The Munk Debates Podcast - Munk Members-Only Pod: Episode 12

Episode Date: March 26, 2021

This is a sample of the Munk Members-Only Podcast. The program provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving 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 edition of the Munk Member's Podcast explores three big stories in the news this week: China and the West's fast deteriorating relationship – Why is this happening? What are the consequences? And is a Chinese attack on Taiwan the big risk to world peace in our time?; Vaccine nationalism rears its ugly head as EU and UK relations take a dive on accusations of vaccine hording and threats of export controls – Are these proof points that every country will soon need its own vaccine production capacity?; and the Canadian Supreme Court rules in favor of a carbon tax – how will this decision echo in other federations globally? Is a carbon tax the optimal policy response to the threat of climate change? We discuss it all. To access the full length episode consider becoming a Munk Member. Membership is free. Simply log on to www.munkdebates.com/membership to register. Under your membership profile page you will find a link to listen to the full length editions of Munk Members Podcast. If you like what the Munk Debates is all about consider becoming a Supporting Member. For as little as $9.99 monthly you receive unlimited access to our 10+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, monthly newsletter, ticketing privileges at our live and online events and a charitable tax receipt (for Canadian residents). To explore you Munk Membership options visit www.munkdebates.com/membership. 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.wmunkdebates.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, and welcome to this, our regular members-only podcast. This is a program where in 30 minutes or less, we delve into the big issues in the news, shaping our world. Our promise to you is to give you some new insights, some new analysis into these issues and ideas that are all challenging us during this time. And as our guide, week in and week out, we've been exceedingly fortunate to have Janice Gross Stein.

She's a founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto and internationally acclaimed scholar, best-selling. author, Janice, thanks again for lending us your wisdom and insights on these programs. Great to be with you. Great to be with you. Our first topic this week has to be the worsening bilateral relationships between basically China and the rest of the Western world. It's been remarkable, Janice, from that tumultuous summit in Alaska last week between the United States and China to this week, China responding, targeting the United Kingdom with sanctions against individuals. So I want your thoughts as a person who thinks about, you know, geopolitics and how governments and states act and respond. Why have things gotten this bad

this quickly? What's driving this? What is the accelerant on these deteriorating relationships between China and the rest of the Western world? We could talk about a short-term cause, Rudyard that just sped this up in the last week. And just yesterday, by the way, when President Biden did his first live press conference, he escalated as well. He went out of his way to say, this is not only an economic conflict or a security conflict. It's an ideological conflict. I will defend human rights. So when you're layering on the layers, That way you're deepening the conflict. So why now a couple of really proximate factors, but then the bigger picture.

The pandemic, believe it or not, is one. China managed better. It just infused China's leadership with self-confidence. They have a long view of history. And while they looked at the shambles in the United States, and they said, are, we are on the move here. This is the beginning of what we've waited for, the decline of the United States. And you hear this over and over from Chinese leaders. Now, I think they're wrong, but that's irrelevant. What they think is that, you know, they are on the right side of history

now for the first time. And the whole tone of China has changed. And you saw it in that meeting in Alaska. the days are over when the West tells us what to do. So if anybody's back right now, it's China that thinks it's back after more than 150 years of humiliation at the hands of the West. And that just goes so deep in the psyche of Chinese leaders. And beyond the leaders, by the way, there is this broad national sense in China that the West humiliated China and finally their moment is coming and they're flexing their muscles and not in the smartest way. And that's really what we're seeing. In the United States, we have a president who says, okay, these nightmare four years are over, we're back. And I'm going to

show the world we're back. And so you see on top of all the issues that divide the two governments, there is a sense, there is a competition in assertiveness right now. Now, that's fine, Richard, up to a point, but it's not fine after a certain point because you needlessly escalate the rhetoric. And Biden's Allied strategy, which is let's line up all the Western allies on a series of core issues, we're going to feel it in Canada. we already are. This week, the Minister of Industry Science and Development, Philippe Champagne,

released some guidance, which will have implications for this country and this country's economy. Anything to do with commercialization of, quote, disruptive technologies, in other words, next generation technologies, quantum robotics, now they are going to review

investment from China. And they're going to provide guidance to universities about partnerships with Chinese universities who work in these fields with Canadian universities. That is a remarkable escalation in the closing of a country like ours to collaboration and scientific research, but it's a strong in the wind, of this deepening competition. And I look at this and I say, hey, we have to be careful here. We have to be appropriate about safeguarding our national security interests,

but we have to be careful not to let the rhetoric get out of control here. Because, Janice, there's some other, you know, partly what we like to do with us on the show, with you is kind of, you know, think forward into the future. And I mean, there's a much bigger fault line coming up than Hong Kong. And it has to do with the future of Taiwan. And the extent to which the Chinese in the last 18 months have put significant military pressure on Taiwan with harassing flyovers, troop exercises and deployments. I mean, to what extent are we kind of slow marching as Neil Ferguson, someone who we regularly talk to on the monk debates,

characterized in Bloomberg this week as a kind of Suez crisis moment of the 21st century, with the United States in the role of Great Britain here, a wounded great power at this moment, a wounded superpower, facing off against an opponent literally half the world away, supply lines stretched. To what extent, you know, should we be concerned that this rhetoric is setting up the potential for something much more significant, much more dangerous around Taiwan? I think, Niels absolutely right, that Taiwan, if I were going to pick one spot in the world

over the next 15 years, that could set off a truly global crisis, it would be Taiwan. So I think he's absolutely right to put that squarely on the agenda. Rudyard, there is no issue on which China feels more strongly than Taiwan. We have to understand that. Taiwan for China is China. It is a province of China. and as long as one China was weak, it could not do anything about the independent status of Taiwan, or as long as it was confident that the trend was moving in the right direction.

But this has been ever since Nixon first met with Deng Xiaoping, Deng Xiaoping put Taiwan on the agenda squarely and said this is ours. Taiwan, in addition to the fact that it is now a vibrant functioning democracy coming out of an authoritarian past, in addition to which there is a defense agreement, not a treaty, but a defense agreement with the United States. One more thing is worth paying attention to. Taiwan is home to the largest chip manufacturing plant in the world. And as we all know, we depend on semiconductors, on chips, which run the computers you and I are using right now to talk to each other. So China understands this. It lags in semiconductors. And Taiwan has become the big price for China, but also for the United States.

this is a really, really dangerous scenario. You know, in some conversations that I had, Rudyard during the transition to the Biden administration, there's a small group of us around the world that works on these kinds of issues, frankly. The advice I gave when I was asked was uses your screen. Every time you're thinking about doing something

with respect to China, uses your screen, can this contribute to escalation over Taiwan? And if it can't, don't do it. Because this one is the one that can spin out of control. And that's why I asked the question. You know, that's why I kind of jumped to Taiwan and not human rights, because I think you're right, Janice, this is the big known unknown for the next, I wouldn't even say 15 years. It might be the next five years, whereby China under Xi Jinping has pursued this idea of a kind of 21st century mandate from heaven, a kind of reunification of China's lost territories. They've done that successfully in Hong Kong.

As we discussed in the show last week, they have really pressured India along the border with Tibet. They're engaged in military operations, large-scale resettlements, shoring up that border. And in some ways, Taiwan becomes Xi Jinping's, trifecta. It becomes his entry book into history as a great emperor. And I just, I worry that both the temptations internally for China are so great. And then we now have these external exacerbates in the relationship that have gone from from bad under Trump to surprisingly a further deterioration under Biden. And I just worry that, you know, we're starting to hear, you know, the echoes of the guns of August, you know, to invoke Barbara Tuckman's image from the, you know, the First World War. I feel, am I wrong? Am I being overly paranoid here?

No, no. I think you're right, Roger. And layer over that, the fact that China has been sending a fighter aircraft over the Straits of Taiwan. buzzing Taiwan virtually every day. The United States sent a naval cruiser. So we have some flexing of muscles. And, you know, this happens. Leaders in both capitals always believe they can control the process. Always believe that. That is a very dangerous illusion.

You know, I think for Western listeners, Richard, It's useful to think back for a minute how the United States felt when the Russians put missiles in Cuba. This was the United States backyard. And Cuba bore nothing like for the United States has nothing like the significance that Taiwan has for China. What is so hard here is that Taiwan is literally across the water. It's part of China. It's not even their backyard. It's part of China. There is no chance that China will ever compromise on Taiwan. And it's very, very important for everybody to understand that and start from that place as they make decisions over these next several years.

Well, wise words, we will return to this topic, I'm sure, in the weeks to come, because I think it really is the big geopolitical risk that we all have to contemplate over the next period of time. And technological, Roger, just to add that, you know, there was a production glitch in Taiwan. Well, car manufacturing slowed down in Germany and Canada because the chips that everybody needed were delayed. So just think about the havoc that could be reaped on the global economy if the confrontation over Taiwan escalates. You've been listening to a sample of the Monk members-only podcast. To access the rest of the episode, consider becoming a member. Membership is free and available at www. Wunk Debates.com.

Once you've joined as a member, go to your membership profile to access the rest of this episode and all of our Monk members podcast. Thanks for listening.