The President's Daily Brief - PDB Situation Report | September 7: Hostage Execution Fallout & Escalation in the South China Sea

Episode Date: September 7, 2024

In this episode of The PDB Situation Report: We start with the tragic news of six hostages killed in Gaza by Hamas terrorists. We'll explore what this means for the future of the conflict. Former White House National Security Council official Richard Goldberg will provide insight. Later, tensions in the South China Sea rise again as a Chinese coast guard vessel deliberately rams a Philippine ship. With the U.S. obligated to defend the Philippines, this incident pushes the U.S. and China closer to confrontation. China expert and author Gordon Chang will join us to discuss the broader implications of this escalation. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President’s Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. Email: [e-mail] ☕ Blackout Coffee: https://www.blackoutcoffee.com/PDB 🏅 Patriot Gold: Call 1-888-870-5457 for a free investor guide. 💵 Tax Network USA: To schedule a complimentary consultation, call 1(800)958-1000 or visit https://TNUSA.com/MIKE 🕶️ MySudo: Go to https://MySudo.com/MIKEBAKER & use code 'MIKEBAKER' to get 30 days free on a SudoPro yearly subscription.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the PDB Situation Report. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. We'll begin today with the tragic news of six hostages killed in Gaza by Hamas terrorists. We'll look at the impact that this could have on the conflict's future. Former White House National Security Council official Richard Goldberg will help us navigate those details. Later, tensions in the South China Sea rise yet again as a Chinese Coast Guard ship deliberately rams a Philippine vessel.

Now, with the U.S. obligated to defend the Philippines, this incident could bring the U.S. and China closer to confrontation. China expert and author Gordon Chang will join us to discuss the broader implications of this escalation. But first, our Situation Report Spotlight. Now, it's been one week since the bodies of six hostages were tragically discovered in a tunnel beneath the city of Rafa, executed by Hamas Terrible. just moments before Israeli forces reached them. Among the victims was 23-year-old American Hirsch Goldberg-Poland,

whose parents had been outspoken advocates for those still held captive. According to reports, the IDF found the entrance to the tunnel in a children's play area, disturbingly decorated with images of Mickey Mouse and Snow White. Now, if there were any remaining doubts about Hamas' use of civilian spaces for terrorist activities embedding themselves, their command centers, and weapons within civilian infrastructure, well, you'd like to imagine that this latest evidence would dispel those doubts. But, frankly, the Hamas apologists and useful idiots for the Iranian regime, well, they're a stubborn lot.

Facts and evidence don't tend to get in their way. Now, these killings have sparked significant criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and intensified international calls for a ceasefire deal with Hamas to secure the release of the remaining hostages. Even the White House has weighed in, with President Biden, remember him, expressing frustration, stating that Netanyahu is not doing enough to free the captives. All right, joining me now to examine this situation,

is Richard Goldberg, former White House National Security Council Director under former President Trump, and currently a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Richard, thanks very much for joining us. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Of course, of course. Let's start with the ceasefire negotiations. What's your understanding? Where are they? Is there any negotiations still ongoing? Who are the parties? As Hamas taking part? Where do we stand? I think we've learned a lot since this terrible execution. You just talked about of the six hostages, including that one 23-year-old American citizen, first Goldberg, Poland. What we have learned is, first of all, we weren't close to a deal. That was something the White House was missing.

leading on or deceiving themselves about or somebody was deceiving them, whether that was the Qataris or the Egyptians or the Turks or somebody that they've been talking to as an intermediary in these talks. And number two, that the strategy that has been pursued all these months has failed. And I think that there's finally some self-reflection that there's going to need to be a pressure track and not on Israel. But there has to be actual pressure and brought to bear on Hamas and all of its sponsors that the strategy of just pressuring Israel to concede more and more is just oxygen to Hamas, to Yahyahu, and Gaza to keep going and not do any deal and turn around instead and commit this horrible nightmare of an execution and then start releasing videos of

their final words to the families to just continue to torment the people in Israel. And so I hope we finally start having some honesty where there has been none for the last few months. Israel has continued to do whatever the United States has asked in these negotiations. And Hamas has said no, move the goalposts, basically just messed around because, guess what? Who knew? They're a terrorist organization. They're not a legitimate partner in a business deal. And I think we sort of diluted ourselves, or some people in this country did for all these months with the way the media has framed this,

that there's a real negotiation going on and that we have real intermediaries. The Qataris are sponsors of Hamas. The Hamas leaders live in Qatar. The idea that they're the intermediary, like the Switzerland in this, is outrageous. The Egyptians also hosting these talks. We've found now the IDF has discovered after going into Rafa that southernmost city of Gaza, where these bodies were found, where, by the way, the president and the vice president said not to go for months. Remember, the vice president studied the maps.

These hostages apparently weren't on the maps. She was shown. and what else do the Israelis found? Hundreds of tunnels across the border between Egypt and Hamas in Gaza, allowing Sinwar to restock, resupply. So these are two parties that can't be trusted. Our NATO ally Turkey is hosting one of the Hamas later, just gave a big speech.

Lebanon, Beirut, where we sent hundreds of millions of dollars for their military. We have a senior advisor at the White House flying in and out of Beirut to talk to the government. We have more Hamas operatives there. So let's pull back for a second and say, hey, this month-long strategy of just pressuring Israel to do a deal has backfired. They've executed six hostages. An American has been murdered. Somebody has to be held accountable here. It's not the Israeli.

Yeah, I think we've, I mean, we've talked about it on the PDB in the past. We've noted the tendency for the White House to be optimistic, consistently optimistic about where the negotiations stand. And, you know, to be fair, the Qataris, the Egyptians at times have pushed back and have been much more pessimistic about negotiations. So, you know, we became, I think, somewhat conditioned to hear from the White House. And then, of course, the media was just going along with it, that we were close. We were just close. We just needed to get this one last deal done.

And that doesn't seem to be the case. Now, the Qataris, to your point, right, they've been playing both sides of the defense for a long time. We've got a very significant military presence in Qatar. They've also hosted Hamas leadership there. They've been playing both sides for a very long time. So we shouldn't be surprised by that. With your understanding of this, at this stage of the game, how many hostages, I know this is almost impossible to answer,

but from your perspective and from what you've been hearing and talking to experts about, how many hostages does it appear to be left alive, do appear to be left alive? The last estimate that I got, and this has been a few weeks now, because I don't think that they've released any sort of, you know, back of the envelope, intelligence estimate, was that roughly two-thirds, maybe a half of the hostages that we know are still in Gaza are likely still alive. If that number is going down, we don't know. Obviously, there are still operations going on. The Israelis before this tragedy had found a hostage alive in a tunnel, a Bedouin. a Muslim, Israeli, who was brought out and returned home to great celebration. It was a great victory. And one wonders if part of the equation here from Sinwar was to douse that feeling of, you know,

taking a hostage out of Gaza, rescuing a hostage that Hamas is, in fact, up against the wall here in the 11th hour, and that to turn the tables in psychological warfare executing the hostages. But indeed, you know, there are people there. The Israelis, any given point, have estimated that some are potentially around Sinwar himself to keep him safe in the tunnels. Other Hamas folks as well. We've noticed a trend over the last few months. If somebody's being kept above ground, the Israelis have sort of figured it out. You've seen rescue operations attempted.

You've seen reports about that. when they're in the tunnels, we've had less information flow until either they find somebody, they get actionable intelligence and they go in very quickly, or they stumble upon something they didn't know was there, like the execution of these six hostages. Yeah. Yeah, nothing says, you know, brave leadership, like surrounding yourself with with hostages to keep your own self alive. I guess when you talk about the White House and you mentioned, you know, hoping for a changing tactic. How realistic is that, given that we have a couple of months, right, before the election,

given that there's been a great deal of pressure on the White House, it appears, to placate the Arab American vote by not getting too far out publicly in support of Israel. So do you actually anticipate there could be a change based on this incident with the six hostages, or do you think we're just getting more of the same? And that's just if the Democrats win in November, that we're just going to stay the course. My hope is that we're going to see a change. I mean, if you are a White House official

and you've met with these family members for all these months, including the American family member, who just spoke at the DNC, at your DNC, and their son was executed, and you were not. changing your strategy after that. I don't know what's, you know, something's wrong with you at that point. So I think there has to be. Well, but I mean, yeah, I, I mean, I take your point. I think you're correct. I think I agree with you. But at the same time, I'm much perhaps less optimistic that could possibly

happen. I think there's too much political pressure on the White House at this stage for them to come out and say, I mean, look, Biden already has said he doesn't feel, and this was after the execution of these six, he's already said that he doesn't feel Netanyahu is doing enough to appease or to find a ceasefire option. That's right. I mean, the inclination coming out of the incident before they had decided what their posture was was just to be on autopilot. His autopilot response to the media is blame Israel, more pressure on Netanyahu, et cetera. I think you're starting to see some leaks come out and some indications that once he met with his national security council and potentially asked for additional options of pressure that things might be on the table.

So they've unsealed indictments against Hamas leaders that were apparently filed under seal back in February. Why we took this many months to unseal the indictments, the timing of the unsealing is obviously right after Hirsch, Goldberg, Poland has been executed an American citizen, the blowback that he's going to get on a failed strategy there. Is that all there is here? Is it just this, you know, let's unseal a document and see if that buys us some positive media coverage to show we've done something, even though it's relatively symbiolence. it's relatively symbolic if it just ends there. Is there going to be some massive reward issued for killer capture of Sinwar and Gaza, of other Hamas leaders that have been indicted? Is there going to be some sort of threat issue to all these countries you talked about, the Qataris, the Egyptians, the Turks?

We're going to have to wait and see. If none of that materializes, then you're right. They're just repackaging everything they have already been doubling down on, which is a failed strategy. I do, though, wonder if this rosy picture they were painting was intended to get them through the DNC was political in nature to try to avoid disunity and disruption to show that all the matters is putting pressure on Israel, ceasefire, they're through the DNC. They have a massive potential backlash now, a talking point that they are the ones on their watch

that allowed an American captivity to be murdered while they put pressure on Israel. Are we going to start seeing some pivoting here? While they don't completely move away from this talking point for that fringe left movement to say, oh, no, a ceasefire is what we need, but they actually start unveiling some pressure tactics against Hamas and its allies, finally, after 11 months, to be able to retort any attacks that come at them for doing nothing while Hamas murders Americans. Yeah, it's hard to, it's hard to see when you're looking at the options. It's hard to see what they could be doing.

Look, the indictments, and then they included some already dead, you know, members of Hamas leadership in their indictments. and I'm not quite sure how it possibly took almost a year to pull that together. It's an interesting point you make regarding the DNC and looking to just get beyond that to avoid what chaos could have developed there. But look, we've got, you know, the protests are back on the campuses, right? And, you know, that's a fairly powerful visual image, I think, for the campaign team of Harris. And I do think there's so much concern over the possibility of losing Arab American votes.

the youth vote, that I just have a hard time seeing them pivot from this, at least publicly, right? So, and to be fair, you know, they, they have continued to support Israel off the radar, as, as they should. But in terms of the actions that you could actually take against Hamas, that would be meaningful, above and beyond what the IDF is already doing in terms of tracking down leadership degrading their military capabilities on the ground. What have we got? We have two major levers, in my view. One is our strategic communications, which is important. I don't think we should understate the importance. When the President of the United States comes out, when the Vice President of the United States comes out, or any other senior leader,

and says it's Israel's fault, Israel needs to do more, we're going to lean on Israel, ceasefire now, ceasefire is all we have to do. You know, Iran might have to. tomorrow, oh, we need a ceasefire. Oh, Hezbollah is firing missiles. We need a ceasefire. When you talk like that, Hamas hears, ooh, Israel might surrender soon. Right. So you actually do need to get your strategic communications under control and change it in a fundamental way here so that Iran, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Hamas, Sinwar, all they hear is whatever Israel needs, you got it. We're coming after you. You're going to turn the tables. We're not playing around anymore. You've murdered an American in captivity. The second piece that we have unique capabilities on are the pressure points on those that Hamas depends on.

We can do something to Qatar. We can do something to Egypt. We can do something to Lebanon. We can do something to Turkey economically, politically, diplomatically, maybe even beyond that. We choose not to at this point. We have many levers. And there is an escalation ladder in those levers in each of those countries. It doesn't have to be extreme.

It can be something like, you know, Al Jazeera found a lot of terrorists on the battlefield in Gaza who work for Al Jazeera. Maybe we should investigate them out of DOJ. Maybe we should open a material support for terrorism investigation of Al Jazeera. Maybe we should put them on the Farah list finally, you know, to say they're a foreign agent of Qatar. They're not just some independent news agency. Maybe we look at some assets there. Maybe the Turks have a couple of ministers who've been involved in helping Hamas and maybe they wouldn't like sanctions on them. because the last time Donald Trump with sanctions on a couple of Turkish ministers,

the lira collapsed overnight and we got Pastor Brunson out. Maybe the Egyptians like the military assistance they get from Washington. So the list goes on. Yeah, it's interesting. And I want to pick this up when we come back from break, but that list of countries, Iran wasn't in there. And I want to bring Iran up here. But Richard, if you'd stay right there, we need to take a quick break.

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Joining me once again is former National Security Council official Richard Goldberg. Richard, we were talking just before the break about steps that the U.S. administration could take to form a sort of a more serious front against Hamas, rather than just berating Israel on a regular basis over their inability to push for a ceasefire. You listed a number of countries, Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, Lebanon. Let's talk about Iran. I will hold to the theory that nothing really changes in the region. You never get short, mid, long-term, lasting peace, right?

Maybe you get a ceasefire, that's fine, but you're basically just putting lipstick on a pig. You never get that long-term stability or peace, as long as the Iranian regime and the IRGC remain in control, or at least in their current form where their objective and the objective of their proxies is the destruction of Israel. Am I wrong on that? No, I think that that's right. And I point out the other countries first because I think people don't think about them

and they don't think about our leverage there and they need to be part of the equation. And I think that maybe I'm, you know, the one who just assumes the baseline is, of course, there should be pressure on Iran. Unfortunately, that's not the baseline for this administration. And so you're right to bring it up.

This is the top of the food chain here for this entire seven front war that's been waged for almost 11 months, Iran is the subsidizer, is the chief sponsor, the terror organizer, director, not just for Hamas, but for Hezbollah, for the Houthis, for the militias in Iraq and Syria, for the cells that we're seeing now that the IDF is taking on in the West Bank in Judea and Samaria, massive terror infrastructure that's been built there, suicide bombers in factories, car bombs waiting to go off that you're seeing a major battle unfolding there. So if we do not actually clamp down on the revenues and resources available to the Islamic Republic of Iran, all these organizations have increased budgets. One other thing, if you don't think that Iran is somehow coordinating a lot of this choreography behind the scenes and the timing of when would Hamas say yes or no, when should Hezbollah escalate on the northern border, why is Hezbollah deciding to threaten here and say that they'll de-escalate? if there is a ceasefire in Gaza. Iran is threatening a massive missile attack right now against Israel. We've now put two carrier strike groups on station for an indefinite amount of time. Our force posture is

insane at the moment when you think about the strategic threats. We face globally from China and Russia. And now we have two carrier strike groups in the Middle East waiting for Godot. While there is no ceasefire in Gaza, while the Houthis rain missiles still down on the Red Sea. Imagine this, two carrier strike groups and you can't stop missiles hitting tankers in the Red Sea and you don't hold anybody accountable for it. So the entire region is on fire and who is calling all the shots, all this playbook, it's Iran. And amazingly, they avoid hyper-escalation. They don't actually launch the missiles yet. They haven't done anything to win a massive response to give the political justification for

Israel or even the United States, though I think that would never happen under this administration to respond against Iran itself. But they don't allow for full de-escalation. They keep Israel squeezed. They keep us squeezed. How long are we going to keep two carrier strike groups in the Middle East? That is not sustainable on a long-term basis. I know.

No, it definitely is. I mean, when you look at the South China Sea, and we don't have infinite resources. So if you're redeploying assets from one location, obviously you're lessening your posture in another. So let's look at the question of Iran and their potential retaliation. Look after that operation that took out Ishmael-Hanje in Tehran, right? The Iranian regime, they were very clear we were going to retaliate against Israel. That was their stated decision.

They haven't. And obviously there's been back and forth between Chazbollah and Israel, but that was related to potentially another operation that took out a Chazbullah leader. So why not? Why hasn't Iran, in your opinion, why haven't they retaliated at this point? I think it is possible that a second carrier strike group and F-22s and whatnot and some statements from the president have made them a little bit gun-shy. I think more likely the strong statements from Israel saying that they would retaliate in a much more escalatory way inside Iran that they did back in April. And the United States basically indicating they're okay with that.

I don't think anybody thinks the United States is going to use the two carrier strike groups against Iran. If anything, they'll be used as additional missile defense for whatever comes out of Iran. But I do think there's a question of whether the Biden administration pulls Israel back from escalation. And if Iran perceives that that won't happen and that there will be support from the U.S. for escalation inside of Iran and against Hezbole at the same time in Lebanon, maybe Iran likes the dynamic where they're threatening. They're keeping us at bay. They're keeping Israel at bay. Look, United Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Airlines, they're not flying to Israel right now. The Europeans are flying.

El Al is flying out of Israel. American carriers are shut down. Why is that? Iran loves that. The economic toll that just the waiting game is carrying on Israel. So they don't get to de-escalate. They keep getting squeezed the rockets and missiles, the drones keep coming down from Lebanon. The Houthis keep firing at the Red Sea.

And we're there, the United States, saying to Iran, what's it going to take to de-escalate? Let's do a new nuclear deal. you know, what, let's talk to us. What can we give you? So the posture is completely accommodationist. I'll let me. What's one last point? You talked about the South China Sea.

We talked about China. We talked about two carrier strike groups. I think there's one other country to throw into this. I know we start tactically in Gaza, but I'm going to zoom back out strategically and get all the way to Beijing. I think we should target Beijing right now as one of the countries to put pressure on. Why? China imports all the Iranian oil.

We could target state-owned enterprise. and tell the Chinese the gloves are coming off unless you shut down your imports of oil and force all these actors that you've been cozying up to remember they have been cozying up to Hamas these last few months of all people you can go shut this down if you don't want the pain that we're going to bring upon you and so that would be an interesting additional play here to put pressure on Iran put pressure on the rest of the access cut off Iran's resources pressure China to act as a more responsible party and actually bring some pressure on the Chinese as well to boot, which might be a good thing. Yeah. How big a difference do you see the approach from a Harris administration and a Trump

administration? We don't normally delve into politics here on the PDB, but when we're talking about national security issues, we can't help but deal with the fact that we've got a presidential election coming up in November. Are there stark contrasts in your mind as to how the Harris administration would deal with Israel? I mean, Harris has already said, she was planning on doing a top-down review of the U.S. relationship with Israel. So talk to me about that. Where do you see the differences between those two administrations? It's night and day.

I mean, it's a completely different world. You have in a future Harris administration a commitment to keep trying to negotiate a new nuclear deal with Iran. That is the current policy. It's her policy. It's her national security advisors policy, Phil Gordon, who worked on the first Iran nuclear deal. That's where they will be. will remain in accommodationist policy towards Iran and its axis. On the flip side, the Iranians are trying to assassinate Donald Trump right now.

Like, actually, it's crazy. We see it here and talking. We talked about last time I was on the show, I think, I mean, it's unbelievable. They know what's coming for them if Donald Trump comes back, maximum pressure, rollback throughout the region, attempt to actually restore deterrence, not just talk about it. That's what's in store there. And then for Israel, you also have night and day. It unfortunately sometimes gets granular and tactical, even though it has strategic implications of how we treat

certain policies. But what are we going to do with UN agencies that support Hamas and hurt Israel? Trump administration cut off those agencies from funding. The Biden-Harris administration restarted that, and that will continue under Harris. What are you going to do with the Palestinian Authority, which, by the way, compared to Hamas, is supposed to be moderate, but they sponsor terrorism against Israel every day. you're going to have the same sort of accommodation as policy there under Harris, instead of getting tough with them to enforce our laws, which is to cut off the money they give to subsidized terrorism under the Trump administration. So just how we talk about things, how we project towards our allies, towards our enemies,

and then the actual policies of squeezing our enemies and supporting our allies, I think are 180, depending on who's in the White House next year. Okay. We're going to finish up with an impossible question, but I want to get your prediction. Before the November election, do you imagine we get a ceasefire deal in Gaza? Hard to imagine at the moment. However, if Israel continues to make military progress to further collapse Hamas, which I think is actually weakened more than we know,

I think Sinwar is looking at Hail Mary's at this point, given the oxygen being cut off from Israel taking control of that Egyptian border and continuing operations inside Gaza now in the West Bank. If we bring down the hammer on all of these sponsors, Iran, the Qatar, Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon, if we really show maximum support for Israel in our strategic communications, it could happen. It could happen. Interesting. Yeah, and if anybody wanted further evidence that Hamas is not an independent organization, but yet they're basically run by Iran, there are reports coming out now that Yaya

Sinwar had been formulating plans to take himself and Hamas leadership, remaining Hamas leadership, along with remaining hostages to Iran for safekeeping. So there you go. There's that. Richard Goldberg, former National Security Council official, senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Listen, thank you very much for all your time, for your insight, your expertise, and hopefully you'll come back.

Happy to. Thank you. All right, coming up, tensions. We got tensions all over the globe. Look at this. Good God. Everybody just chill out. We've got tensions in the South China Sea,

and they escalate as a Chinese Coast Guard vessel deliberately rams a Philippine ship, raising the stakes for a potential U.S.-China confrontation under the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty. Now, joining us to unpack the latest developments in that is our good friend Gordon Chang. He's the author of the coming collapse of China. Look, if you're tired of the same old coffee from those mega corporations that are pushing their agendas, well, listen up.

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Restrictions apply. Welcome back to the PDB situation report. All right, turning now to the South China Sea, where a new incident on the high seas is heightening the risk of a confrontation between the U.S. and China. A Chinese Coast Guard vessel deliberately and without provocation ran the Philippine Coast Guard ship, escalating tensions in the region. Now, this collision is just the latest in a series of confrontations near the contestant Sabina Sholl, and that's despite an agreement between China and the Philippines in early July to de-escalate tensions. However, conflicting interpretations of that agreement have only led to more dangerous encounters. Now, what makes this situation particularly alarming is the U.S.'s commitment under what's known as the 1951

Mutual Defense Treaty, which obligates America to defend the Philippines if its vessels are attacked anywhere in the South China Sea. U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller responded to the incident saying, quote, The United States stands with its ally, the Philippines, and condemns the day. dangerous and escalatory actions by the People's Republic of China against lawful Philippine maritime operations." End quote. Well, there you have it.

A harshly worded statement from the State Department, that should do it. We're now joined by a good friend Gordon Chang, author of the coming collapse of China, and China is going to war. You know, you can follow him on X, that's formerly known as Twitter, at Gordon G. Chang. Gordon, thank you, as always, for joining us here on the Situation Report. Let's jump right into this. Why the provocation, what is the Chinese regime up to? Why take these risks in provoking incidents with the Philippines?

Well, China claims as blue national soil, in other words, as its territory, about 85% of the South China Sea. They've got official maps now have 10 dashes. It's called the cow's tongue because the shape looks like that. And essentially, this is a claim which has been invalidated. In 2016, in an arbitration case in the Hague, Philippines versus China, the arbitral panel came down and said that China's sea claims had no basis at all. But that doesn't matter. So what China is doing is it's trying to drive the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia,

out of their exclusive economic zones, which gets a little bit technical. But the point is, these clashes are occurring very close to the main Philippine islands and very, very far away from China. Yeah, now, they must know, right? The Chinese regime, they understand that there's this treaty from 1951, requiring or calling for the U.S. to step in and defend the Philippines. Does Xi Jinping, he just doesn't care? He doesn't believe that will actually engage in any support based on the treaty? the treaty?

That's a great question. And the answer is I guess he doesn't think we will. There have been now 12 warnings from the Biden State Department that we are prepared to use force under the 51 treaty. And the president himself on three occasions, two of them recently, has said the same thing orally. He said it in October of last year and in this April. And apparently it's not having much of an effect on China.

You know, this raises all sorts of questions about what China is. doing. There are a lot of provocative activities with regard to Taiwan, both on land and both on air and sea. But China is, I think, just huffing and puffing because the Chinese military, you know, looks Taiwan as too hard a target. So what I think they're doing is they're picking on what they believe is a weakling. And apparently they don't think that the Biden administration will do anything about it. So these provocations have gotten worse, especially since June 17th, with that terrible incident as nearby second Thomas Scholl. And so I think that this will get worse until something happens. By the way, China has moved two tugboats to Sabina Shoal vicinity, and they are probably

going to try to tow away a Philippine ship that is moored in that area and in order to bolster China's claims to what is clearly not theirs. Now, I guess that leads me to my next question, which Okay, I get it. They're bullying other nations in a region that they imagine to be all of theirs, right? That belongs to them from their perspective, from the Chinese regime's perspective. To what end, in practical terms? Are they looking to expand and create another military facility on Sabina Shoal? Is that what it's all about, just claiming turf? Or is it more of a declaration of this is ours, stay out of our turf? Yeah, we don't know what their intent is, but the point is that the tactics that they're employing are doing them more harm than they are harming the Philippines and the United States. Just a sort of step back.

You know, one can say that Putin's attack on Ukraine was misguided, but you could see what he was trying to do. It was clear. He was trying to annex either all or part of Ukraine. And the tactics that he had employed were actually had a possibility of something. In matter of fact, almost everybody in the world thought they would succeed in three or four days. What Xi Jinping is doing, however, he's employing tactics that are mystifying. And they're mystifying because they are belligerent. And so, therefore, they're convincing countries in the region to ban together to cooperate against China.

But there are not so provocative or so aggressive as to actually seize these features in the South China Sea. So there's a disconnect here between what they're doing and what they're accomplishing. Because so far, all they've done is they've managed to rile up the Philippines, drive it much closer to the U.S., get Japan hysterical about what's going on. And we're seeing this across the region, that right now the U.S. is in a stronger position because of what China has been doing. Yeah, that's really interesting that you bring up Ukraine as part of that answer, because you would think, I think, I've always been under the impression that the Chinese regime, Xi Jinping, they tend to read the table pretty well, right? They tend to process information and then put it into a strategic plan that benefits them.

They're always doing everything in their own best interest anyway. You would have thought that they would have spent some time studying what's happening in Ukraine, the fact that it actually grew NATO, strengthened NATO. And they could have just looked at the region and thought to themselves the same is likely to happen here, right? It's not a dissimilar case. So are you saying that, or do you think that they just got this wrong, that they misinterpreted what would happen and what's actually happening is a strengthening of alliances in the area

in response to China's aggressions? Yeah. You know, in the first days of the Ukraine war, people were saying that China was going to have second thoughts about Taiwan because they saw the failure of the Russian armies to accomplish their goals in the time frame that they had established. I think China took away some different lessons, ones which were, to me, somewhat ominous. And the reason is that they saw that, yes, the Biden administration and the EU started to impose sanctions on Russia, but they saw that those sanctions were not nearly as effective as they

could have been, considering how powerful the EU and the EU and the EU. and the United States are. So I think that they felt there was a failure of political will. And I think that what they were then saying is, well, you know, nobody is going to dare to put sanctions on us because we're China and we're magnificent and we're going to own the 21st century and the rest of the rest of time. Maybe that's what they were thinking. And so they thought they could get away with a lot.

Also, we were starting to see China do some things which are really very disturbing. So when we put this all together, I think China probably took away certain things out of the Ukraine war that we didn't want them to learn. But on the other hand, as I said, Xi Jinping has just not been taking advantage of the situation as he could have. Yeah, I guess I'm a little confused because I would have thought that the message had, of Ukraine was fairly clear. Now, obviously there have been some, you know, occasional breaks, disagreements within the alliance, and particularly NATO and certainly within the EU, over the direction and the level of support. But it's been fairly consistent over the period of time, even with, you know, those slight ups and downs. So I'm surprised that, you know, they would take

away in China something other than, you know, our actions here, our belligerent actions, are likely to drive a stronger alliance than to weaken it. But, Mike, I guess at the end of, yeah. You're thinking like a rational person. And, of course, as America. That's a brand, that's a first. That's a first, Gordon. No one's ever accused me of that before. Well, we are, you raise a really critical point, that is, you know, we look at the,

we Americans tend to look at the world, in a one way. And the Chinese don't. The Chinese see things, I think, very differently than we perceive them. And that is a mismatch that certainly it hurts China because they are not getting what they thought they would, as you know, you point out. But it also, it makes it more difficult for us to effectively oppose them because we don't understand what deters them and we don't understand a lot of other things about the way they view the region. Do you think that this is a difficult question to answer, and I probably shouldn't even bring it up, but in relation to this 1951 treaty, and I guess we could extrapolate, we could actually

throw that out to Taiwan as well. Do you see a scenario where U.S. administration, the current one, whatever happens to be the next one, where they would actually get heavily engaged in a direct conflict with China in support of a treaty such as the 51 treaty? I think that there is a really high possibility of that. And that is a complex question because when Biden was vice president, the foreign policies are, he allowed China to effectively control Scarborough Scholl. And there's a long history there which is not very flattering to Biden's judgments,

ultimately President Obama's judgments. So I think what China did was it looked at Biden's failure at Scarborough Scholl and said, oh, he's going to fail in Sabina Shoal or Second Thomas Scholl. What China doesn't understand, I think, is that, yes, they can push the United States around because of various reasons, but they're going to push too far. And this is really, you know, just to give you an example of this mentality, in September of 1939, Hitler thought that Britain and France were not going to do anything if he invaded Poland. And Britain and France had said they were very clear and they were very public.

We will go to war if you invade Poland. Nobody in Berlin believe them. Nobody in Berlin believe them because Britain and France caved in 1936 at the remilitarization of the Rhineland. They did nothing in 1938 with the absorption of Austria. They failed on the Munich Treaty. They didn't enforce that. So essentially what happened is Hitler invades Poland, Britain and France declare war, and Hitler turns to Rubentrop or Ribbentroff turns to Hitler and says,

what are we going to do now? Because they just did not expect it. This is aggressors pushing too far. This is exactly what's going to happen with Siegeen-Pinginging for very, reasons. And whoever is president, whether it's Biden, Harris, or Trump, they're going to push too far and we're going to end up in a war. Well, on that cheery note, Gordon, if you'll stay right there, as you may know, we have some of the finest sponsors in the land and we need to take a quick break. And then we'll be back with Gordon Chang right after that. You know, every day we hear more about

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It must provide a recent consumer mobile bill in the name of the person who gave me the deal. Additional terms, conditions, and restrictions apply. Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. Joining me once again is Gordon Chang, author of China, is going to war. Now you can follow him on X at Gordon G. Chang. Gordon, we finished up the first segment on the cheery note that war may be looming somewhere off on the horizon with China. How long do you think Xi Jinping has left in office? Well, in Xi Jinping's mind, he's there for the rest of his life.

I actually don't think it's going to be that long. This is involved, but basically he's got and he's promoting an economic model that is unsustainable and will fail. If the economy fails, the Communist Party fails. I think Xi Jinping is eventually going to see that he has a choice. One of them is to let the economy fail and for the Chinese people to throw the Communist Party out of power, which is completely unacceptable to him, or he can go to war. And I think that he will choose the war option, even if it means that there's not very much chance of success for China. And it's not that Xi Jinping is trying to rally the Chinese people. I think that Xi Jinping is going to try to create military misadventure abroad

so that senior Communist Party leaders cannot depose him. So I think this is a Communist Party power play. But the end result is whatever happens, it is that Xi Jinping will see it in his interest that he's got a much better chance of staying in power if he creates a warsome place. Okay. I mean, it appears, just from a bystander looking in to China, it appears that he's done a remarkable job of cementing his power within China over the past many years. So is there, from your perspective, is there dissent within the party? Is there any pushback to his authority? Yeah, there are pushbacks. And so far he's been able to maintain power. You got to remember, there's a bigger story here.

When he became General Secretary in 2012, he inherited a consensual political system, which meant that no Chinese leader got too much credit or too much blame because every decision of consequence was shared among all the factions in the Communist Party. Now, Xi Jinping just took power from everybody, which means it's great if you're in 2017 and you're Xi Jinping and everything is going China's way

because you're getting all the credit. But it ain't so great if it's 2024 and things are falling apart and people start to blame you. The other thing that Xi Jinping did was he took a political system where if you lost a political struggle, it was no big deal because you got a nice house in Beijing. You know, even though you were retired, you were let off. Xi Jinping changed that by jailing his opponents and stripping them of assets. So this is Xi Jinping's mentality. He knows he's got near total accountability.

He knows if he loses he's going to lose everything, and so will his relatives. So that means he's got a very low threshold of risk, which means that this guy can take us by surprise. He can do things which are very low probability, but he believes it's a much higher probability than letting things take their course. So this is extraordinarily dangerous for us because we're not looking at this from his perspective. Yes, it looks like he's consolidated power, but no. There's a lot of pushback right now. Okay.

And what about, I don't want to get too far into a conversation about the Chinese economy, but talk to me sort of top line about the current state of the economy in China? It's not growing at the 4.7% pace that they claim for the second quarter of this year. It's probably around zero, could even be contracting. The big story, though, is China's having its 2008 downturn now. They deferred it by massive stimulus program. in 2008, and now they're starting to have the payback debt, and their economy is not growing fast enough to create the output to pay back debt.

And Xi Jinping has doubled down on a model, an economic model that has no chance of working in the long run. So that's the reason why there are so many geopolitical consequences from the problems in the Chinese economy. Explain that if you could. You double down on it. No chance of succeeding. Talk to me about that if you could.

Yeah. Every economist observer, oh, virtually everyone in the world says that China has got to stimulate consumerism. That consumerism is the only sustainable path for China. Xi Jinping doesn't want to do that for various reasons. So he has doubled down on manufacturing and infrastructure. This is creating overcapacity, which means that China's, has got to export its way out of this crisis, which means he's put his fate in our hands,

the hands of the European Union and the global South. Now, we are not going to allow China, and other countries are not going to allow China to decimate their industries by letting China be the world's only manufacturing power. So this is unsustainable. Yeah, he can keep it going for a little while longer, but no, he will not be able to develop the sustainable economy. So his only way out, I believe, is conflict. Okay. Well, we are cheering people up all over the globe right now with this conversation. Speaking of the conflict, will it be, in your mind, will it be centered on Taiwan?

Because obviously this, any time he was talking about China lately, right? It's always about, well, what's the timeline for the move on Taiwan? But where do you think that conflict will be based or focused? Yeah, I do not think that China will start hostilities by an invasion of the main island of Taiwan. It is too difficult. It is beyond the capabilities of China. China has never engaged in a combined airland sea operation, and this would be extremely

hard. Also, to do this, Xi Jinping would have to give some flag officer almost total control of the Chinese military, making that general or admiral the most powerful figure in China. and it would be extremely, extremely unpopular with the Chinese people. Because although the people in Taiwan think that they are Taiwanese, not Chinese, people in China, because of indoctrination, believe that they're Chinese. And Chinese believe that, quote, Chinese should not kill other Chinese.

So killing a lot of Taiwanese is going to be really, really unpopular. China right now is more casualty averse than we are, which is a long story. I can go through it if you're ever interested. But the point is they're not going to do something which would involve a lot of Chinese casualties. That's why I think they're picking on the Philippines right now, because they think that they can get a quick win. Although it's not going to be enormously popular with the Chinese people who don't want war, it will be a win that will see Jinping will be able to cement his hold on power

and to be able to quiet his critics at the top of the Communist Party. But are you implying a military takeover of the Philippines? Well, they'll want to grab some reef or some shoal or some islet. The problem here is you're going to have war. That war will spread. It'll spread to Taiwan. So Taiwan doesn't get a pre-pass out of this. I think it embroils most of the region.

But as I said, China is not going to start hostilities by an issue. invasion of the main island of Taiwan. China will do something, you know, they'll do something sort of very, not very important. They might grab little Taiwan islands, which are about two and a half, three miles from the coast of China. They could do that. But they're not, you know, people are not going to be terribly impressed if they do that, and they're going to cause more problems for themselves, which is the reason why, although those islands are not militarily defensible, China hasn't grabbed them because it doesn't make sense. And even Xi Jinping can see that.

But Xi Jinping can do things creating conflict, Philippines, Japan, wherever that spreads throughout the region. And Taiwan does become involved. It's interesting what you said about the Chinese regime being casualty averse, because even more so than the U.S. because in the U.S. trying to try to plan out any type of operation, you know, the first point of conversation is, well, how do we make this, you know, zero risk? So it's hard to imagine that there's another nation out there that's even more risk-averse

when it comes to, you know, the blowback or the casualties from an operation of any sort militarily. It's a very interesting statement on your part. Let me give you an example. June 2020, China launches a surprise attack against Indian forces in Gawon, which is in the Himalayas. India immediately reported that they had 20 killed in action that night. China said nothing. In February of the following year, China admitted four casualties where India and Russia said China had 45 killed that evening. So imagine between June and February, they said nothing.

And then when they said something, they said something which was clearly not right. You know, casualty adverse as we are, we're not like that. And that shows you the mentality of the Chinese leadership, how afraid they are about talking about their own killed in front of their own people. They just won't do it. How this may be, again, one of those questions is difficult to answer in a short period of time, but you're not asking easy questions like. I know, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, you know, I just, but I am trying to keep my use of big words down to a minimum. So inside China, how widespread is information? How aware are people? Not in Beijing or Shanghai, but I mean, spread around the country. How aware are they of what's happening outside of

China? That's a great question. And basically, I can boil it down to this. They often don't know about things because the great firewall, as is called, is very effective. But, They know a lot about what's happening inside China because Chinese people are very connected with all sorts of social media platforms. And there's the rumor mill. So they know a lot about that. When they hear stuff about what's going on in the outside world, the Communist Party does its damnedest to try to put its spin on it.

Now, there's a lot of cynicism, especially right now for various reasons. So, yes, they are able to prevent the Chinese people from knowing about stuff, but it's not that effective when you step back and think about what the Chinese people are actually thinking. And right now, the party has very little ways of actually influencing the Chinese people in the way that the party wants. They can coerce them, they can keep them quiet, they can keep them intimidated and afraid, and that we know. But every once in a while, the Chinese people explode as they exploded in about two years ago with a series of extraordinary protests starting in October 2022 and lasting into the early months of 2023. People just couldn't take it anymore.

So it is a volatile situation inside the country. Okay. We've got a lot more to talk about, Gordon, but I'm afraid that we're basically, we've run our course. We're out of time. but I'd love for you to come back and we could talk about the Chinese regime's efforts to influence or just create chaos ahead of the upcoming U.S. November elections. There's a lot there to unpack. And, you know, so when I call you again, Gordon, what I'm asking is please pick up the phone and say yes.

Of course you don't like. Nice. That's what I was looking for. I have a firm commitment. I'm going to have you write that down and send me a note. Gordon Chang, author of China is going to war. As mentioned, you can follow him on X. That's at Gordon G. Chang.

Gordon, again, thank you very much, man. Appreciate you. Well, all right. That's all the time we have for the PDB situation report. I don't look so sad. Come on. We'll be back. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out at pdb at thefirsttv.com.

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