The Munk Debates Podcast - Angry Dragon

Episode Date: August 5, 2022

Munk Members Podcast provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving the news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates. This week’s Munk Members podcast focuses exclusively on the geopolitics of China, America and Taiwan. Why did Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, choose this moment to travel to Taiwan during a period of heightened tension between China and the U.S. over the future of island democracy? What should we make of the Chinese reaction that now involves firing ballistic missiles over Taiwan, large-scale naval operations and jet plane incursions over the “median line” of the Taiwan Strait? If the Chinese are simulating a naval blockade of Taiwan, how could this be countered and at what potential military and economic cost? And finally, what is the West’s grand strategy when it comes to Taiwan and China? Janice and Rudyard unpack the week’s events in Asia and explore how the current war of words over Taiwan could evolve in the months and years to come. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, Monk podcast listeners. The following is a sample of the Monk members-only podcast. To access the full-length edition of this episode and all of our regular Monk members-only podcasts, go to our website, www.W.Munkdebates.com and register for membership. Membership is free, and it's available for you right now at www.munkdebates.com. Hope you enjoy the program. Hello, Monk members. Redyard Griffiths here, your host and moderator. Welcome to this, the Monk members only podcast. This is our weekly program where we dig into the big issues and ideas and the news.

Focus on the stories that are changing our world, hopefully leaving you with some new analysis and insights. We're so fortunate each week to be joined by Janice Gross Stein for these conversations. She's the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs, an internationally renowned scholar and author, and she's all ours for the next half hour. Janice, the summer is not giving us a break. I had thought we would be struggling to find topics and ideas to discuss in the middle of the summer and the start of August. But wow, what a week. When are the dog days of August coming? And let me tell you, if you live in Taiwan, if you live in Japan.

And you see these missiles flying, you know. that we are not in the dog days of August. Yeah, so a big week for us to unpack with you. And let's start with the events of the last 72 hours. We've had, unless you've been in a bunker somewhere or maybe pleasantly cut off from the internet at your cottage, you will be aware that the third highest ranking official in the United States, Nancy Pelosi, the U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives, visited Taiwan, stayed overnight, made some pretty, how do you say this charitably, assertive

comments about America supporting Tijuana's freedom and independence. This has caused a reaction from the Chinese, maybe a much bigger reaction. We can get into this than the Americans certainly hoped for. Janice, I guess my kickoff question to you is what is the logic behind what we've seen from give us the view out of the U.S. National Security Council, the Situation Room, what were they thinking here? Tom Freeman had a good piece. Blistering. Blistering piece. Saying in a sense, It's not too wise a strategic doctrine to pick a fight with two, you know, great power, peer competitors at the same time. That resonated with me, Janice.

I am really critical of her visit. Let me start off by saying that. And that is not an uncontroversial statement, Richard. I'm sure that there are many among our listeners that feel. that taking a principal stand in favor of Taiwan is a democracy, speaking up now and making clear to China how important it is that China not use force against Taiwan is the right thing to do. And that explains how Nancy Pelosi thinks. She has been a human rights campaigner all her life.

She unfurled a banner in Chenamins Square when she was much younger. And she has never missed a chance to promote human rights and democracy. Now, that having been said, there was a big difference between rhetoric and support. And it seems to me foolish to the extreme rhetoric for the third highest ranking official, the third in line to the presidency. But nevertheless, the leader of an independent branch, of government, and that's the other problem that Biden had here, to go to Taiwan for 19 hours, that was the length of her stay there, to make these statements knowing that you were going to

provoke Shishi Ping. Now, how did this happen? Because there was not a single institution in the national security apparatus in the United States that did not try in private to ask her not to go from the president to the chairman of the joint chief staff to the CIA. Literally everybody said to her, this is not a smart thing to do. But she's speaker of the House. And Biden did not want to have an open brawl with her. Given the legislation that's moving through Congress, he did not want to undermine the relationship between the executive and the legislature.

So after asking politely, along with everybody else, and she was so determined that she went. Now, just let me make one point here before I bounce back to you. Just imagine if you're ghi-pig. How do you make sense that the Speaker of the House can do this against the president's wishes? It doesn't matter what your advisors are going to tell you.

That is unbelievable within the Chinese context. So they see this as deliberately orchestrated. Well, let's noodle around before we get into some of the specifics here in the Chinese response and what this might foretell. I want to get your thoughts on, again, how this connects back to Ukraine. Because I thought we were in a pretty important fight. over the future of the liberal international order in the Ukraine with Russia, that we were pushing that fight hard. We're taking some real risks, but there was also something very important to fight for

there, the territorial sovereignty and independence of a free Ukraine. So no small task, no light lift. And then seemingly to me, out of the blue, we've now decided to go all the way around the world. the antipode, so to speak, to America geographically, to challenge another great power competitor about a piece of real estate that a bit like Ukraine to Russia has deep cultural, historical, and ideological ties back to the regime. Is this just coincidence, Janice, that we're doing this? And again, I want to go, I want to.

you to set me right here. I just, to me, there's a feeling here of American kind of hubris, a view that they can, they still have the power to have the world look and unfold and behave like they want it to be. I don't know. This makes me nervous. I feel overreach here. I feel a moment of danger where there's, there's just a, well, that experience. you're exceeding your grasp. I mean, wow. You know, the fact that you would put this picture together the way you just did, Roger, is exactly the way many governments in Asia are looking at this incident. They don't see these niceties of a disagreement between the president and the speaker

and a speaker who is determined to do what she wants to do despite the best advice. This is a really hard story to tell outside the United States, frankly. It's really tough. You have to understand the quirkiness of American institutions to really get the picture. Almost nobody in Asia gets it. And let's just talk for a minute about the Australians and the Japanese. And wow, Penny Wong came out with a statement. There's a new government in Australia, and she was biting in her criticism of the United States for failing to consult their allies in the region.

This is the last thing they wanted. You know, Nazi Pelosi then goes on to Tokyo. You know, the Japanese are right in the eye of the storm here because these missiles. were landing in the expanded economic zone directly outside the territorial waters of Japan. It's never happened before. He's alarmed. He didn't have a voice in this.

So paradoxically, leave aside what message sends to China. This is a troubling message for close allies. There are no closer allies of the United States in the region than Australia and Japan. both of them were upset by what they consider an ill-timed, unnecessary provocation. If you were going to argue there was any reason to do this, it would be the connection you just drew to Ukraine. There is an argument in Washington that if the United States had made clear to Russia, explicitly clear, well enough and long enough before, that would have deterred Russia from launching the invasion. I don't agree with that argument.

They did make clear. But nevertheless, that is a story. And that is driving some people and not the president and not the Secretary of State. But it is driving a conversation in the United States. Stand up now. Make clear now that the use of force is unacceptable. But as we're going to see, that's not the story that comes out of here. Because the Chinese have done something in the last three days that they have never done before.

So here's a bigger picture for me. Roger, I'm tired of rhetoric. There's the morning after the rhetoric. And I don't think Pelosi gave enough thought to what happens the next day. It's easy to get on a plane and fly and make a statement on the ground about solidarity and support. But what happens the next day? Yeah. I want to read you a quote from the Chinese ambassador of the United States in an op-ed published today.

We're recording on Friday the 5th of August. I think it's important for us to spend a little time on the Chinese perspective on this because, look, you can take it right or wrong. But I think we all should kind of challenge ourselves to try to put ourselves in the mindset of groups and countries and strategic worldviews that aren't as familiar to us. The U.S. worldview is very familiar. We live it every day in our media. It shapes a lot of Canadian doctrine. So this is what the Chinese ambassador said in the Washington Post. Quote, just think if an American state were to succeed from the United States and declare independence and then some other nation,

provided weapons and political support for that state, would the U.S. government or the American people allow this to happen? And I guess what I'm trying to get at here, Janice, is that it's easy for us to, and it's important for us, to acknowledge Taiwan as a successful democracy. But should we give some cognitive space to understanding that the Chinese feel that Taiwan has been part of China proper for over a millennium up to the last century. It was then violently taken from them by a colonial power, Japan, the same power that engaged in the rape of Nanking. So, you know, no love loss historically between the Chinese people and the Japanese. And that the way they view Taiwan is very different than, let's say, even the way they viewed Hong

Kong. This is maybe is the analogy closer to Ukraine to how maybe the Russians see the territory of Ukraine, rightly or wrongly, in many cases wrongly, as part of some mystical Kievan Russe that animates the broader Russian identity. Let's unpack a bit of this, because I think, again, I'm not endorsing the Chinese view, but I'm just trying to push us, challenge us a little bit to put ourselves into the Chinese mindset, maybe to better understand the risks that are involved here. I think it is very important to understand how the Chinese think about Taiwan. Richard, I agree with you. It doesn't justify what they're doing, but I think it is important to understand it. And when you were telling this story, you took it right up to 1949. There's one little piece

missing there, that at the end of a really brutal civil war in China between Chang Qa Shek and the Chinese communists, led by Mao Zedong, Chang lost and evacuated his forces onto the island of Taiwan. And just remember, Changxiaq was supported by the Americans, by the Western powers as a, effectively their preferred emperor for a new dictatorial China that they would control. So what's gone on in Taiwan since that time? And I think there's three

different perspectives that are important here. The first, they were indigenous people who lived in Taiwan. And all of a sudden, wow, across the streets, come, you know, highly organized people from China with an army and with military. They didn't get much of a voice at all in what happened in Taiwan. And they are the largest indigenous community in this part of the world. A piece of the story we always miss. Then you have Shankar Shaku, and it takes three decades for politics to evolve to the point

where we now talk legitimately about Taiwan as a democracy. And that first generation of people loyal in some, tied to the mainland, family on the mainland, personal memories, that's gone now. There's a generation of younger people growing up in Taiwan who are not connected in the same way, are fierce defenders of their democracy, and support for reunification. with the mainland dropping with each generation. And they've come to value their independence, which is what makes this so hard. Now, when you speak, when Chinese leaders speak about this,

they're very careful. They say, oh, Taiwan is very different from Ukraine. Ukraine was an independent, sovereign state. Right. There's a gap there between the way China speaks about Ukraine and Russia, things about Ukraine, but Taiwan, it's always been part of China, always. Right. Maybe just remind people the one China policy, which. Yeah. So, and then we get to,

Richard Nixon. And Henry Kissinger, former Montevader. That's right. And 1970, in a really gutsy decision for Republicans when Nixon goes to China, and he's doing this for for real politic reasons. He wants to split China off from Russia. Russia was the principal adversary, and they agree on one China. Taiwan is part of China, but the deal, China will not use force to reintegrate Taiwan. So we're in an area here of subtlety. The lower key you keep this, the better for everyone. Taiwan continues to exist and to have its own.

democratic practices and traditions. Nobody recognizes it as an independent sovereign state, not Nancy Pelosi's language at all. And the Chinese do not invade over the straits to reoccupy Taiwan. And that's what's been in place for 50 years. And it requires subtlety in order to keep this going. Let's acknowledge what's happened over the last half decade or so, because it, There's some eerie similarities here to Ukraine. There are now billions of dollars of U.S. weapon systems and arms sales into Taiwan.

There are U.S. CIA and Special Forces operatives on the soil in Taiwan training the Tijuana. There are high-level political delegations, Nancy Pelosi, showing up and, you know, not explicitly, but about as close to. explicitly as you can get, aligning the United States with Taiwan and applying, as Joe Biden did, in the last year, a much more forthright American intention to militarily support Taiwan and its independence. I mean, are we wrong to think that there's a similar trajectory, a similar set of dynamics that are playing out right now in Taiwan that we've seen. seen this movie before and we know where it's going to end, which is in the reaction of the great power where this geography is immediate to their, what they see rightly or wrongly,

many cases wrongly is their territorial sovereignty, their sphere of influence. Boy, the parallels to me abound. You're right that we are dealing with. I think Taiwan is most the Straits of Taiwan, the most dangerous spot in the world. And way more dangerous than Ukraine, believe it or not, from my perspective. But both of these countries live next door to great powers with long historical memories who believe this territory belongs to them. And grievance.

And deep, deep grievances. And deep anger at the West. And deep anger at the West. And you know, you literally can't have a conversation. with a Chinese, I can't, in the academic world in China, calling without getting to the 150 years of humiliation. I would say, argue with the Chinese compared to the Russians, there is a pretty shameful history.

I mean, we've acknowledged our colonialism and the sins of our colonialism within our own country. I don't know the extent to which we've fully acknowledged are the opium wars, the brutal economic and political subjugation that China went through in the 19th century at the hands of the Western powers that involve the deaths of millions of Chinese. That's a very vivid part of historical memory for mainlanders, frankly. And so let's talk just a little bit for a moment about what's gone on in the last 48 hours because it tells you so much about where China is today,

as opposed to where it was in 1995, 1996, the last time this blew up. There was a similar provocation, and the Chinese sent their Navy. Exactly. Newt Gingrich. Yes, same speaker. Same speaker. We know what happened last time and now we're doing it again. Oh, yeah, but the reaction is different by an order of magnitude.

Okay. and I think that's really important. The last time they responded to a speaker visit, they sent their Navy just fundamentally within the Straits. And what did the United States do? Sent the carrier, the Ronald Reagan, in full blast, and that was the end of that. And that was largely reflected the balance of naval power at that time.

Fast forward, almost 30 years, right? What do we see? And a set of exercises, and this is really important for, I think, for all of us to recognize totally different. The Chinese Navy has effectively conducting live fire exercises surrounding Taiwan. So this is a rehearsal. This provided them with the opportunity to rehearse sealing off and blockading Taiwan. Number one. Number two, they showed with their missiles.

strikes that they can reach Okinawa, where an American basis. There's no U.S. decision maker who's not sitting up now as well as Japanese. And there's no response in effect because the balance of naval power has shifted. And the United States is trying, Biden is certainly trying as much as he can now to de-escalate and walk it back and not to respond. They canceled a missile test because they don't want to. to take even the smallest chance that this will escalate right now. You have to look at the differences over the 30 years and say,

China is a big power in this region. This is right in China's backyard. The best hope for Taiwan's democracy is careful, quiet, negotiations with Shishi-Ping that reassures him that Taiwan will not become yet again an outpost. That's not what we're seeing. And let's throw one more piece into this mix, which people don't talk about enough. And boy, Nancy Pelosi met with him when she was there too, the president of the largest semiconductor

manufacturing company in the world is Taiwan's. It makes the most advanced it is the last stop for the manufacturing of most advanced computer chips

and where any kind of major conflict to break out that could bring every advanced industry in the world to a halt. That's why this is the most dangerous part of the world.

You need, to tread carefully in this part of the world. So normally we would take a break here and you'd hear a commercial from me trying to get you to buy a monk membership. I'm not going to do that because this is such a great conversation. I want to keep the momentum going. But if you are interested in membership, we'd love to have you join triple W monk debates forward slash membership.

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