840 is what might you learn if you put telescopes, lasers and other things into 664 00:59:54.880 --> 01:00:07.719 your nice civilian research facilities purely for scientific purposes of course in Antarctica. That 665 01:00:07.079 --> 01:00:13.519 is a great question and a good way to end the hour. I really 666 01:00:13.519 --> 01:00:16.079 appreciate you taking time, Dean today to come visit with us again. I 667 01:00:16.119 --> 01:00:22.199 look next forward to the next opportunity, and I couldn't fit your entire CV 668 01:00:22.440 --> 01:00:25.280 on one page, so I had your abbreviated visit. You are a busy 669 01:00:25.400 --> 01:00:29.639 guy, so I know you've got some stuff you're working on. So a 670 01:00:29.719 --> 01:00:34.280 couple questions for you. One, if folks want to keep track on what 671 01:00:34.440 --> 01:00:38.239 you and your band of associations are working on, where's a good place for 672 01:00:38.280 --> 01:00:43.960 them to keep their eyeballs? And is there a specific project topic or two 673 01:00:44.280 --> 01:00:46.400 that you're working on right now that we might see come up pretty soon? 674 01:00:49.400 --> 01:00:53.320 Let's see you can find some of my writings over at the US Institute of 675 01:00:53.360 --> 01:00:59.679 Piece. So my older stuff is still up at the Heritage Foundation, and 676 01:01:00.320 --> 01:01:08.880 I'm hoping to cross fingerschair pull together some papers on China's space activities to be 677 01:01:09.000 --> 01:01:15.920 put out through the Space Policy Institute later this year. So those are those 678 01:01:15.920 --> 01:01:22.800 are I think some of the highlights of of what I've been doing to try 679 01:01:22.840 --> 01:01:28.239 and stay out of trouble. Well, we support the mission and look forward 680 01:01:28.280 --> 01:01:30.559 to seeing your work and talking to you again. Thanks again for coming on, 681 01:01:31.519 --> 01:01:34.920 Thank you again for having me. Oh, thanks a lot. It's 682 01:01:34.920 --> 01:01:38.119 always a pleasure for having you on. And thank you everybody for joining us. 683 01:01:38.159 --> 01:01:42.079 And until next time, we hope you have a great Navy day. 684 01:01:42.480 --> 01:02:02.760 Cheers. 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