The Dispatch Podcast - China and the Uighur Genocide

Episode Date: February 19, 2021

In a call with European foreign ministers on Thursday, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said he would begin steps to restore the 2015 Iran nuclear deal that was abandoned by the Trump administration. Today’s guest, Tom Josclelyn, thinks a series of upfront concessions to Tehran before the country’s leaders even come to the negotiating table would be an unwise foreign policy move for the Biden administration. “I’ve taken to calling it ‘servile diplomacy’ because it is very much from a submissive position,”Joscelyn tells Sarah and Steve. Tune in to hear our hosts’ take on China’s ongoing genocide against the Uighurs in Xinjiang, and the latest rocket attack on a U.S. airbase in Iraq. Show Notes: -“Biden Administration Formally Offers to Restart Nuclear Talks With Iran” by Lara Jakes, Michael Crowley, David E. Sanger and Farnaz Fassihi in the New York Times. -“Biden dismisses Uighur genocide as part of China’s ‘different norms’” by Emily Jacobs in the New York Post. -“‘Genocide’ is the wrong word for the horrors of Xinjiang” by the Economist. -Tom Joscelyn’s Vital Interests newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to the Dispatch podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Isgher, joined by Steve Hayes. Today, we are dipping back into the world of foreign policy. We have Tom Jocelyn joining us. He's a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He is also a senior editor at Longward Journal. And perhaps most importantly, he is the author of the vital interest newsletter at the dispatch, which you can sign up for at the dispatch.com. Check on the vital interest. box and you can get it in your inbox. Today, we are going to talk about Iran and the nuclear deal and the Biden administration. We're going to move to China, the Uighurs, and the definition of genocide. We'll talk about the rocket attack in Iraq earlier this week. And we'll wrap with a little

conversation that turns to knee injuries. Let's dive in. Tom, so great to have you back. I want to start with Iran last night. The New York Times reported that the Biden administration has formally offered to restart nuclear talks with Iran, though it's unclear if Tehran is interested in restarting the talks until sanctions are lifted. How big of news is this? Do you think that Tehran will accept the offer? You know, I don't know. I think Tehran will probably extract more concessions before accepting the offer. If I were in their shoes, that's what I would do. I mean, my chief criticism of this style of diplomacy, and first of all, no, this is a surprise, of course, the President Biden and his team said that they wanted to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal all along,

and they have been desperate to restart the talks. And, of course, the Iranians know that. And the Biden team made some concessions up front, including loosening the restrictions on Iranian diplomats in New York City, saying that they're not going to follow through or keep in place the so-called snapback of UN sanctions that Trump administration put in place, which covers such issues such as the arms embargo. So this allows now Russia and China, presumably, to sell conventional arms to the Iranians and other related concessions. And this is the style of diplomacy that I've basically objected to when it comes to Iran or the Taliban or others is this idea that the U.S. needs to go into these talks making a series of upfront concessions just to get the talk started. I think if anybody out there was listening this has experience in the business world, you would know that this is not the way you get a good deal or the way you conduct tough negotiations. This is the way that you actually get fleeced. And so I've taken to calling it servile diplomacy because it is very much from a submissive position that this type of talks take place.

And Steve, I know in the past you've covered how the talks with North Korea, for example, took place and were conducted. And it's the same sort of mindset in my view. Yeah, preemptive concessions. There was a moment early in the administration. I think, first of all, to frame it up, Tom, you're exactly right. Nobody should be surprised by this. This is what Joe Biden campaigned on. This is what they said all along.

It's clear that Biden believes it. He defended the Iran deal. He brought into his administration people who not only are fans of the Iran deal, but help put the Iran deal together. So none of this is terribly surprising. There was a moment, though, where the U.S. seemed to be poised to be slightly tougher with Iran. Remember Iran wanted to just start these talks right away. And you heard from the State Department requirement that if the U.S. were going to rejoin the Iran deal and work itself back into full compliance with the Iran deal and remove some of the sanctions that you're talking about, that Iran would have to do so first. And that just went away.

It seems like it just sort of went away overnight. I mean, this was a, I mean, no, that's exactly right. But that's exactly, you know, we've been covering this for years. That's exactly this whole diplomatic game these guys play. I mean, it goes back to when it comes to the Taliban. Remember there were all these Hillary Clinton, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, laid down these preconditions for the talks of the Taliban. And then 2011 decided, well, the Taliban isn't going to comply with any of those.

So let's just wave those away and get on with the talks anyway. And then they chased down, you know, a phony Taliban leader and then finally found a Taliban emissary to talk to. It's the same deal. I mean, it's basically the U.S. chasing these deals. with either a rogue regime when it comes to Iran or North Korea or a jihadist organization of the Taliban, which remains in bed with al-Qaeda. And this is why I call it servile diplomacy.

The U.S. goes in, these diplomats and these people go into the idea, go into these talks thinking that they need to make concessions just to get the other side to the table. And then they make concessions, as you said, that was a concession, Steve. You know, Iran has to comply with the deal. That's a concession, you know. And so I think if I were in Tehran's shoes,

what I would be doing is just, hey, let's pile up the concessions before we even get to the table. table. On the other hand, you have four years of the Trump administration where many of our allies, I'm thinking especially European countries here, you know, sort of a constant news story that they're flummoxed, that they're waiting out Trump. Do you see any bright spots in the Biden administration's first month? I think it's tough to say. I reserve judgment on that. I mean, yeah, I mean, the Biden team is going to get certain things right and they're getting certain things wrong. I mean, I don't come in, you know, looking to judge them one way or the other, you know, totally

harshly or totally uncritically either. I'm just saying when it comes to the specific, you know, specifics of these types of talks, this is groundwork, this is roadwork that we've seen that were laid a long time ago and it's sort of pathological, right? These people get back to the same sort of talking points, the same sort of way of thinking of these matters and the same flaws that we saw years ago are still there. Now, to be clear, that doesn't mean that I'm opposed to diplomacy. I think U.S. has to have strong diplomacy across the board. In fact, a lot of cases the U.S. should be leading diplomatically as opposed to militarily. But there's this curious, I think, if there are any honest historians a generation or two from now,

and that's a big if, if there are, they'll look back at this and think, you know, well, that's really a curious way of conducting diplomacy. That's a very curious way for a so-called power, former superpower, I would say, but superpower like the U.S. to enter talks. to pursue talks. I mean, what's the rush by the Biden team to do this? Why not force the Iranians to make concessions if we're doing the talks? Why not build some more, take some more time with Europeans to get it to figure out what the tougher course would be, how to get a tougher deal with the Iranians? Let me ask this a different way then. If I had Jake Sherman on this podcast right now, how would he answer that question? Jake Sullivan. I'm sorry, Jake. Jake Sherman might

might not yeah i don't know yeah i mean take sure everyone would talk about congress can see what i read this morning uh yeah sorry jake sullivan from the biden administration how would he answer that question you know i don't know how you'd answer that question i i know i've been watching how jake solvin has talked about for example the deal with the taliban and it's a similar i keep bringing this up because if you if you go back to how both these pathways were formed or came about they're both formed during the Obama years. Some of the same personnel were involved in both. And the same underlying mindset is underlies both of them. And you watch how Jake Sullivan talks about the deal with the Taliban. And it's basically, yeah, the Taliban hasn't comply with anything. They haven't

done anything to actually live up to any part of this deal. But we're still committed to it and we're still committed to the talks and dealing with the Taliban and so-called peace process. And you just, you look at that and you think, well, what are you talking about? Right. I mean, if, you know, the Taliban hasn't done anything here, hasn't given any concessions, and they have. If they haven't done anything to advance the cause of peace, and they haven't, and they haven't done anything to break with al-Qaeda, and they haven't, then what are you talking about, right? I mean, that's the whole point of the deal. And so what I'm saying is it is, to my mind, you know, again, I'm not against diplomacy.

I'm against the sort of pathologies that go behind these diplomacy the way America's conducted in recent years. Well, and I think there's – go ahead, sir. Just one quick thing on that. Like, I think that nobody thinks that Secretary of State Blinken is stupid or Jay. Jake Sullivan is stupid. And you're sort of framing this in a way where no one could possibly believe the other side. What I'm trying to get out is clearly smart people believe something differently than you do. So why do you think that is? Yeah. I mean, again, I think it's an ideological

mindset. It's not a matter of intellect or IQ. But I mean, I just laid out the bare facts. Jake Sullivan can't contradict any of those. So what is he talking about when or what is Blinken talking about when he's committed committed to the peace process what peace process in afghanistan right what are you talking about you know these are basic facts what i'm saying is that that i don't you can people can disagree with all you want but i'm just giving you the facts right as the i mean let me put this way when somebody says they're committed to the peace process in afghanistan has the taliban done anything to show that they're actually interested in peace in afghanistan i mean i'm open if you want to give me you know the talking points or the

the facts that say that they are i'm totally open to that you can't right i mean there's nothing that there's nothing that they've done the along those lines and the same thing you know and so i'm saying is there is this idea when it comes to diplomacy is first of all there is this idea of diplomacy for diplomacy's sake which is very entrenched in washington um and there's also this idea of the america needs to make concessions up front and throughout the process just to get a deal or any deal and what i'm saying is i don't know that that's a matter of intellect for as much as it is a matter of a belief system and what i'm doing is questioning the belief system behind all this Yeah, I mean, I think that the Taliban deal is, it's hard to defend. They're sticking in it. I mean, in one case, what we're talking about is we're looking at the Taliban deal as it exists. What we're talking about is sort of a description of reality. And, you know, you can have people like Zameh Khalizad, who was held over from the Trump administration is now continuing his efforts under Joe.

Biden pretend that that reality doesn't matter, but it still is the reality. I think with the Iran deal, I mean, I'll play devil's advocate here. I mean, I would say what they would, the argument they would make on substance is the following. We saw Iran enrich beyond the caps after the Trump administration pulled out of the deal. We know that we have access to better intelligence when we're part of such a deal because our partners and others can help provide it to us. We get a better window on what Iran's activities are if we're part of a broad international diplomatic effort. And in the absence of a deal, Iran's just on a fast track. They're doing, you know, I, now this is, this is me stepping out of my Jake Sullivan persona and

back back to me. I mean, the. I think the problem is, the problem with that argument is they were on a track to nuclear capability anyway. I think the argument from Sullivan and company would be now there's nothing to slow them down. How do you respond to that? Well, I mean, that's, it's a reasonable framework at seemingly reasonable framework, but then you start to inspect it and you realize, well, wait a minute, okay, that doesn't mean you need, and this is where I'm getting at, that doesn't mean you need to make any concessions here in February just to get the Iranians to the table, talk to talk about all this. Why not take the time then if you believe in diplomacy with the

Europeans. And I do. I think the Europeans need to be involved, right? Why not take the time to lay down the groundwork, as I already said, to get a tougher deal to deal with problems in the deal like the sunset clauses, which are a problem, like the lifting of the arms embargo, which is a problem, unless you're fine with the Iranians buying conventional arms from the Chinese and the Russians and arm themselves to the help. You know, that is a problem with the deal, you know? But the point is, is that instead of rushing to just desperately get the Iranians back to the table, why not take the time to figure out what a better deal would look like and deal with the Europeans and come up with a course of action that really holds

the Iranians to account and have tough-minded diplomacy? What I'm saying is they're going to have to show me that they're capable of tough-minded diplomacy at this point. We've been dealing with for the years. And when it comes to the Taliban thing, you know, again, you know, what are the facts, right? You can, the facts are what they are, you know? And it just, you know, to me, it shows what It actually demonstrates what I'm talking about, where you can say you're still committed to a peace process, even when there is no evidence that peace process exists. Steve, I want to move to China.

The Uyghurs and China are a mostly Muslim minority. There's about 12 million. The Chinese have created concentration camps. You know, the world's eyes are focused on what is happening with the Uyghurs. And the New York Post had a headline that I know you took issue with. Biden dismisses Uyghur genocide as part of China's, quote, different norms. Yeah, this was, I came across this piece as I was trying to understand the criticism of Joe Biden on the Uighur question specifically.

The sort of conservative media this week really went after Joe Biden on. on this question of the Uighurs and on his supposed accommodation of different, quote, unquote, cultural norms for the Chinese as a way to sort of shrug his shoulders on China. And what had happened was Biden participated in a town hall with CNN earlier this week. And this New York Post, widely read, widely distributed piece, was published the next day. and in effect said he doesn't care. He doesn't care because there are different cultural norms. It's cultural relativism, and that's the problem. The problem is I read the piece,

and then I went back and I compared it to the actual transcript of what Joe Biden really said in the town hall. And it is almost entirely the opposite of what the New York Post piece suggests that Biden said. So in one instance, the report, says that Biden responded that he's not, quote, not going to speak out against, unquote, the Chinese Communist Party's actions in Hong Kong against the Uighurs or in Taiwan. But what Biden actually said was the idea that I'm not going to speak out against what he's doing

in Hong Kong. So Biden was literally making the opposite point, saying, of course, I'm going to speak out against it. And he said, no president can be taken seriously who doesn't challenge the Chinese on these issues. So he made very clear that he was going to do this. But the report in the New York Post suggested that he had said precisely the opposite. There's another part of the article where the reporter says, asked during the town hall whether there would be any repercussions for the Chinese Communist Party over the genocide, Biden sidestepped the question. In fact, if you go to the transcript, Biden answers the question directly and says, well, there will be repercussions for China, and she

knows that. And I'm making clear that I want these repercussions. And I think the reason I bring this up and the reason it bothers me is because I think we should have a serious fact-based discussion about what Joe Biden is doing, about the decisions that he's making, the kind of conversation that we had about the Iran deal and whether it's good for the United States or not, about the continued deal with the Taliban. But what we can't have is people in effect just making up what Joe Biden's positions and statements are. I was, I will say, mildly heartened by what Joe Biden said. The report that came out of his call was she was that it was two hours long and that they had a confrontational conversation, particularly on some of these issues as it relates to human rights.

You know, as Tom said earlier, we've got a long way to go. We'll see whether he follows through with that, and there are abundant reasons to believe that they won't, that the Biden administration won't. But when he does these things, when he actually says these things, I think it's really important for all media, but in particular conservative media, not to just pretend he didn't. You can't just make up his meaning and his intent. And that's what this New York Post article did. So Tom, on this question, am I just naive to be somewhat heartened by listening to Joe Biden's actual words and thinking, hmm, okay, this is, it's important that he's saying the things he's saying. We have as a country and as a Western civilization said never again many, many times,

and then of course, again happens again and again and again. Should I be heartened that he's saying these things? Should we expect him to actually follow through on any of this? you know whether he falls through i can't i can't say but i'd be heartened by the the rhetoric as well i mean i think you know look at you look at anthony blinkin's confirmation hearings he was pretty strong on this too um you know on this issue at least rhetorically but what that leads to in terms of action uh remains to be seen that's always the key here right i mean you know it's one thing to talk to talk but it's nothing to walk to walk i mean look there's plenty of evidence of what's happening in jing jingang if you haven't seen the pbs front line documentary on it i just

you go watch it. You know, it's, it's, you know, bone-chilling to watch what's happening there. There's plenty of evidence. I've written about this in my newsletter for the dispatch a couple of times. And more, and I should point out more evidence every day. I mean, really good BBC reporting on this. CNN has had first person stories. There's nobody can pretend that this isn't happening anymore. Right, right. Yeah, I mean, I think it's obvious. The thing is, you know, there's an interesting twist in the story, which is, you know, part of, part of the way the Trump administration and former Secretary of State Pompeo approached this was that as part of, they folded sort of the Xinjiang human rights issue into the great power competition with China, their ideas on great power

competition with China. I think that makes some sense, of course, in terms of trying to counter Chinese aggression. You realize, if you think it through logically, that the oppression, and I would say indeed genocide in Xinjiang, is part of the same Chinese supremacist. which threatens the rest of the world in the West. It's rooted in the same ideas about Chinese identity and Chinese culture and Beijing's place in the world. What they're trying to do is they're trying that the Chinese Communist Party is trying to eliminate any semblance of multiculturalism within its borders, its expansive borders.

And by the way, it's an open question where not Xinjiang should be in its borders. But it is sort of the Chinese kind of party is trying to enforce a monoculture on Chinese soil. And the ideas behind that monoculture also are linked to Chinese supremacism and Beijing's role as sort of a kingmaker, not just in Asia Pacific, but potentially elsewhere. So I think these ideas are all intermingled and intertwined. But there's an interesting twist on this story, as I just teased, which is that the Trump administration actually delisted a group known as Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement from the terrorist designations as part of this.

We're going to expose what China's doing and we're going to get tough on. the Chinese and in basically international institutions. And the thinking was that, you know, we can't have this Uyghur organization, the Eastern Turk or Islamic Movement, designated as a terrorist organization while on the other hand getting tough on China. I think that was wrong when you think it through. And I've talked to State Department officials who are responsible for that decision. There's no question that this group, which is really known as the Turkic Islamic Party,

exists, that it's affiliated with al-Qaeda, that it's fighting in Afghanistan and Syria. The State Department doesn't dispute any of that, and the Turkish-Nazlan Party is very open about all this. It is very much an open question about whether or not they play any role within China's borders these days. I think they probably don't play much of a role at all. So if you want to say that, that's fine. And if you want to say the existence of this organization doesn't justify what the Chinese Communist Party is doing, that's fine, too. I made that argument myself. It certainly does not.

But this is an area where you can start getting these issues can start getting muddled, I would say. You know, our counterterrorism posture should recognize that groups like this, ethnic groups like this are part of the al-Qaeda fold internationally. But by the same token, we should be able to criticize the Chinese, the Chinese Communist Party for what they're doing in Xinjiang and elsewhere. So we don't know exactly what is happening inside China with the Uyghurs, but we have reporting that is, you know, deeply awful, evil. I think we know. I think there's plenty of firsthand and second-hand reporting on what's going on. I mean, you have plenty of eyewitness testimony, which can be dubious at times, of course, but you have plenty of solid evidence, you know.

So we know that they are locking up millions in what they're calling vocational training centers, which I think we would call concentration camps, internment camps, prison camps. We know, based on reporting at least, that they are forcibly sterilizing some Uyghur women. But recently in The Economist, you had them claim that unless we have evidence that they are killing Uyghurs, that we couldn't use the word genocide. And in fact, their headline is, genocide is the wrong word for the horrors of Xinjiang. Michael McCall, the minority leader in the House Foreign Affairs,

said, the economist is wrong. The Chinese Communist Party is clearly committing a genocide against the Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities, as defined by the genocide convention. And while the economist's intentions were hopefully not to serve as genocide apologists, the CCP will certainly use their inaccurate headline to continue to excuse their genocide. Reliable international media outlets have played a pivotal role in exposing the horrors happening in Xinjiang. It's incredibly unsettling to see one make excuses for those same horrors.

Is this the beginning of a conversation that will force not just governments, but, you know, we've talked about the NBA, we've talked about others not taking this seriously. And do you think that the word genocide is losing meaning if we don't call this genocide? You know, I mean, I'm not up on the whole legalese around the term genocide. I don't really get tied up in the sort of semantics from my mind. I mean, to me, you know, you want to call it cultural oppression, eradication, however you want to put it, it's mass rape, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's horrific.

I don't, it doesn't matter to me. I mean, I guess it matters from the legal perspective. There are probably certain laws attached to the word genocide. I get it. my perspective, you know, it's obvious what's going on there and it's hideous. And it should, it should absolutely open the conversation for the NBA and other parties. It should further them think about, you know, what they're dealing with. And this is what I mean by this is tied into these larger issues because the Chinese Communist Party, you can't look at it and say, well,

it's capable of behaving this way in Xinjiang, but we should partner with it to create Lulan for Disney or we should partner with it as the NBA because we can overlook all that for commercial interests. I think that's all tied together. I mean, I think you have to look at what you're dealing with. Why is it that you're dealing with this entity from a commercial perspective? And do you think that that's fine for me, that you can ignore the human rights oppression and what's happening in Hong Kong and the threats to Taiwan and the and Xinjiang? It's all, it's all tied together. It's all part of a package. So I would hope it would generate a conversation. Steve, I mean, it's sort of incredible to me. You have a CCP official on the record calling

Uyghurs malignant tumors. He compared their faith to a community. plague and said, quote, you can't uproot all the weeds hidden among the crops in the field one by one. You need to spray chemicals to kill them all. I don't understand why this isn't getting more attention. I don't understand why we're even having a discussion of whether the NBA should or should not engage or any commercial entity in the United States. Yeah, well, I mean, it's an interesting question. I mean, obviously one of the things at play here, I would say to until very recently maybe the driving consideration for most Western-based companies is access to the market in China.

You know, so many of these places, Disney, a lot of Hollywood studios, U.S. manufacturers, they don't want to criticize the Chinese Communist Party because they know the Chinese Communist Party is watching carefully every word that they say, and they don't want to be subject to the kinds of punishment that the CCP can meet out on things like this. It is no exaggeration to say, not this wouldn't apply to Disney, but certainly to some exporters that have large businesses in China. If China cuts them off, it could kill the businesses, could kill the companies. So they don't want to be seen as out there.

I think the question I would have, Sarah, actually back to you, is, I share Tom's disdain for a lot of the legalism around this. To me, we've seen the reporting. We know what's happening. I think it's imperative that the United States lead an international coalition to stop it. And the discussion should be around whether, not whether we should be doing these things, but what are the policies that we can implement to affect change? But are Tom and I too dismissive of the legal aspects of this?

I mean, I often am, as you know. I don't like to get caught up in the legal nitty-gritty, but are there reasons that companies would be thinking differently about China if it were formally declared a genocide? Would that give them cover perhaps to do things that they wouldn't otherwise do if the Michael McCall side of the argument prevails. I think it's wildly important.

You look back in the 90s at the Rwandan genocide and how the world, just a few years later, sort of promised each other that that was a mistake, that they didn't see it, that they didn't know about it. And we can say that media wasn't what it was back then, that this was a pretty isolated part of the world. There are no more isolated parts of the world. We're getting real time first, secondhand accounts of what is happening.

So I think the word matters a lot because I think with the Rwandan genocide, the word mattered a lot. It wasn't a civil war between the Tutsis and the Hutus. It was a genocide. And, you know, when you look at the definition of genocide, I don't understand what the economist, I don't understand their argument.

at all. The definition of genocide and the genocide convention, yes, A, killing members of the group. First of all, I think some would say they are, of course, killing members of the group, but let's set that one aside. Well, there are plenty of disappeared Uyghur family members to support that. That's right. I mean, the idea that China doesn't kill people. B, causing serious bodily or mentally harmed members of the group. C, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part. Imposing measures, to prevent births within the group, forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Nearly all of those, if not every single one of those, has been met. And I think that the Biden administration not pushing this as one of its chief foreign policy points, accomplishments. I do think it would be an accomplishment to have the world label this genocide. Should the United States consider boycotting the Olympics? Oh, so this is a problem for me. I love the Olympics so, so much that you've asked sort of the heart of the question

for someone like me. I try to do that, Sarah. I know. This is what I'm trying to do. I know. And it breaks my heart. And yes, I think they should. And it's just like the hardest thing you could ask me.

It's like it's asking if I can give up dark chocolate or, you know, chicken sandwiches. But, you know, I don't think there is any ask too great when it comes to what's happening. And the Olympics are important. There are a time for countries to come together and for us to sort of recognize that there is a world outside of the United States. But part of that is the power of the Olympics. And if we agree and act like nothing is wrong and go over there and play games, literally, I mean, you know, of the Olympic Games, I think it sends a message that, you know, this isn't that bad of a genocide, which is an oxymoron.

Right. Yeah, I mean, I think what we're talking about, I mean, you know, you certainly could pursue, you could see the international community pursuing the legal path here. I have very little confidence the United Nations will take this up as a cause. But it seems to me the most likely way to affect change is cultural, is to make it more difficult for the NBA to continue to do what it's doing in China than it is for the NBA to not do what it's doing in China. I mean, it's those kinds of pressures and Hollywood and, you know, and you name it, that I think are most likely to affect change and certainly. Can you imagine if the 94 Olympics had been in Rwanda? We wouldn't be having this conversation.

No one would have, no one now would say that you should have the Olympics in Rwanda in 1994. Well, especially because those were the winter games, and that would have been really hard. Sorry. Well, you know, too, when it comes to the Olympics, I mean, first of all, Beijing has used the Olympics in the past to brandish its credentials and its burgeoning economy and its power. Yeah. It's not like the Olympics are distilled from geopolitics. Putin did this too, right? They're used as a stage to sort of put yourself out there as a power.

And second of all, the power that the Chinese Communist Party is trying to exercise on the world stage is to transform international institutions to be accommodating to its Chinese supremacism. That's the idea behind what it's trying to do. And to hold the Olympics there to go participate in the Olympics there is to sort of say, hey, you know, you're right, you know, basically, you know, China does, should be able to transform how we, we do things internationally. I think that's a very slippery slope across the board. I mean, you know, one of the things that the Trump administration got right in a sense, and only in a narrow sense, was to call out Chinese influence international institutions

and other bad actors in institutions. I don't think that the Trump administration did nearly enough to try and counterbalance that or to fix that. But, you know, there is a, there is a point here that needs to be reiterated over and over again. And I think participating in the Olympics can undercut America's position elsewhere. You know, if you go participate in the Olympics, then what does it matter if, you know, the Chinese are playing leading role with the UN

or this or that body? I also think it is so relevant. I mean, we teach high school students, college students about the Rwandan genocide. And I keep bringing that up because I think it's something that just the whole world now agrees on. But how easy is it for us to label

something genocide, agree that something is awful when it is committed by a relatively powerless group, the Hutus, and how different it is and how different it is being treated on the world stage when it is being committed by a world power. And I think if you're unwilling to call it out when it's hard, it's sort of in a way related to me to the argument about free speech. Protecting free speech that you agree with isn't protecting free speech. It's the speech that you most hate, that is most difficult to protect, that is when we test whether we believe in free speech. This is the same argument. It's not hard to call it genocide when it's a small group you don't know and you don't care about who costs you nothing to call them out. This is where

it tests whether we mean it that we have a genocide convention. Do we? Because right now we don't. Yeah, and this will be, I think, a very interesting look at the evolving politics on foreign policy broadly and China specifically here in the United States, right? Because, I mean, you've seen Republicans follow Trump in a much more rhetorically confrontational position as it relates to China. But you look at what the Trump administration actually did, you know, there was the trade war, which was, it turns out, was not easy to win. and didn't improve our position, I think, relative to China at all.

Our trade deficits, which were the initial stated cause from President Trump for engaging in a trade war, worse now than they were when he came into office. But you've seen Republicans adopt rhetorically anyway this more confrontational, There's a broad recognition that China is the single most difficult foreign policy national security challenge. It's easy to elicit hostile confrontational rhetoric from Republicans. The question is, will there be actual policy proposals from Republicans to push the Biden administration to follow through on its own rhetoric? about getting serious about taking on China. And I think there are reasons to be concerned.

There are reasons to be skeptical. You look at Donald Trump himself, if you believe what John Bolton wrote in his book, and I do, he praised Xi for these concentration camps. You look at what, you know, other things that are not reliant on a narrator like John Bolton. the things that Donald Trump said and did publicly at the outset of the coronavirus, praising Xi for his transparency, for his willingness to work on this.

You know, Trump was a very, had sort of this bifurcated, almost bipolar approach to China, and Republicans have to kind of wrestle with that as they figure out how best to push the Biden administration and in what direction? Can I also just have a little tiny mini rant, which is the Uyghurs to the extent they often come up in conservative media are a punchline, not to a joke, but to a, the left says they care about this,

but what about the Uyghurs? That is not taking the Uyghur situation seriously. That is not actually finding solutions to how we can come together with other countries in the world to put pressure on China or to force economic interests of these corporations to treat China differently. That is a political punchline, a talking point that is cute on Twitter to which nobody on the right should get any credit. And I just want to make that very clear that I subtract points for that kind of argument. You know, they say they're upset about police brutality. What about the Uyghurs? They say they're, you know, all about climate change.

What about the Uyghurs? What? They are not there to be a what about for you. This is a genocide. Talk about it by itself on its own merits or else I do not take it seriously that you take it seriously. All right, rant on. But by the way, on the genocide point, just to be clear,

my objection was I hadn't read the economist article you're talking about my my objection was i suspected it was some pseudo intellectual nonsense argument they were making about the word genocide when i what gave it away and so that's that's why i objected to that it's not that i dismiss as i i think i made clear i don't dismiss the legal implications of using the word what i'm saying is i don't get i don't personally when i'm writing about this get tied up in you know what i mean obviously to me i use the word genesis i use the word genocide when i describe it and so i you know whatever the economist is talking about doesn't really affect my view of it is basically what I'm saying. So one question I have for you, Tom, following all of this,

you've spent a lot of time looking at President Xi and studying his history, looking at his rise to power. You had a very good newsletter for us about that week before this week. What will make him change course, if anything? What can outside actors, what can the United States, what can the United States working in concert with a global coalition, do to make she stopped doing what they're doing, to make the Chinese Communist Party stop doing what they're doing. I mean, that's the million dollar question, really. Oh, come on.

I thought you were going to have an answer right there. There's no easy answer to that. What I've been doing, let me take a step back from that question. What I've been doing is exploring some of the assumptions that are going into the debates around that conversation. So, for example, in one of my recent newsletters, there's this assumption now amongst Chinese watchers and experts, and there are plenty of people who are. or more experts on China than I am, just to be clear.

But there's this assumption going around that basically our problems with China are embodied singularly in the person of Xi Jinping. And that if we can just isolate this tumor, this cancer, and sort of roll back his power and influence and contain him and prop up other people rhetorically or otherwise within the Chinese Communist Party, all will be solved. It's really our problems are with Xi. And you've seen this, I've seen a lot of Chinese commentators make this point. I don't buy it, right?

I mean, yes, Xi Jinping has taken things beyond where the Chinese Communist Party was in the past, for sure, in terms of behavior on the foreign stage, in terms of what he's doing internally in China's borders, and what he's doing to project power at Hong Kong and threatening Taiwan and the like. But it's not like that all that is without precedent within the Chinese Communist Party. There are deeper problems here, you know, than just Xi Jinping. And the Chinese Communist Party, you know, as I wrote, in the newsletter recently, you know, was tracking, for example, the power of various rivals, other nation states in relation to its own power. And then about 10 years ago or so stopped

releasing these, this metric because they didn't want people to realize that they had caught up. And that basically under Xi Jinping's predecessors, the motto was, you know, we're going to bide our time and hide our strength. Well, you don't bide your time to just to maintain the status quo or just to get along, you're biding your time until you can have your coming out party and say, we're the power, we're a dominant force now. And so those are, there are plenty of evidence these thoughts, this way of viewing this world, this paradigm for understanding Chinese power, preceded Xi. You know, it's not like it just started with Xi in 2012, 2013 or whatever. There are all sorts of problems to predate that. Now, you know, some would say,

and one of the arguments in this paper, the longer telegram, this is what I was rebutting, in a recent newsletter, when the argument is the longer telegram is, well, you don't want to conflate, you know, all 90 plus million Chinese Communist Party members together as sort of, you know, the same problem or a monolith. Well, no, please not. Let me jump in, Tom. Explain what the longer telegram was. What was the genesis of that?

And why did you feel like you had to respond to it? So the longer telegram was this, an anonymous former official wrote this long paper. And it's worth reading. I link to it. I think people should read it. There's plenty of virtue in reading. it. There's plenty of interesting details in it, I guess. But there's a lot of the sort of stuff I'd read elsewhere. But there's a good summary of a lot of different positions in it. But it was

written by this former senior official, this anonymous official, to say, basically, we still aren't getting it right on China. We've had a wake-up call of sorts, but we don't have a unified strategy for dealing with China. And here are his or her thoughts on what should be done. And it was meant to mirror in certain ways, although I'll be with important differences, the long telegram that George Keenan wrote in 1946 to deal at the outset of the Cold War dealing with the Soviet Union. And the idea was, just as in the past, we had this long telegram, which outlined or mapped out this way for containing the Soviet Union, we need something similar like that for China,

and here I'm going to do what the author basically says. And Kennings was incredibly influential, sort of set the statement for what was to come. Kenyon's work was incredibly influential. You know, there's a whole other argument to be made about how much it was actually followed or, you know, where America deviated from parts of it. There's an interesting history about all that. But yes, it was definitely influential in setting the terms of the debate. And this author, I think, of the longer telegram, was trying to do something similar.

And what I'm saying is when I read the piece, you know, I mean, this is going to sound arrogant, I'm sure, but you know me by now, I don't really care. It wasn't all that impressive, you know? It just wasn't that impressive. Like I didn't see, I didn't see something that had these deep insights. Like if you're going to say, for example, that Xi Jinping's power grabs have offended, you know, personnel within the CCP and rivals and this and that, then you should have some idea in mind of how to exploit that or who his potential rivals are or how that's going to work out. And there's no evidence of any kind of analysis like that whatsoever. It's just, I'm sure that she's power grab has offended others within the CCP and that he's cracked down on his rivals, you know, that obviously has been opposition to him.

But the idea that you know that you can exploit that somehow within the CCP to me is a real jump, a real leap that needs to be substantiated through logic and facts. And I didn't see either one of those. And that was just one of the many problems I saw on it. I think it's basically the paper is trying to pass off a series of assumptions as strategic wisdom. And as the longer I've dealt with foreign policy issues or any issue for that matter, I've tried to make fewer and fewer assumptions.

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Get your free quote at ethos.com slash dispatch. That's ETHOS.com slash dispatch. Application times may vary. Rates may vary. Let's move back to the Middle East. Earlier this week, 14 rockets were fired toward Erbil Air Base in Iraq's Kurdistan region. Three hit facilities where U.S. troops were based. One foreign contractor was killed. Nine were injured, including a U.S. U.S. service member for U.S. civilian contractors. How is the Biden administration going to respond? How should they respond? And compare that to how the Trump administration responded. Well, when I talked about, I was criticizing servile diplomacy with the Iranians, I mean, here's Exhibit A, right? We just have an attack by a presumed Iranian proxy in Iraq on American forces. And within whatever, however many hours or days it is, you see the Biden administration should bend over backwards to say that they want to get back to the table with Iran on the nuclear

deal. You know, I mean, the timing of it shows you that they're committed to this course no matter what. And, you know, instead of second guessing, you know, second guessing in saying, hey, maybe we should at least put it off for a little bit and talk to the Iranians through intermediaries or otherwise to say, knock off the attacks on Americans, if you want to actually have talks when it comes to nuclear issues, they just went ahead with what they wanted to do with trying to rejoin the nuclear court anyway. You know, and this is the type of moment where, you know, that should make you question it. It should make you wonder what, you know, why, why is it they're so committed to doing this right away? You know, it's one thing to say

you're- Explain why there is an assumption that it was Iran. Well, it is an assumption or presumption that's Iran because there is, it is a Shiite militia group that claim responsibility for this. It does get a little bit dicey in terms of, you know, getting into attribution. But everybody knows that Iran has this proxy network throughout Iraq, has, control over multiple Shiite militias and has used them to attack Americans for a long time with relative impunity, actually. And so it's a natural assumption. Now, you know, you never know. Maybe it turns out that it somehow wasn't an Iranian provocation. But I think the assumption is at least, what I would say is you should at least determine that. And Anthony Blinken released

the statement, Secretary Blinken released the statement saying they're going to determine the party's responsible and hold them accountable. I think you should at least determine that, you know, before you go ahead with any other Iran-related initiative. But when it comes to possible retribution, proportional responses, et cetera, et cetera. During the Trump administration, Trump authorized the killing of General Soleimani and Iranian general. To what effect? Like, was, you know, that was considered sort of a huge response, a non-proportional response. It was cheered by some.

It was criticized by others. Has it made any difference, though, if you assume that the Iranians are still doing the same sort of attacks? I mean, it's actually, this is the deterrence question. It's something I've thought about and debated because I have mixed thoughts on it. It's very, it's very dice, I would say, to figure out. I mean, because the question is, could the Iranians do more than they're doing? Yes, they could. I mean, these were, I think, 107mm rockets that were launched at American facilities in herbal.

Could they do more than that? Yeah, they could. You know, there are other things they could do. obviously the Iranians did respond to the killing of Soleimani by launching missiles at Americans in Iraq as well. So it didn't stop them from doing anything, but does it constrain them and their option choices, perhaps? It's tough to say. With the killing of Customs Soleimani, you know, the idea that that was non-proportional to me is laughable. I mean, this is a guy who had the blood of thousands of Syrians, Iraqis, and indeed almost certainly hundreds of

Americans on his hands. The idea that he could walk around with impunity in Iraq. come and go, is he pleased and do whatever he wanted while Americans are there and you can't take him out, I think is, again, laughable. But, you know, it speaks to the problems in Iraq right now. The Iranians have increased their influence in the country. America has gone down to a presence of 2,500 troops on the last days of the Trump administration. I think there's a real question of weighing the costs and benefits of the American presence there at this point. That's sort of what I was trying to get at in my most recent newsletter is that, you know, the Biden administration has to look at this now about what what it is they hope to accomplish with a much reduced presence. I don't

think anybody's advocating for increasing the presence there, but the question is, is the smaller presence sustainable? And if so, then how does it fit into the larger picture of how you look at American policy with respect to Iran, ISIS, and other issues? So bottom line for us, Tom, as we look at places like Iran and Afghanistan and the the so-called endless wars that are now being condemned. condemned by majority of voices in both political parties. What the heck are we doing in Iran? Why do we even have these minimal presences that you're talking about?

What are we doing in Iraq and Afghanistan? Shouldn't we just bring people home? I mean, this is, it's been 20 years, Tom. Yeah. Look, look, you know, here's the thing. I don't, I don't, if you read what I've been writing close carefully, I don't dismiss all that, right? I mean, I was critical of how the Afghan war was being prosecuted.

prosecuted a long time before the endless wars rhetoric took hold um you know there's there's a lot to criticize and how what happened with respect to iraq i'm not you know i'm not running away from any of that and i don't think anybody should and what i was saying in my newsletter i'm trying to say my newsletter is they should have a cost-benefit sort of approach to figuring out whether or not the 2,500 troops that are in iraq really are doing something that's sustainable that is efficient and is not going to, you know, create more problems for Americans. You can, you can add the part of how I end the newsletter, by the way, is saying, you know, look, no Americans were killed this time, but what happens if, you know, a bunch of Americans are killed in the next attack? This is going

to only raise the question again for the American public and for policymakers. And you should have an answer to that. You should, you should say, my point is, you know, if you're going to say, you know, both President Biden and former President Trump were very, I think, used the overcharge rhetoric of endless wars all the time. What I mean by that is, if you're going to decry the endless wars, well, then get out, right? Act accordingly, you know, and yet nobody noticed that President Trump last year didn't get out of Iraq, for example.

As he's decrying the endless wars on Twitter and riling up his fan base, he actually issued a statement in the presence of Iraqi officials saying, yeah, we're reducing our forces and have reduced our forces, but it's necessary to stay there longer. And he was asked by a reporter, you know, can you commit to getting out in the next three years, let's say? And he couldn't. Right? So this is my point with the endless wars rhetoric stuff is if you're going to decry it and you're going to say that Americans are wasting blood and treasure in these places and we shouldn't be there, well, then act accordingly and get out, right? But if you think we should have a small presence there, then defend it and understand why we're there and have an articulated case for it. Don't wait for the next attack to raise the issue again in the public sphere. You should have a, there should be a, if American blood is on the line, we should have a real sense of why that is and what we're doing. And the problem, my view is, both the endless wars rhetoric and some of the people who just want to keep troops everywhere,

is they're not really thinking through the costs and benefits of all this. And I don't have all the answers, by the way. I'm just saying I'm trying to... Is there still a threat? Is there still a jihadist threat to Americans here on the homeland that emanates from Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria? Is that the reason we should continue to have some minimal troop presence? What I would say is the main thinking is, if the main argument in favor of minimal true presence is that ISIS is still alive.

Yes, the territorial cal if it was defeated, but ISIS is still alive. It still retains a global network. And there are fears that it could mushroom, perhaps not to the peak it did in 2014, but to something less than that, but still a major menace, or a menace, let's say. And that the minimal presence there is good for keeping local partners focused on suppressing ISIS and hunting down senior ISIS leaders and the like. Now, all there are costs associated. with all that. So I'm not just saying it's all upside. There are costs associated with doing

that, of course. But that's the main thinking of it. And I think, you know, if you look at what, or you listen to the counterterrorism officials I've listened to, ISIS basically mothballed its external operations wing, which is what was for going after the West for a time. They basically said we're not, you know, as we're taking these lumps here in Iraq and Syria and we're losing our caliphate, we're going to substantially reduce in any way are the amount of resources we're to voting to attacks in the West. It's very easy to see how if they've staged a comeback and they get more resources and they start to have sort of a mini caliphate of some sort, once again, that they could then prioritize such attacks again. It's a very tricky thing when it comes to the threat in the

West because I don't want to oversell it. I don't want to say that you're definitely going to have another 9-11 or something like that. But by the same token, there obviously is a persistent terrorist threat. last topic the u.s has officially rejoined the paris climate agreement it was to take effect 30 days after president biden ordered it on his first day in office and here we are this has sort of been a political talking point on both sides but with not you know a lot of heat and not a lot of light i would say does this make any difference to America's foreign policy as a whole in the short term or long term in your view, Tom?

You know, this is a really tough question for me because I haven't actually inspected the text of it and I haven't done my own assessment of what it calls for and how America is constrained or what it's giving up in relation to other actors. So I sort of have to punt on the question. You know, one of the things I try and do is say, if I don't know about an issue very carefully or I haven't looked into it for myself, but I'm not going to comment on it. Just as I could say with confidence that there is no peace. process in Afghanistan. I can say with confidence, I don't know much about the climate

accords in Paris. It's so refreshing. It's so refreshing, you know, like most people would just sort of try to muddle through and offer sort of 50,000 foot talking points. I'm sure there are all sorts of talking points that could quickly grab for you here on Google if you really, that's really necessary. But I don't, I don't look at this stuff in terms of talking points. I try and figure out, you know, what's known and what's not known and only comment on what I know and express what I don't know. And what I'm saying here is a very big, I don't know. And that listeners should give everything that has come in the previous hour

a lot of credibility coming from Tom. All right, Tom, we are in the last throes of winter here. We're heading into spring. We've been trapped in our homes in a pandemic as well. What is the thing you are most looking forward to doing outside when things thaw? You know, I have two little girls, and I like taking them to the park and we play and we go and I put them on the swings and then we run around and, you know, do all sorts of stuff. And I, as part of my sort of get fit campaign for myself personally, I started walking and jogging last spring when it was nice out. And I got them involved in doing that too.

And they like, they like going for their walks slash jogs with daddy, although they're young, so they don't jog very far. But we do what we can. And, you know, it's impossible to do that right now where everything is snowing and icy outside. and you can't slip. And I'm still very ginger-eyed. People wouldn't know this necessarily, but I had a very major knee reconstructive surgery in April 2019 after blowing out my knee. And so when I see the ice and the snow out there, I'm still, even though everything's fine and I've gotten into back into weightlifting and doing everything and I'm exercising all the time, it's still in my head that I'm going to slip and all of a sudden I'm going to be back

in a hospital bed with unable to walk. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to the thawing because I won't have that thawing anymore. This is what you, me and Steve, this is why we're bonded. We're knee bonded. And I'll be curious what Steve says to this, but I am 21 years on from my knee surgery. That was a catastrophic knee reconstruction. And I still am scared of water on floors, slipping, definitely ice. That, you know, sort of knee injury PTSD has not gone away from me.

So I hope it goes away for you. But you probably have a ways. to go on that. It's very true. So I never had the full reconstruction. I've had six, seven surgeries on my right knee and one on my left. And my right, it's in my head all the time. Everything I do, particularly stairs for me, going downstairs are problematic.

Going downstairs. That's how my injury happened was going downstairs. I rupture my Patel Art Tending going down the stairs. So now every time I slipped and, you know, I was... pretty obese at the time and so all my weight came down on one knee and that was it was like a shotgun blast went off uh it was not the sound was quite horrific you know so that's actually exactly what happened to me except i was bowling and i wasn't actually technically bowling at the moment i was trying to kick the person who was bowling and my foot slipped and so all of my weight came down on the foot that

wasn't kicking and i shattered my femur patella uh nicked my acl and mcel and had little shards of of Patella all through my knee. But I had, I was trying to impress a boy because I was a teenager at the time. And it was my summer before college and he was so cute. And going to Duke, if I remember correctly. And so I played it cool.

That makes the story worse, by the way. It makes it so much worse. Because you know what boys like? You know what boys, teenage boys in particular are super into? Is, A, girls who are good at bowling, obviously. But two, girls who are just super. tough, you know, like don't ask for help, don't complain about anything. So I sat there for another two hours as my knee swelled, you know, to the size of my entire body. And he was like,

are you okay? Can I help you? I was like, no, absolutely not. I mean, I did that. Let me just let me, I am filing this away. Not to belittle your injury, but the fact that it was a bowling incident It's like, I've never, that's going to be put to use. That's going to be put to use later. Wait, wait, wait, the guy who fell down the stairs is going to rise to your defense. Exactly, yeah. I mean, your injury story is far better than mine. I mean, I was just going down the stairs, you know what I mean?

This is not, I wasn't doing anything remotely athletic other than going to feed the cat, you know. So, I mean, it wasn't, it's not, you know, this is not, this is not, this is not. Okay, mine were all sports related. I was playing soccer and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, volleyball on a team, in a team setting. Steve, we all know that in the rom-com version of the dispatch, like, you're the cool jock prom king and everyone has their own sort of role to play. But I am for sure, like, the nerdiest girl with, like, the glasses who, you know,

like maybe I take off the glasses for prom and it's a big reveal. But, like, that's as good as it's getting. in the high school dispatch. I mean, I'm not, I'm not going to pick up on the dispatch rom-com because I can't go there. But that will no doubt, that will no doubt elicit many, many emails and comments. Because I mean, I deserve its own podcast quite frankly. Tom, Tom, please.

Tom, you're never welcome back. But I'll definitely listen. You're never welcome back, Tom. The only question is whether David is the teacher in this rom-com or is he also a student. And I think that's tough. I think Jonah is almost certainly a teacher. Or he's just the comic relief, like, snide, you know, buddy of yours, you know, where like you're the cool guy who has sort of the like snide sarcastic bestie who like always

mocks you. That could be a good role for Jonah. Like the class clown almost. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He could put that role. Okay, wait.

I said I wasn't going to do this. All right. Tom, thank you, as always for joining us. These are always our some of our most elucidating. conversation. So really appreciate it. Love the newsletter. If you're not subscribe to it, Vital Interest, you can go to the website, thedispadge.com, and go click that you want Vital Interest sent into your inbox every week. Thank you. Thanks for having me. From one of Canada's most prominent foreign correspondents, a trusted voice who brought stories of the world home to Canadians for decades, comes a powerful memoir, revealing the pressures.

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