School of War - Trump Heads to China: Who Has the Upper Hand? With Dan Blumenthal

Episode Date: May 12, 2026

Dan Blumenthal, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, joins the show to discuss the president’s upcoming summit in Beijing with President Xi Jinping. What are President Trump’s goals? How will war with Iran affect the meeting? And what do these discussions mean for the future of conflict in the Indo-Pacific? 02:12 Trump’s summit with Xi Jinping 03:38 Trump’s goals at summit 04:48 China’s leverage over Iran 05:57 China’s principal interest in the Middle East 08:14 U.S. sanctions on Iran and China 10:22 China’s diversified energy imports 13:05 American-Chinese competition 15:34 Defense industrial base issues 16:03 AI factor 16:34 China’s industrial leverage 19:05 Economic showdown 24:43 The Taiwan issue 26:22 Global conflict lessons for Taiwan 28:46 Division of Taiwanese politics 31:46 Stakes for the future Follow along on Instagram, X @schoolofwarpod, and YouTube @SchoolofWarPodcast Find more at The Free Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We've talked a lot about the war in Iran. in recent weeks on School of War for obvious reasons. But this week, President Trump is going to China. And we're going to talk about his upcoming summit with Xi Jinping, how the war in Iran relates to that summit, but also the stakes and status of the U.S.-China competition, including the defense of Taiwan and how the defense of Taiwan might actually work in light of the advances in warfighting in Ukraine and the Middle East since 2022. Let's get into it.

Summa 7, 1941, a date which will live in history. The bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a state. We continue to face a new little tree. If you read the headlines about Israel, you're only getting a tiny slice of a long, complicated story without depth, context, or sometimes even the basic facts. I'm Norm Weissman, the host of unpacking Israeli history, the podcast that dives into the fascinating and sometimes controversial events and figures. that have shaped Israel's past and present each week on unpacking Israeli history. I explore the layers of Israeli history, debates around the Palestinian and Israeli conflict, the cultural forces at play, drawing from a variety of sources and perspectives.

So if you're looking for a nuanced, thought-provoking take on Israel, one that avoids the oversimplifications and political spin, I think you'll really appreciate the show. Find unpackings or the history wherever you listen to your podcast or on YouTube. The world is changing fast. Conflict and instability are spreading across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. If you listen to School of War, you know we try to cut through the noise with sober, honest analysis that helps make sense of it all. On May 19th, we're taking that conversation live. Join me and historian Neil Ferguson for a special live recording of School of War at the iconic New York Historical.

We'll be talking about the war with a record. Iran, great power competition, China, military deterrence, and where all of this is heading. To learn more and get your tickets, visit vfp.com slash events. Hi, I'm Erin McLean. Thanks for joining School of War. I am delighted to welcome back to the show today. Dan Blumenfall, he is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He is also the convener, the editor, the mastermind of the China-Taiwan Weekly Update, hosted there at AEI.

There's also now a Korea, the Korean Peninsula update, author of many books and important articles. There's one called The China Nightmare, which everyone should read. Dan, thank you so much for coming back on School of War. My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. It's always good to talk to you, but it's very timely this week because, of course, we, as at this moment, still have this Trump-Shijingping summit approaching later in the week. You know, it may seem strange that it's occurring amidst all of the tensions with Iran and it's already been punted at least once. But as of right now, it's still on. And I want to

start with the intersection of Iran and the China issue. Do you think going into this summit, Dan, that Donald Trump's hand is weakened or strengthened by everything that has happened and is happening with Iran? It's generally a mixed picture. But right now it's weakened just because we're in a bit of a stalemate on the Iran issue and negotiations are not moving in the direction that they're the U.S. wants them to move. And, of course, the issue of the Straits of Hormuz closure and so on. And China has been quite resilient when it comes to these energy disruptions. It just met recently with the Iranian foreign minister. It is in a pretty good position, and it sees the U.S. in a stalemate and U.S. having to deal with energy disruptions, allies that are not happy with the United

States and with a depleted arsenal at the moment. Yeah, so I think China's going to view this as Donald Trump's coming to China to ask for help on Iran. Well, the way you frame the end there just leads me to ask the obvious follow-up, which is how does Donald Trump view it? What is he going to China to do? Well, he's, you know, he's going with a number of important CEOs, including Jensen Huang of Invidio, which is for China, one of the most important companies. And we can talk about that. He views this as a trip focused on economics, on stabilizing the so-called trade truce that they struck in South Korea last year in China purchasing U.S. goods and coming to some agreement on tariffs, coming to some agreement on AI safety. So he very much views this

as an economically focused on it. And to the extent that China perceives him to be weakened by what's going on with Iran. Where does articulate for us where China sees its leverage in that question. Is it that Trump might perceive Iran as being able to push the Iranians, for example, to reopen the strait or to be more open to concessions on the nuclear issue? If so, is that leverage real? That is to say, is Trump conscious of that leverage or for that matter just trying to actually have the power to push the Iranians like that? China does have quite a bit of power over Iran. It purchases. quite a bit of Iranian oil, which is important for Iran, less important for China, actually. We can go into that as well. It is a supplier quietly, sometimes not so quietly, of dual-use items that are important for Iranian missile production and Iranian military production in general. It does have leverage over Iran. But I was involved years ago in the China talks with North Korea on nuclear negotiations.

and China will not use its leverage to benefit the United States. It would much rather see the United States wrapped up in negotiations and less focused on China and Indo-Pacific than solving, than helping the United States solve a problem in the Persian Gulf. So it has leverage, but it won't use it. Yeah. So we'll stick with Iran for a little while longer. And then I want to go to the U.S.-China competition broadly into Taiwan, which seems like it's going to be a major issue for this summit, whether or not it, wherever it lists on the actual

formal agenda. I've heard it said that China's principal interest in the Middle East is stability. And so for that reason, the United States and China find themselves with a lot of common interests in the Middle East. I naturally am skeptical of that. For example, I might say in response to that, if China is really interested in stability, then it's investments in a relationship. relationship with the Islamic Republic and inherently destabilizing power seems to me to be a problem for that argument. But a lot of very smart people seem to believe this very sincerely. What are China's interests in the Middle East broadly? And how do they overlap or for that matter exist in tension with Americas? Well, there's no question that for a long time the main interest was energy and oil and gas, although that is diminishing, actually, for China. China is much less dependent on imports from the Gulf and from Iran of oil and gas.

But it's also very interested strategically in having a position in the Middle East just along the sidelines of communication. It has a base in Djibouti. It wants an overseas military. It may not do it the exact same way that we do it with large bases and large numbers of floges. forces put on those bases, but it wants to project power into the Middle East. It wants to frustrate U.S. goals in the Middle East. It has other means of influence in the Middle East. It's not just energy. It sells the Middle East surveillance technologies. It exports its high-tech police state to countries throughout the Middle East. It wants to be an AI power in the

Middle East, it wants influence over a critical region. Right now, and that's over the longer term. And in the shorter term, it wants the Middle East to distract the United States from focusing more attention on deterring China and competing with China in the Indo-Pacific. So there are a number of strategic interests that has in the Middle East, but we can't lose sight of the fact that China says over and over again, we want to be a global, we want to have a global military power and have global influence and be the leading power, not in the Pacific, but in the international system. One last question on relative leverage in the summit. The United States has imposed sanctions on Iran and indeed sanctions on some Chinese entities that do business with Iran.

I guess the president might see that as a source of leverage for him and that he's harming different Chinese entities as part of this overall war with Iran. Waukas is one of many complicated issues. Walk us through the structure of these sanctions and what actually is being sanctioned and for what purpose and how China is reacting to that. Because I took it from your latest report that the reaction is sort of itself complicated or at least ambiguous. Yeah. So China over the last 10 years or so has focused relentlessly on countering sanctions, on countering U.S. economic dominance, on national resilience, on supply chain resilience, and on a host of, quote, laws that supposedly protect its companies against U.S. sanctions. U.S. sanctions are a huge

irritant to China and something they're concerned about. So the United States did sanction what are called teapot refineries, a number of them that the Chinese have to refine some Iranian oil that they still get. And the Chinese had responded with counters sanctions, told their companies not to comply with with with with the sanctions at the end of the day it is a complicated issue. Those companies will comply. They have no choice at the moment where they will comply with those U.S. sanctions. But the Chinese have a number of counter sanctions that they're holding in their arsenal against U.S. companies should they decide to use them, which they they haven't yet decided. And that again is something that Trump and she will discuss. So they've been working very, very hard to

counter the U.S. ability to sanction and harm U.S. companies for the last 10 years, if not more. And then you mentioned a few minutes ago that China is less dependent on Middle Eastern oil than it used to be. Where does it get its oil? And what does this shift indicate about its worldview and sort of evolving strategic picture? Yeah. So it actually, in the Chinese energy mix, it's coal, it's dominant, both domestic sources of coal and some imported sources of coal. It gets more oil and gas from Russia than it used to because of its role as the key enabler of the Russian aggression against Ukraine. So it's diversified its sources of oil and gas. Its use of oil generally is less than it used to be. Renewables, nuclear energy,

the electrification program, the electric vehicle supply chain has paid off for China. It's in a good position after the war to export that the solar panel, everything from solar panels to the rest of the EV supply chain. So it's just generally over the last 20 years or so, since it's, since it was concerned about the Iraq war in 2003, it's diversified its sources of energy away from Middle Eastern oil. It still gets a decent amount of Middle Eastern of oil from the Gulf. but it just hasn't faced the same pain that other countries have faced in this energy destruction. I'd say Japan and South Korea have faced a lot more pain than China has because China has worked so hard to diversify its sources of energy. Dan, I want to ask you a very broad question now, which will sort of transition us more into the direction of the direct U.S. China competition. How would you – one of the aspects of this competition, I think, is hard for people to – it makes it hard for –

for people to understand what matters and what doesn't. It is just so complicated to make a kind of obvious statement. I mean, one's mind goes to the hard balance of power in the Western Pacific and the question of the defense of Taiwan, which will come to, and whether or not China is deterred. And these are all incredibly important issues. And if, by the way, there was no U.S. hard power in the Western Pacific, then I think very little of the rest of this stuff would matter quite as much, or at least in the same way. But there is all this other stuff. There is the the trade issue, which is obviously a front of mind for the president. There are all these various forms of competition on chips, on AI.

There's energy, which we've already been discussing to some extent. For an audience that maybe let's just make some assumptions here that people have been very focused on Iran for the last couple months. And people are sort of locking back into thinking about U.S. China. Maybe you could give us a bit of an orientation to the competition. Like what actually matters in the competition right now? What are the components of the competition? We can talk about the stakes as well. And I think you and I share a sort of similar view of the stakes.

But I can think of no one better to ask for sort of the, not the 101 exactly, than the reintroduction to what is actually happening in the U.S.-China competition. Well, it's a great question. And I think we have to start with Xi Jinping himself on what he says, you know, the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party. And he says the stakes are for leadership of the international system. That's what the competition is about in every dimension of power. And he says it over and over again in Chinese, translated into English for people who want.

He says it, he first said it in the 19th Party Congress support in 2017. He said we're in a new era of geopolitics in which China will march to center stage and start to make contributions commensurate with its power across dimensions of the economy, of technology, military power, cultural power, new initiatives, a new world order that we can talk about a little bit that he's already put out to be alternatives to the U.S.-led institutions or Western-led institutions. Ideologically, the competition matters. He firmly believes that China's vision of socialism with Chinese characteristics is a better form and a faster form of economic development for most countries than the U.S. form and the

Western form of development. So the stakes are really who leads the international system and what the character in the international system looks like hard power matters a lot. We could fight a war with China if China doesn't get its way through these other means, through these diplomatic means, through these economic means, through these technological means. It's building up its military at a very, very fast pace. But I would say that the dimensions that we're competing in are across the board. What makes us different than the Cold War and different than the Soviet Union is China does have a dynamic, economic, and technological base. And we are increasingly, as is the rest of the West, dependent on China for certain industrial goods and supplies. And so if you had to, you know,

you say is across the board. So we can imagine sort of every domain out there. What would you prioritize as the key battle zones or areas of competition? Yeah. So I would say that the most important areas of competition are still the hard power ones. So not falling behind. In some ways, we are already behind when it comes to defense industrial base issues. But China's ability to get its way in the key region in the world, Indo-Pacific militarily, is, I think, the primary concern for us. I mean, that would change the global balance of power. So the military competition is very important. But connected to that is the technological competition, because as we as we see throughout the world, you know, there is this revolution in military affairs going on, a real one.

And so when it comes to artificial intelligence and other things the Chinese are pushing really hard and really fast on, as are we, this could have an effect on their ability to project military power in ways that may surprise us. So military power is still, I think, the number one dimension that we have to keep our eyes on, but very much closely related is technological. And then finally, industrial, economic. I mean, so the Chinese dominating so many industries from rare earth mineral refinement and processing to the pharmaceutical supply chain, to the EV supply chain, you know, to goods that we really depend upon. That gives them enormous sources of leverage. And, you know, while we're a very wealthy country, China has focused on this other dimension, which is industrial power. Visit BetMDMDM casino and check out the newest exclusive. the price is right fortune pick.

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There are ways to look at the relative balance of power in some of these zones of competition, just to use the term loosely. I mean, your mention of industry brought it to mind because the Chinese manufacturing capacity is so much greater than that of the United States in ways that on some level are not exactly reversible. And it's possible to sort of despair at the state of the competition in certain regards. You'll, I think, give us grounds for optimism here and there. We had your AEI colleague, Nick Eberstadt, on the show.

Just on Friday, it's a bit of an AEI sweep of School of War right now, making the case. that for all the United States' demographic challenges ahead, China's demographic challenges are dire indeed. Give us a sense of, if not your net assessment of the U.S.-China competition, which might be a bit much to ask you to do from the hip and on the fly. How would you start to think about who has the upper hand and how these different pieces fit together? Again, just sort of in the spirit of reintroducing people to thinking about an issue that maybe their minds haven't been on for a couple months. Well, in the short term, we let China get ahead in many important areas. So as you said, the defense industrial base, I mean, when you're

looking at a shipbuilding capacity in China that's something like 200 times down of the United States, even if the U.S. military is qualitatively better, and even if the United States has officers with combat experience, you know, that starts to really matter, the quantity, you know, itself, the missile arsenal, the fast-paced nuclear arsenal. I think that, you know, in a net assessment in the longer term, if we sort of get through, get our act together, do a number of things that are important for our own industrial base, do a number of things that are important for our own military modernization and changing our operational concepts, you know, I think we, you know, we are better off or a wealth.

nation, you know, we're a freer nation, we're a nation that can create wealth faster than China can. But in the shorter term, if we're really talking about, you know, a face down on, you know, a sort of showdown on economic issues, of which we had. You know, we had one last year. And this is one of the reasons that Trump's a bit more chastened on the China issue. He came into office and wanted to decouple from China and at one point had tariffs of 145 percent placed on China, you know, which was not sustainable. The Chinese were ready for that and faced him down. It created a huge problem for U.S. companies to get rare earth material license from China, which we depend upon. And we back down. So, you know, that should tell you something. That

should say that in the short term, the Chinese focus on dominance of industrial supply chains, has an effect on U.S. policy and on what the U.S. wants to accomplish with respect to China. So I think short-term China has the advantage. We're behind. We have to think like an underdog in some important ways. Over the longer term, if we have a fleeting chance to get our act together. But if we do, China has some serious problems demographically and economically. So I'm curious how you would advise the administration on strategy for this summit. You know, the shape of it seems to me, and this has been clarified a bit by our last 20 minutes or so of conversation, is the president is going to China, in his mind, the question of trade and the economic relationship is primary. He would like a better relationship, one that favors the United States.

The Chinese recognize this. If I'm them, my goal is to give as little as possible on that front, though probably. at least be willing to appear to make concessions in order to secure concessions that are important to China, but less important to Trump. So Taiwan language about Taiwan, what might seem like very subtle changes of diplomatic position regarding Taiwan could be one of those, etc. We can imagine other things where China might have a strategic or security goal that it's looking to make progress on and in return give the Trump administration things that at least appear to be movement in their direction on economics, even if we're going to avoid anything dramatic that we, the Chinese, actually

have to follow through on. So, one, I'm curious if you agree with that general conception. But two, what would you tell the president or the people around him in terms of, you know, what to keep in mind and how to actually move the ball forward here this week? Well, you know, I would say that don't expect very much when it comes to some of the promises China's going to make on economic, you know, you know, purchases. You know, we're bringing CEOs, I think, from Boeing, from invidia, from some other tech companies. And, and, um, we're talking about this, uh, new

board of trade that's going to manage trade in nonsensitive areas. But, but the Chinese, yeah, so the Chinese may announce, uh, all kinds of potential purchases of agricultural goods, of Boeing jets and, and, and so on. And the president will, you know, be inclined to be satisfied. and happy with that. But, you know, the price of that, there's always a price. I mean, I'd say two things of the president. One is, you know, remember back in 2017, 2018, 2018, the Chinese don't come through, you know, with those purchases. They promise a lot, but don't necessarily execute. The second is the price is always going to be, but, you know, we'll make these purchases, but you really have to, you, President Trump, really have to be with us on the Taiwan issue. You know, they're,

not going to be shy about that. And it's very important that we maintain our position on Taiwan. We maintain our rhetorical position that we oppose unilateral changes to the status quo, that we don't change our rhetorical position to become more in line with the Chinese, that we're very clear about our will and determination to prevent war and to deter conflict, which I think the president is. You know, this is not just important for the, the, the, cross-strate issue, the Taiwan issue, but Japan's watching very closely. The Japanese Prime Minister Takiichi met with Trump and brought this issue up with him. They look very closely and are very sensitive to changes in rhetoric on Taiwan and changes in posture. So this can't be a, the number one

piece of advice I would give is this can't be a trade, you know, for the Chinese go back to promising a number of purchases of American goods. You know, while the United States gives on strategic issues like Taiwan, which, of course, isn't just about Taiwan, it's about Japan as well. This conversation, Dan, is leaving me drawing the uncomfortable, provisional conclusion or tentative conclusion that there's actually not much the United States might reasonably look to gain from this summit. If China is not meaningfully going to help the Trump administration extricate itself

from some of the problems it's got in the Middle East, if China is not really, we can't really If recent history is any precedent, we can't really expect them to follow through on any promises of future economic action if suddenly it doesn't suit their purposes. It seems like there's not a ton to gain, but there's all sorts of things that could be lost, for example, on the Taiwan issue. Is that a fair takeaway from our conversation so far? Well, you know, it depends. I mean, it's a fair takeaway, but, you know, President Trump could surprise. and be very firm on the Taiwan issue. I mean, he has told people close to him

and Senators close to him that he does not want conflict in the Taiwan Strait. And by not wanting conflict, he doesn't mean, and he doesn't conclude that that means giving Taiwan to China. He concludes, you know, that that means a strong Taiwan deterrent,

which is getting a little bit better slowly, and a strong Japanese deterrent, strong Australian deterrent, and a strong U.S. U.S. deterrents. So if this is an exchange, and by the way, this will be one of, I think, four meetings this year with Xi Jinping, where Xi Jinping gets the message from Donald Trump that the United States' interest in preventing a war and preventing China from taking Taiwan by force is a fundamental interest, then we will have gained something. That the only way, the way Xi Jinping has organized himself politically is the only person who matters that you talk to is Xi Jinping himself. So it is important to talk to him. It is important, but it has to be the right message. You know, you can't, you can't give an inch on Taiwan and certainly not for promises of future economic gain, which we might, which we might not see. Let's shift gears a bit and actually talk about the defense of Taiwan and

the first island chain since you've made reference to deterrence there a couple of times. And this is, Dan, you know, a conversation that you and I have had off the air extensively over the course of the last gosh, a couple of years now. So let's do a bit of it in public. I could look at the events of the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East since 2022. And I could actually sit here for the next, you know, 10 minutes and make what to me at least would be a pretty persuasive case that these wars are bad news for the defense of Taiwan because they show, for example, how a sophisticated integration of political warfare and traditional, use of operational surprise can actually allow for strategic success. So, for example, Israel against Hezbollah in the fall of 2024 is a good example. Hamas against Israel in the fall of 2023, another, I think, good example. I could elaborate on that case. I could also take 10 minutes and make the case that actually the main takeaways from those wars are very good news for Taiwan and others in the first island chain. For example, if you go to Ukraine right now and look at the

forward line of troops and see not, you know, two trench lines facing off each other across a DMZ, but this much broader, largely, a zone largely of autonomous, increasingly autonomous combat, where there aren't that many humans involved. The humans that are there are sort of servicing the machines and seeking opportunities for very, very minor opportunities for maneuver. This is a situation that fundamentally favors the defense into which you just have to hurl theoretically to restore maneuver, vast, vast amounts of stuff, which the Russians try to do without success. So I could make either of these cases. What is your takeaway from having paid careful attention to what's going on in Ukraine and the Middle East since about four years ago now?

What is your takeaway on the state of play for the defense of Taiwan and the potential for war in the first island chain more broadly? Yeah, so I would say, you know, to your very thoughtful considerations, If China is considering some combination of a strategic air campaign, strategic air and missile campaign, you know, limited military, more limited military force in combination with information and political warfare, which I think is the most attractive option for them, you know, maybe sprinkle on parts of a blockade or a quarantine. But put enough political pressure on Taiwan such that a more compliant government comes in. into place. And by the way, Xi Jinping just met with the leader of the opposition party, the Gwomen Dong party, and talked about a host of peace initiatives. So he is playing that game where he's trying to divide Taiwan politics and say to the Taiwan public that, you know, you can choose war if you go with the currently elected government and elect them again,

but you could choose peace. You know, I'm a peacemaker. And that's a message that he'll, you know, he'll pass on to President Trump as well. But you can, you know, so if it comes to sort of intelligence overmatch and strategic air campaigns and punishing Taiwan, you know, with conducting political warfare, I think one can conclude that, you know, if China learns the right lessons, they may have increased their optionality there. When it comes to a full-on amphibious invasion, an occupation of Taiwan, I think there the picture is probably more complicated after these wars. And particularly if Taiwan goes in direction that it was seeming to go before the supplemental budget that they were about to pass, hit the skids with the opposition party lowering, lowering the amount of arms that they were going to purchase. Because, you know, the budget submitted, the supplemental budget submitted by the Taiwan president, Lai Chingda, you know, had a lot of domestic production of all kinds of drones.

It had all kinds of things that would be very useful in an asymmetric defense of Taiwan at the shore, at the shoreline or at Anchorage, it very difficult for an invading force to actually get on to Taiwan. And I think Taiwan still has some time to do that, you know, with the help, security assistance of the United States and Japan. So I think an amphibious invasion, you know, is probably can be made more complicated than people thought before these wars. But we don't have much time to change Taiwan's operational concepts for Taiwan to acquire

the means to make it very difficult for an amphibious force to maneuver onto Taiwan, to make it very hard for them to cross the street in the first place. So, and then, and then finally, there's the issue of, of Xi Jinping not trusting his military and Xi Jinping purging so many PLA officers in the last few years. It's not going to deter him from conflict, but it does complicate the situation, particularly when you're talking about something as complicated as an amphibious invasion versus other types of course of options that he could exercise against Taiwan. And final question for you, Dan, once more I'm with feeling, articulate what the stakes are for the future of Taiwan and what the negative consequences would be, first of all, obviously,

the catastrophic, extremely dangerous scenario of somehow losing Taiwan in an armed conflict. But even the consequences of losing Taiwan to some sort of sophisticated combination of diplomatic pressure, political warfare, maybe a quarantine that never escalates to the level of a direct conflict, maybe because the United States blinks and backs down. What does the world look like after something like that happens? The defense of the first island chain, which we keep mentioning, Japan, the pressure on Japan increases exponentially. if Taiwan is in the hands of either China or kind of a government that's more willing to host Chinese military assets or generally more compliant with China. I think the credibility issue in terms of what Japan and Australia and the Philippines who have leaned far forward in the defense of Taiwan over the last few years, if Taiwan were all of a sudden controlled by China,

I think the credibility issue of trying to mount and create a coalition and alliance in the First Island chain would be that much more difficult for the United States. There's some real geopolitical and geographic consequences. The Chinese are operating all the time now to the east of Japan and deeper into the Pacific. They're already starting to do that, showing that their goals and objectives are to be able to be a dominant Pacific power and not just in the First Island chain. the control of Taiwan would allow them to do that as well. And of course, there's the economic issues, the dominance that the Chinese would have over the advanced semiconductor supply chain and what that would give them in the AI race.

So there are a number of considerations. And even though we don't have a formal alliance with Taiwan, it's viewed throughout the region and throughout the world as a serious security commitment for the United States because of the years. We've put into stating in different ways that will defend Taiwan, that will help Taiwan with its self-defense. So the stakes are very, very high. I think that it would be very hard for the United States to regain ground in the Indo-Pacific should Taiwan be coerced into some unfavorable unification with China. Dan Blumenthal of the American Enterprise Institute, the man behind the China-Taiwan

weekly update, which is really a very valid. valuable and detailed tool for keeping abreast of the competition and what's going on, not only in the Western Pacific, but around the world in so far as it relates to this competition. Thank you so much, as always, for coming back on School of War. My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. Are you one of those media strategy people clicking through slides, scrolling spreadsheets? Yes? Good. This is for you. Because on Spotify, there's an audience that's different, locked in, loyal, invested. They're called fans.

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