Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 5/4/23 Joseph Solis-Mullen on the Fake China Threat

Episode Date: May 8, 2023

Scott was joined by Joseph Solis-Mullen to talk about the overblown fear of a global Chinese takeover. Solis-Mullen has been following the current wave of China fearmongering very closely and gives Scott an overview of what today’s hawks are saying. They then dig into the conflict over Taiwan and talk about the probability of an invasion, the popular talking points about microchips and how incredibly costly a war over the island would be. They finish with a quick rundown of the many domestic political, ethnic and geographic problems the regime in Beijing faces.  Discussed on the show: “What the China Literature Gets Wrong” (Libertarian Institute) Chip War by Chris Miller Joseph Solis-Mullen is a political scientist and author. Follow all his work at his website. This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott. Get Scott’s interviews before anyone else! Subscribe to the Substack. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For Pacifica Radio, May the 4th, 2023. I'm Scott Horton. This is Anti-War Radio. All right, y'all welcome the show. It is Anti-War Radio. I'm your host, Scott Horton. I'm the editorial director of anti-war.com, an editor of the book, hotter than the sun time to abolish nuclear weapons you can find my full interview archive

almost 6,000 of them now going back to 20 years ago at scotthorton.org and at youtube.com slash scott horton show and in fact all those other video sites as well and you follow me on twitter if you dare at scott horton show all right you guys next up on the show is joe solace Mullen, and he is the author of the forthcoming book, The Fake China Threat, and he has a new piece at the Institute, What the China Literature Gets Wrong. Welcome to show. Joe, how you doing? I'm great, Scott. Thanks for having me. How are you today? I'm doing good. Happy to have you here. So I really like this piece. It's very interesting. It seems that you read all of the right-wing anti-China screed books that come out, and they do come out by the dozens.

huh? Yeah, I do. I do it as a public service. It started several years ago. And initially it wasn't that much of a problem. Only about one or two came out every year. But it's the point now where one literally comes out every single month, every single month. So. All right. Well, so there must be something there. Can you give us a rundown on, let's say, let's steal man the thing and say, which are the best of these and what are the best arguments that they make that you feel really need to be confronted here. Okay. Well, I'll, I'll break it down like this. I feel like, depending on what your perspective is, maybe there really is a real China threat, because I view it this way. If you view the existence of other states that can act as a check on Washington, D.C., doing whatever they want,

wherever they want, without anyone able to stop them. If you view that as a threat, then sure, China is a threat. The China threat is real. If you think the United States should just be able to sail aircraft carriers right up in China's face all day and just act belligerently, those days are done. Those days are done. So in that sense, yes, in the same way that the resurrected Russian state eventually was able to act as a check on the neocons and liberal internationalists, yes. But in terms of threatening core U.S. national interests, there's absolutely nothing there. Just in the same way, the hawks try and scare us about Russia having a naval base on the Red Sea in Sudan like that's like they're about to invade California or something it's just not true so but so

as you say their power has grown um there's an analyst that I really like named Lyle Goldstein who says that he believes they are preparing to invade Taiwan and when I asked him what makes him say so he says because they're building up a naval force to do it that's why and so he doesn't get all into the nitty gritty the politics there. He's just a military analyst and he's saying they are definitely building up a substantial naval force here. So when you say check the United States, if all we're doing is keeping the peace and the sea lanes open, then that means a day plan on closing them all down and starting a war, right? Well, they've never intimated that they want to have a war over Taiwan. Much of this stems from the behavior of the United States, which began under the

Clinton administration and then the George W. Bush administration, although I have to give George W. Bush a tiny bit of credit here. I'll come back to that. Encouraging Taiwanese independence, which was never part of the deal, encouraging high-level diplomatic relations, putting U.S. troops training, more weapons. Like, this was never really part of the understanding, the understanding, which was confirmed by both parties, Republican and Democrat, under Nixon and under Carter was that the United States would encourage peaceful reunification. Beijing does not actually have any interest in precipitating a war with this, but the continued provocations by the United States are making it where it would be rather foolish of a statist,

which all of these people are statists. They want state power. They are preparing to defend what they view as the state's interests. And having an unsinkable aircraft carrier for potential U.S. ships, more weapons, they don't want that. And they're in a position now to do something about it. So let's see, Hawks best arguments. I think one of the Hawks' best arguments is that China has so many extra men due to selective sex abortion. They have tens of millions of extra young men. And actually, the unemployment rate in China has risen steadily over the last 15 years. That's really the best argument, I think, for why they

might want to throw them into a meat grinder, either with India in a border war or over Taiwan. But really, I mean, it's a high-risk endeavor, especially Taiwan. You know, it's an island. We're talking to amphibious assault. I do like Liao Goldstein's stuff, and I do think they are preparing to have that capability. But I do think that the view from Beijing is that much like the United States, security planners, you know, going back a century, believe that eventually Cuba would just fall into the orbit of the United States and that it would naturally settle there due to economic reasons. I think that that has long been the belief that eventually Taiwan, which does most of its trading with the mainland, would eventually gradually just,

becoming more and more part of China and eventually would just be de facto if it was never de jure. And in fact, I think one of the things that's important is to look at how US media reports what goes on. Because while Kevin McCarthy was, you know, doing whatever stupid thing he needed to do to show that he was as tough as Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the other party in Taiwan, the KMT, was in Beijing basically saying, look, we don't want any part of this. We just want good relations with you. We want our economic ties to say the same. And there's an election coming up. And it's going to be very interesting because the KMT did very well in the regional elections this last year. And this is the party that wants to be closer to mainland China that does not want provocation.

So I'm going to be watching that very closely. Well, we know what will happen if they vote wrong. America will cancel the results of the election in the name of democracy. That's how it works. Now, but here's the thing. I mean, the way they talk about Taiwan is this is a sovereign nation and they're a member of NATO. and we're pledged to defend them no matter what, right? It's the 52nd or 53rd state, depending on how you count.

Yeah, no, we were not supposed to be doing any of that. You go back and look at the three communiques. You look at the defense treaty that was ripped up when Beijing, when relations between D.C. and Beijing were normalized. That should have been the end. I mean, we're basically, our government is going back on years and years worth of policy because they find it, I don't know, a good jobs program. You know, they've got lots of weapons.

they need to sell. They do view China. The Hawks do very much view China as a strategic competitor. You read a lot of the titles now, like the decisive decade, how to triumph over China, you know, the 100-year marathon, you know, the battle for the control of the world with China, you know, all these really hyperbolic things. And all of them focus really specifically on the fight over Taiwan because it's part of the first island chain there. And they would really like to keep China just perfectly boxed in there, much in the same way they tried to seal off Russia there by building NATO right up to its border. So they would like to keep Taiwan. But I do think it's important to bring up the fact that lots of old-time hawks, including Douglas MacArthur,

way back in the 1950s, said in his farewell address, which you can look this up, we should not try and fight China, mainland China, over Formosa, which was the name of Taiwan back then. And if it wasn't a good idea back then, what on earth makes us think we should do it now? You know, these people just have no idea. And the reason is people like MacArthur actually understood what a war with China would be like, what it would cost. And what the likelihood of us actually winning it is, quote unquote, winning it. I mean, what does that even mean? No, China really does not threaten the United States core national interests in any way. The fact that they might eventually absorb Taiwan is totally irrelevant. We know now, and I've suspected this for years, if China did attack Taiwan, the United States would probably bomb and destroy Taiwan's fabs, which I can send you a link to the article, but the Financial Times reported one of Trump's national security advisor people basically saying, yeah, we would totally just destroy those. Right.

Don't remember right. The microchips won't fall into China's hands, the semiconductors, you know. And then I had to laugh because McCall, that horrible rep from Texas, who's a terrible China hawk, he was on like, Meet the Press. And he said, so make the case, why should we defend Taiwan? And he said, well, it's all about semiconductors. See, they're basically, like, really important. It's like the oil of the digital economy.

And the guy goes, so it's like war for oil. And he's like, oh, I meant, I mean democracy. Democracy is what's really important. So I would encourage people to look up that clip. But, you know, they say the quiet part out loud. That's why they want us to die. Amazing. Give me just a minute here.

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Amazon.com by way of the link in the right hand margin on the front page at Scott Horton.org. So keep that in mind. And don't worry about the mess. Your wife will clean it up. All right, They're Joe. First of all, the reason Truman fired MacArthur is because he was trying to get us into a war with China. And so he must have changed his mind by the time he gave that. He did. He did. It was 57. Yeah. Yeah. I was in Korea. Peter Lee, the China hand has the best write up of anyone about that. Also, yeah, on the question of who cares about Taiwan. And what is the big deal with these microchips anyway. I mean, I'm talking to you from Austin, Texas, where we have advanced micro devices where isn't that what they do is make these microchips? And isn't it like they're? Like, they're. contractors in Taiwan that are doing the microchip manufacturing there? Why can't they just do it here? What is the big damn deal? They could do it here. They are going to do it here. The only reason that they're starting to do it here now is they fear that there could be some sort of cut off of the supply. That would be really inconvenient. Really, it just started as I think away. Well, if we look at where a lot of these companies started, a lot of the lobbying that goes on,

you know, having those plants or having those relationships, a lot of it started. on the basis of comparative advantage, that it was just cheaper and more efficient to make them there. And there were also security concerns that this made it relevant. This kept it front and center. You've got these incredibly profitable corporations who are saying, well, you know, we're building a facility here, all this and now. We're going to need, you know, many billions of dollars. And so, you know, it's the one time. And I'm kind of conflicted on those policies because on the one hand, I'm not sure that having them here makes war more or less likely, because I'm always against state industrial policy. And I'm just not sure having them here rather than there. I just don't

know whether or not it makes war more or less likely. I really can't decide on that. But certainly we could make them here. It's not a problem. And one thing that I will point out, though, is the parallel between oil and chips. Yes, it is true. They are like the oil of the digital economy. And I would remind any listeners who need reminding, Pearl Harbor, the attack by the Japanese, that all happened because of a decades-long campaign by the Roosevelt administration to cut Japan off from literal oil, the oil of the industrial age. The Japanese Navy attacked when they had only a few months of fuel even left. And the United States, there's actually a book by Chris Miller, just came out, I think last year called Chip War, where basically he's arguing, yes, this idea where we

just cut them off from all these chips. This is a great idea. Uh, and there's very specific chips because if you read, you know, some like, you know, really pro-China, people who think China is going to really be the next big thing, they'll say, oh, China makes tons of domestic chips. They do, but they're pretty low-grade chips. They're just your average run-on-the-mill chips. In terms of the high-grade lithography equipment that you need to make these highly specialized chips that go on hypersonic missiles and stuff, that's stuff that they don't have immediate access to, uh, this stuff comes from Japan. This stuff comes from Taiwan. This stuff comes from Holland stuff comes from the United States. And the United States has really been working very

hard. The Hawks been working very hard to choke off their supply of this stuff. So, you know, part of me thinks that they are trying to provoke a reaction from Beijing now before the relative power balance in the immediate South China Sea gets any more in China's favor. Because there's no question now that China's got ship-killing missiles that would destroy a carrier that came anywhere close to Taiwan. And that's only going to increase, you know, I mean, our aircraft carrier is obsolete now. I mean. Well, the Hawks just ran a war game where we lost two carriers and won at the end.

Yeah. Yeah. That's the one with the happy ending. We only lose 14,000 sailors on the first couple days. And China gets 80,000 guys on Taiwan. Yeah. You know, and instead of reading the tea leaves there, and, you know, I'm never entirely sure, like, are these war games designed to, like, scare Congress into passing?

more appropriations because, you know, if they show that we won, then, oh, we don't need to spend more money. But realistically, you know, reading people like Lyle Goldstein, who's got all the credibility in the world on these issues, when he says they could take Taiwan, there's nothing we could do to stop them at this point. I say, yeah, that makes perfect sense. And I also don't see why we should be fighting to defend part of China. It's officially part of China.

Yeah, I mean, that's the thing is they conflate Taiwan with South Korea and Japan, which are independent and sovereign nations, in which America. hasn't recognized Taiwan as an independent nation or, in fact, the ruling power over mainland China, which in fact was not, in 50 years. So there's a big difference there. Now, I want to ask you about this article, and we have just a couple minutes here, but can you talk a little bit about this article that you wrote a couple years ago about what an overextended empire China already is in terms of dealing with Xinjiang and Tibet and their 14 neighbors and their giant gobi desert where they wish there was. fertile soil and all this kind of stuff? Sure, yeah. China faces so many different problems. A few years ago, when the fake China, when the China threat really started getting a lot of, a lot of play, I decided to write a book or write an article. It started as an article that I thought

for some reason would like quell people's doubts for some reason about all the different problems that China had and why they were pretty much just going to be, you know, a strong regional power. But, you know, it's not even clear they're going to be a regional hegemon. I mean, you've got India right there. You've got Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan. And, you know, Russia's right there. Of course, at the time, Russia and China weren't, you know, hadn't been pushed completely together by the Hawks in D.C., another genius plan, gone perfectly. No, they have a lot of restive minorities. Xinjiang, like you talked about, the Sichuanese. The entire south, southern rim of the country there is basically like the densest forest full of indigenous peoples. You know, it's like

Vietnam down there everywhere. And of course, you have Vietnam and Burma and all those other places. So they're ringed. They're ringed by other states, most of which are perfectly capable of defending themselves. The Gobi Desert, yes, desertification is a huge problem in China, as is just massive environmental catastrophe. I mean, China has less water per capita, potable water per capita than Saudi Arabia. I mean, they are just, the desert is encroaching on Beijing to such an extent that, you know, if something drastic doesn't happen, which I don't know what they could possibly do. They tried planting a bunch of trees, but they planted the wrong kind, and so they all died. But they're trying to prevent the desert literally running

right up into Beijing. Beijing is in the northeastern part of China there. And they have very little oil too, right? I think you wrote that they're completely dependent on international trade. They're the most globalized economy, whereas America would probably be all right if we somehow got isolated by the rest of the world. They would not be. It's interesting. If you shut off globalization tomorrow, the United States is one of the only states that could reasonably be confident that they could feed and fuel their own people. China would have absolutely no chance. It would be mass, famine, death, in darkness everywhere, almost immediately.

Yes, it's true. All right, you guys, this is Joe Solis Mullen. He wrote the book, The Fake China Threat, which will be coming out soon, published by the Institute. And he wrote this great piece at the Institute, what the China literature gets wrong. Thanks very much for your time, Joe. Thanks, Scott. as always pleasure all right john that has been anti-war radio for today i'm your host scott horton i'm here every thursday from two 30 to three on kpfk 90.7 fm in l a see you next week