The Ricochet Podcast - Face-Saving Megalomaniacs

Episode Date: August 5, 2022

With all the sound and fury surrounding Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan, we think it’s timely to hear from an expert on the Indo-Pacific to see if it signifies much. Misha Auslin, host of The Pacific Century, joins to do just that. He identifies the silver lining in the whole affair; elucidates how China’s strategy has frozen us from stating our interests; points to the return of the engagement... Source

Usually I do a podcast with these guys named Rob and Peter. I have a dream this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. We've had high-level visits, senators in the spring, a bipartisan way, and we will not allow them to isolate Taiwan. I've said it before and I'll say it again, democracy simply doesn't work. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Peter Robinson and Rob Long, neither of which are here. Standing in is Stephen Hayward and Lucretia.

I'm James Lileks, and we're going to be talking to Misha Ausland about China. So let's have ourselves a podcast. I can hear you! Welcome, everybody, to the Ricochet Podcast, number 604. Join us, whydon'tyouatricochet.com. What's that, you may ask? Well, go there and find out. Why don't you at ricochet.com? What's that? You may ask. Well, go there and find out.

You will think, where was this years ago? Well, it's always been there waiting for you to discover a place where the conversation is civil, sane, center right. Not so much in other issues and really so on some. I mean, in other words, it's the place you've been looking for. Twitter? Nah. Facebook? Forget about it.

The community you want is waiting for you with Ricochet. I'm James Lylex, and I've been happy to be with Ricochet since almost the very early days. Peter and Rob, the founders, aren't here because it's August. You know, silly season. They're out gallivanting about, peregrinating. Who knows? We'll have tales to come. But, but, but, but, but, who do we got this week? We've got Stephen Hayward, and we have Lucretia back again. So welcome. Welcome back to both of you.

Stephen, this is your I don't know how many times you've said in Lucretia, this is your second. So obviously, as the Beatles said at the end of their career, you passed the audition. How are you all doing? How are you all doing on this fine August day? Very well. Thank you, James. And it's lovely to be here again. I'm just very humbled that I've been invited back and passed the audition. Well, you know, Stephen's here, so obviously the bar isn't exactly set that high. But, Stephen, last time we were talking to you, you were doing some sort of Tudor Lord thing in a bar with a tankard of ale, and were, you were off in Bonnie, Scotland. Now you're back. And as we said before, based on your very transitory experience in that country,

could you give us a complete and total and, and utterly authoritative rundown on how you think England is doing these days? And, oh, you know, 45 seconds ago. Yeah. I actually, I'm still in London tonight. I was up in Scotland a week ago. Yeah. It's I'm in London for a couple more days. I have no idea. The race for succeeding Boris Johnson

has sort of cooled off for a bit. Now they've winded it down to the final two, Liz Truss and Rushi Sunak. I think that's his name. And it now goes to a vote early next month of the party members, which is dues-paying members

of the Tory party. And they will actually make the final decision. That number is only like 80 or 90,000 people. You can be a dues-paying member of the party and participate in the vote, and that's how they do it. Unusual way they do things here.

And I think then the members of the House have to ratify the choice, but that's what it comes down to. And right now I think Liz Truss is thought to have the upper hand, but we'll see. Are we likely to get somebody in the Thatcherian mode, or are we getting somebody who's in the new sort of, I don't know if you want to call it the cool Britannia Tory part, but somebody with a spine, somebody who's wobbly on issues such as the, because I know that England is having, like America,

is having a whole bunch of problems with energy prices and the rest of it. Are they likely to confront these things uh going forward and have the country behind them or are they going to limp along in a bifurcated state as one fears the united states will for some time yeah i'm not very impressed with either one of the two finalists i've taken in a couple of tv debates during my long sojourn over here uh there is some talk of trying to dial back their green energy nonsense, their net zero 2050 pledge. So for the time being, though, they still have on the books a policy to get rid of all gas-powered heating and stoves in homes over the next 15, 20 years. That will require people to spend thousands of dollars in their homes to put in heat pumps and other crazy alternative things.

And the price of gas is soaring like it is because of Ukraine and other things. And so very gingerly, the candidates say, well, we might have to dial that back. We might have to delay it a bit. None of them are coming out boldly and saying, this is nuts. We should get rid of it and start over and actually use energy that works. Look, Richard, here in America, there's a lot of people who say the same thing, that we have to get rid of gas. As a matter of fact, I believe some states have actually mandated that new construction cannot use it. I have a gas stove, and I got it because I was certain that coming down the pike, they were going to forbid the things and force me to go to all electrical. Now, when you're cooking, gas, cooking with gas, as the phrase says, now you are,

is great for incremental control electricity. I hate. And the idea that my entire house would be powered by electricity. The idea, I mean, the static electricity alone, it would generate. I think people are going to be electrocuting house pets and giving their

small children, you know, frizzy hair when they touch them, but it used to be, and this is interesting. If you look back at the ads in the sixties, there used to be this little medallion that they could put on people's homes. The homes were all electrical, total electricity, and it would show this sort of family standing there, this idealized unit of family,

people who, you know, who were surrounded by radiant lines. And you would put this medallion on your house to indicate that everything in your home was electrical. This was the future. It didn't get embraced by people as much as they perhaps wanted to for whatever reason but i think that's what they want here they want to get rid of that nasty gas and then give us all electrical homes all electrical cars the power The power from which will come with, come from... The sun. The sun. The sun. The wind.

For sure. All of it. All the time, 24 hours a day. Yes. So how do you think that would fly here in America if they just said, you know, from the top down, you know, we're going to ban gas appliances and then we're also going to spend tons of money to retrofit everybody else's stuff? I wouldn't put it past them at all. It's probably buried in the Green New Deal.

I'm sure it probably is, or it should be from the point of view of those crazy greenies. Do you remember what the pushback was, though, on incandescent light bulbs? And they managed to do that. You know, you can barely buy an incandescent light bulb. What a stupid. Everybody looks ugly under anything but an incandescent light bulb i mean some people do no matter what but everybody does you know it's funny that steve said uh in england uh they're maybe they're pushing back just a little bit not enough to make a difference but there's a piece in the new york times this morning and it sort of began with this. All of Europe is fully committed to the idea that climate change is an existential crisis, and we have to do something about that. But unfortunately, in

America, it's a partisan issue. And of course, the partisans are Republicans don't believe in climate change and Democrats do. and it was just the stupidest sorry i shouldn't say that but my point is that no i think we have americans still willing to push back we even have to some extent a republican party willing to to push back on that they're actually united right now in opposition to the what is it called whip inflation now what is it called that's the reduction act which is really a climate change bill in disguise so yeah yeah you know it's one thing to tell people uh it's a bit of a stress to say well you should all drive electric cars or have access to electric cars to be precise the way pete put a judge put it but i wonder what happens uh uh you know europe's a

little different uh lower standards of living and so they've had electric stoves for a long time james and you're right i hate cooking on electric ranges but what i think is when they actually say to the rich liberals of bethesda maryland and marin county and montecito that oh we have to remove those fancy wolf ranges in your kitchen and have you put in induction electric stoves. That's when the revolt's going to start, just like it has on crime, I think, right? If you think the voters of San Francisco recalling a liberal district attorney because Crime Source was a man bites dog story, wait till they try to take away the wolf's ranges from

all those wealthy liberals in Bethesda. That may be the line too far. All right, I'll put up with the low flush toilet because water is precious and there's only a finite amount. I will put up with the low flow showerhead because I'm doing my part for everything. I'll put up with getting rid of incandescent bulbs because, of course, we want to move to this more efficient future. But you will take my Thermador. I mean, when it comes to them, you're right. Their luxury beliefs actually,

the luxury beliefs don't impinge on their lifestyle or their ability to do things until they do. As we saw in New York and Washington, which is now complaining that, why are you busing these migrants here? We're not like the border states. We don't have the infrastructure for this which i just but you just have to love you just absolutely have to love it

right i mean from a border state i absolutely do love it uh yeah i i attended a briefing yesterday and what we're going to do about the fact that um i'm going to just say it illegal immigrants are infiltrating our um our military base uh over the mountains and uh exactly what the appropriate way of dealing with that is that doesn't cause massive unrest amongst the the the left population here what do you mean by infiltrating the the military base so so it's interesting where i live on very close to the mexican border and and my backyard is a a butts up to the uh military installation there's a range road behind my house that goes over the mountains there's no there's there's sensors and that's about it that could stop people and because because military police are very limited in their ability to deal with illegal immigrants that come over the mountains onto the military base, it creates a lot of problems. They had a young they the cartels go up to Phoenix. They get young men to agree to make a whole bunch of money to come down and grab illegals who have crossed the border on foot and take them to places up in Phoenix and whatnot, because they can't stay here where I live.

Too much, too much law enforcement. But the biggest problem in Arizona right now are all of these 17-year-old kids driving off to get away from cops and causing major accidents because they're stupid kids. And they've got a car full of illegal immigrants. And so there's just all sorts of problems that I'm sorry, the rest of the world, like you guys, just don't even have a conception of unless you're living here and seeing what's happening. Are you near where the Biden administration is filling in a gap in the wall that Trump started? I mean, it's far. It's almost a California, Steve, in Yuma. It's yeah. And also in Texas. Yeah. Yeah. So let's put a pin in that, as they say, when they want to completely drop the subject and move on. Anybody want to talk about the election?

Anybody interested in the elections that just took place? Anybody follow them keenly and have any insights to draw from what happened? Well, I'm overseas. I'm only following it on the Internet. Well, that's how most people do, I suppose. I haven't done a balance sheet on this yet, but it looks like, once again, a sort of mixed record for Trump and his endorsements. He did well in Arizona with Kerry Lake winning the governor's nomination and Blake Masters the Senate nomination. I think he did well in some other areas.

And but I don't know. I haven't added up all the all the wins and losses yet. I think I think it's safe to say that he has done pretty well, certainly did well in Arizona. I think all of his major endorsements won, including Blake Masters, Kerry Lake. Kerry Lake was probably much more truly controversial than Blake Masters was. They really tried hard in the case of Blake Masters to to drum up some some fake stories about him or to try to say that what he wrote on Facebook or Twitter 30 years ago as a teenager was somehow relevant today you know silly stuff like that but Carrie Lake has got some you know she's had some issues with the more establishment Republicans, that she's very much of the belief that the 2020 election was stolen

and that it was stolen in Arizona. And she's been very critical of even the efforts in Arizona to prove that the election was not stolen. So that's interesting. I think that the fact that a number of impeachment, Trump impeachment Republicans were primaried out of office. So I think that's a good thing. And I could follow on really quickly if you're

interested. It's not important. But there was actually an Arizona state legislator who was primaried because he went and spoke at the January 6th committee, and he got defeated soundly. Probably not that important, but it's just interesting. Arizona is a very, very pro-Trump state. If you look even at the difference between the vote counts between the Republican primary for Senate and the Democratic between the Republican primary for governor there are a lot more Republicans voting than there are Democrats Arizona take off your rainbow shades as the old song used to say of course now that would mean that it was having a a pride rally uh Mark Lindsay I believe did that song I haven't been listening to

a lot of Mark Lindsay lately I have been listening to a lot of strange things podcasts include I love to listen to podcasts prime podcast there's There's one called Anatomy of Murder, which is really intelligent and compassionate. And it's got great sound profiles to it, too. The way they use music in the background is great. So you need a good set of headphones when you're listening to something like this to appreciate all of the nuances. One of the reasons it's been great to listen to it is because I use my Raycon wireless earbuds when I do it. Raycon's everyday earbuds, but they look, they feel, and they sound better than ever with optimized gel tips for the perfect in-ear fitting. You want that, right? You want that perfect fit so they don't fall out.

They don't. These earbuds are so comfortable and they just will not budge. Trust me. And I use them when I'm walking quickly. I use them when I'm doing yard work and I'm bending up and I'm getting down. Granted, I don't use a lot of yard work, but these things have never popped out. The other ones, the white ones, those popped out. These don't. Raycons give you eight hours of playtime and a 32-hour battery life as well. They're priced just right. You get quality audio at a half price of the other premium audio brands. It's no wonder that Raycons everyday earbuds have over 50,000 five-star reviews. Now, there's a couple of attributes that I'll tell you about. You might not like these because, you know, for the price and what you get and the quality,

there's customizable sound profiles. Now, this may sound really weird, but one of the things I've been listening to are the Kresge Music Collection records. Somebody found all the records that they used to play at Kresge stores in the 50s and 60s. They're mono, they're scratchy, they're weird, but I've got a customizable sound profile on my Raycons that brings out the best of these old recordings. It's lots of fun. But then, of course, you go to a podcast and you got to tap to that, but you have another sound profile that's great for voices. Of course, noise isolation, you like that when you want to tune out the world. You know, where I live, there's airplanes coming over. I don't want those

interfering with what I'm listening to. And there's an awareness mode too, because when I'm walking around downtown, sometimes I want to hear what's going on around me. I don't want to be isolated from the world. So it's got all that. Customizable sound profiles, noise isolation, awareness mode is great. Now, if you go to buyraycon.com slash ricochet today, you will get 15% off your Raycon order. That's buyraycon.com slash ricochet to score 15% off. Buy, B-U-Y, Raycon, R-A-Y-C-O-N.com slash ricochet. And we thank Raycon for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. And now we welcome to the podcast, Michael Oslin, or Misha, as he's called, Distinguished Research Fellow in Contemporary Asia at the Hoover Institution. He specializes

in U.S. policy in Asia, geopolitical issues in the Indo-Pacific, and is the author of six books, including Asia's New Geopolitics, Essays on Reshaping the Indo-Pacific, and the best-selling The End of the Asian Century. Intriguing topics and couldn't be more timely welcome misha let's start with the headlines here uh nancy pelosi went to taiwan one of the magazines i think vice online said the gop hates china so much they're praising nancy pelosi well frankly not i mean put everything else aside i thought it was good to go and uh the reaction from china has been fascinating. Tell us what you're picking up, what China domestically has done in response to Pelosi's visit. Well, James, first, thanks for having me on. Really great to be able to join you guys and see my old friend Steve, where I have to catch him online since I can never catch him in person.

He's always jetting around the world. So it's great to be here. Yeah, look, I think there's a lot of hyperventilating going on about the trip. And I think the Chinese know we're hyperventilating. And so what they're doing is actually exacerbating it. You know, you saw and there's actually a pretty stark divide even here, you know, in the country, with a lot of op-eds and newspapers coming out saying that, well, you know, of course, China's the biggest danger we face. And of course, we have to stand up to them, but not now, right? So Pelosi shouldn't go, right? Because we're just going to make things worse. Or, you know, this is the worst time to go because Xi Jinping is gearing up for the 20th

Party Congress where he wants to get a third term as leader. And so don't push him into a corner right now. And I think the Chinese, you know, they're just abetting this, of course, by threatening that this is the end of the world. They got a huge supporting play on that by Joe Biden, President Biden, who openly said that he didn't think it was a good idea for her to go and quoted the military. So I think there's a lot of hyperventilating. And the reality is it doesn't change much, if at all. What the Chinese don't like, of course, is any American official visiting the island. And they really hate Nancy Pelosi. She has, from the beginning of her career, been steadfastly anti-Chinese, anti-the Communist Party in terms of its human rights abuses. This is, you know, the one thing that I think a lot of conservatives agree with her on is, you know, the danger that China poses. And so in some ways,

I think China, it's not as much about the speaker. I mean, let's face is, you know, the danger that China poses. And so in some ways, I think China, it's not as much about the speaker. I mean, let's face it, you know, how many Chinese, how many Americans even know what the speaker of the house is anymore, right? It's about more about Pelosi. Also, I'd say, look, the Chinese are sophisticated enough. They know she's not coming as an emissary of the administration. They understand the division between the executive and the legislative branch. They know that the White House doesn't control Congress, meaning they know that she's not representing a change in U.S. policy towards Taiwan. She's going, she's speaking for herself. She doesn't even speak for the Congress.

So they're just playing on all of our divisions and all of our fears. And I think they're doing it in part because in recent months and weeks, you've heard a return of the engagement crowd. They were put on the back foot for a number of years, certainly during the Trump administration. Even, to be honest, the end of the Obama administration, when people understood things weren't going the way we had hoped. But now they've started coming back and they've started saying that, look, this relationship is too important to risk messing up, to throw us into a direct conflict. Look at all the problems we have with Russia. And so the Chinese, I think, are picking up on all of this. I just want to follow up on that, that it's too important for us.

So what has China done for us lately to show that they are interested in this, in continuing and strengthening and making more harmonious this relationship? What have they done for us lately, aside from releasing a particular pathogen? Oh, I'm sorry, that's not... No, nothing. I mean, it's exactly to your point. I mean, the model, you know, that was established in the 1970s with Kissinger and Brzezinski and others, and which really shaped, you know, the first generation plus of the China relationship was China's so big, it's so potentially important or actually important, right, as time went on, that we can't, again, we can't risk upsetting China, whether because we wanted to play it as the China card during the Cold War, or suddenly it became so critical to economies. So what the Chinese did is they understood this very well, and they used this fear of ours to say, look, the meta relationship is so critical that you just have to let all the other stuff go, right? If we steal

your intellectual property, let it go. If we threaten nations or take territory in the South China Sea or wherever it is, let it go. Why? Because you can't risk the big game. And they froze us into place. It was a brilliant strategy. And we kept thinking in our, you know, to be quite honest, I think admirably naive way, because it is admirable that we just think if you just keep talking a little bit more, and you just keep explaining a little bit more, you're going to figure out a way to get along with people. We do that with everyone. It's not just the Chinese. We do it with every new leader. We did it with Andropov when he came to power. We did it with Kim Jong-il when he came to power, right? Or Kim Jong-un. I mean, we've got

this positive sense that we can just change the world if they'll only listen a little bit more. But the Chinese really understood how to operationalize that against us. And so, in response to your question, James, we've got nothing. I mean, yeah, we got cheaper, you know, we got cheaper consumer goods, right? But at the cost of millions of jobs and a hollowing out of our domestic economy, especially in the heartland, though, to be fair, it didn't start with China, right? It started with Japan and Korea and the four tigers and shipping, shipping our steel industries and our electronic industries and eventually our textile industries off to, to other parts of the world.

But the scale of China is so massive that it really froze us from ever stating what are our interests? What's the due diligence we're doing to make sure that things are going in a way that benefits us. And the first one to do it really was Trump. The Chinese hated it. They wanted to wait him out. And I think the engagement crowd also wanted to wait him out. So part of what's happening with the Taiwan trip now is that they're taking advantage of this move back towards engagement.

And by the way, just quickly, you asked what did they actually do? So they have launched a massive set of military exercises, live fire exercises, ballistic missiles and rockets and helicopters and 100 jet fighters and ships all around Taiwan. And a lot of people are freaking out about this. First, I don't think it changes anything. We already knew that they could do this around Taiwan. It wasn't a secret. Of course they could do this. They just hadn't done it. So on the one hand, it's not like they've actually stopped ships, which would be different, right? If they actually imposed a blockade, now you're talking Cuban Missile Crisis level problem that we have to figure out, okay, in reverse for us, right? Do we run the blockade or what do we do? But they haven't done that,

right? It's a little bit like what we do after North Korea launches a missile, a lot of sound and fury, and it doesn't signify much. And what they're trying to do, of course, is intimidate people from making a trip like this again. They don't want others, you know, doing what Pelosi's doing, but they didn't want Pelosi doing it because it's been an ongoing development that Americans in increasing numbers and increasing levels of seniority are visiting Taiwan. The last thing I'll say, by the way, is that if I'm in the U.S. military, I probably actually welcome this, what the Chinese are doing, because we're going to get an enormous amount of intelligence on it, right? We're going to see how well they can aim, what the Chinese are doing, because we're going to get an enormous amount of intelligence on it.

We're going to see how well they can aim, how well they can fire, how well they operate, how many things they can put up in the air and on the sea. I think it's actually they're showing their cards in a way they haven't for a long time. And so there's actually we should be thinking about the silver lining. Well, all right. First of all, a whole bunch of questions. I will say that I was one of those conservatives who supported Pelosi's trip, but on the same condition I had for Nixon all those years ago, which was that she stay there and not come back. That was what I wanted Nixon to do, right? Let me give a couple of the arguments you hear from your China watchers

like Gordon Chang, Hal Brands, and Michael Beckley coming out with this new book in another week or so. And they're giving the demography is destiny argument, which is – and Nick Eberstadt, our former colleague, used to talk about this a lot too. That China is growing old fast, that their opportunity, if they're going to reestablish the greater East Asia co-prosperity sphere or whatever they're calling it this time, is sooner rather than later, and that the risk of war is increasing. In other words, we're back to the same calculus the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Germans made in 1914. Do you buy that? Is that something seriously driving your thinking, do you think, or is it more Chinese cultural forces behind it? And I would note the Japanese in 1930, making the calculation. Well, Steve, without sounding like one of those authors who say, you know, I wrote this years ago, let me just say I wrote this years ago. I had an entire chapter on demography in my book, The End of the Asian Century, talking precisely about this. And one of

the Wall Street Journal columns that I wrote a number of years ago, I called something like the Xi doctrine, right, Xi Jinping doctrine, which was to make exactly this case that he was making these moves because they didn't think time was on their side. So I'm sympathetic because I've written it and I believe in it, but we also have to understand you know scale right i mean yes a china that is beginning to top off uh demographically and will most likely from what we can tell begin a moderate decline around 2030 maybe 2035 or 40 um is certainly of concern to the chinese communist party um but it is still a country that is going to dwarf every other nation in Asia, right? So it's not like you're suddenly going to have a Chinese that can't field a military that is five times as large as any other military. The real concern for the Communist Party is that as they get older, before they get richer, of course, as you have kinship networks

that really supported a lot of people with jobs and financial support and things that the state didn't provide, as those kinship networks atrophy and shrink, then the state is going to be responsible for providing things that an aging population demands. And that's something that the state, even though it's a communist state, is not used to doing. And of course, people who see that there's little future, who see that there's slowing economic growth, and of course, the macroeconomic picture is fairly grim for the Chinese. They are concerned above all with domestic unrest. It's not what we do or that the Japanese do. So there are a lot of reasons why demographics are critical. The question of do they have to now move today,

very different from Japan in the 1930s, and I'll leave Europe aside because I don't know it, but you know, very different from Japan in the 1930s. Well, you mentioned a minute ago, I'll do one more Lucretian and then you take over. You mentioned a minute ago that I'll do one more, Lucretia, and then you take over. You mentioned a minute ago that we're going to learn a lot from this practice blockade going on here the last couple of days, you know, missile telemetry and certain other things. I'll leave aside whether we can fully trust that they're showing us all their best stuff and not actually practicing deception. I think you always have to take that in mind with something like this. But whenever there's a prospective war, I always like to ask a very simple question, who's going to win? Now, that's a big question, but let me try and get you to give a binary answer on that, if you can. You mean in terms of a war over Taiwan? Yeah. Well, Steve, not to say...

Especially if we're involved in it, which it sounds like we would be. Not to say that I've written it, but I'd be happy to send it to you guys. So I wrote a very long 2025 war scenario in the last book. It was the last chapter of my book being Asia's New Geopolitics. I called it the Sino-U.S. Littoral War of 2025. That starts with accident, you know, things that we've already seen, two planes colliding or ships colliding. And the short answer is we don't win. But we also don't entirely lose. What I think you would see

is assuming, this is a big assumption, assuming that neither side wants the war. And that's, that's where the debate is going today is the presumption that China wants a war, which I don't fully buy, that they want a war over Taiwan. That I don't fully buy. But assuming that neither side wants a war, this is not Pearl Harbor 1941, but a war erupts for lots of different reasons, including lack of trust and so on. The question is, how far does each side want to go? Because very quickly, you're forced into considering nuclear responses because of limitations, mostly for us, but also for the Chinese. And then the question of striking homelands, because, you know, if you want to take out rocket launchers, you got to strike the

Chinese homeland, and then do they strike the American homeland? So my answer is that you would wind up most likely with a negotiated settlement, but we would lose enormous amounts. We would basically have a rump alliance system left over. We'd be pushed mostly to Japan and surrendering most of our other freedom in the region. But and I think historically this this shows up often. That doesn't mean that the Chinese suddenly have their own version of a greater East Asia co-prosperity sphere. Instead, they're going to have a lot of countries that East Asia co-prosperity sphere. Instead, they're going to have a lot of countries that are unhappy to be under the thumb of China.

They're going to have very restless subject populations that they have to deal with. So it's not exactly a win for them. And in fact, it settles into a real Cold War in Asia. That's what I think would happen. So, Misha, hi. Good morning. i wasn't one of those uh conservatives that were cheering nancy pelosi on in all of this i mean once she made the point that she was going it was done of course but my concern is not so much whether or not the chinese and their um their declining state consider this to be the best time to go after Taiwan. My concern is that this is the best time to go after Taiwan if you don't want to be worried about an American response, because America is not in a position to respond. We are at the lowest level of troops

in our history, lower than before World War II, on and on and on. Recruiting is abysmal. Retention is abysmal across the military. It's not getting any better. I'm not a fan of the conflict in Ukraine. I think that was misguided from the beginning with another story, but that has also really seriously hampered our ability to respond to some kind of Indo-Pacific conflict. I mean, the whole thing just scared me with Nancy Pelosi.

Fortunately, it didn't work out as badly as I thought it might. The Chinese response was pretty measured, all things considered. But already, you know, well, we're not going to do our intercontinental ballistic test now because we don't want tensions to get higher. I think we're just showing weakness across the board to the Chinese. Yeah, I mean, I agree with that. I also don't think that the Chinese calculus is I think we are a factor in the Chinese calculus, but not the main factor. I think they've they've pretty much decided we would not enter in force with

troops. Now, that may be a miscalculation. But in terms of the unwillingness of the United States to engage in what would be, you know, the biggest war certainly since 1945 is something that they believe we're going to err on the side of caution. And we would, as you know, just even with small things like the Minuteman 3 test, we will do everything we can to signal that we want to tamp down the crisis and that we want all sides to act responsibly, whatever the diplomatic term is that we use. So, I don't want to interrupt. I just want to ask, why would we expect the Chinese to act differently to that kind of laid back posture, shall we call it,

than Russia did, than Putin did? Because it's, yeah, that's a good question. And it's because it's really hard to invade Taiwan. What they're showing right now with these military activities is that you can blockade it it and they could certainly send out, they have a lot of ships that they could send out to do a physical blockade or quarantine of the island. But an amphibious invasion is, is very hard. And it's, it's not something they have, first of all, any practice with. And so we have, you know, at this point in time, probably the most practiced and experienced

military because of two decades of warfare. And yet we still botch missions and make mistakes all the time. And the Chinese have never done anything like this. So number one, it's not all that easy. Getting to where they need to go once they're on the island is not easy. It's a very mountainous island. I mean, they have all sorts of logistical problems and tactical problems. And they're going to have, I don't know if they're going to have the full 23 million Taiwanese against them, but they're going to have a substantial number of Taiwanese who can do guerrilla warfare and lots of different things that is going to make it much more difficult for them. And for the party, this is really existential.

If you launch a war for that island and you wind up in a Ukraine-type situation, now you start looking away from the island and over to your west and over to your south and over to your north because you're really worried about what a lot of the Chinese imperial subject peoples like the Uyghurs or the Inner Mongolians or those in breakaway, potentially breakaway areas like Hong Kong, who really want to get their freedoms back, what they're going to try to do. And so, again, the risk is at home. That doesn't mean that it's not a red line for them. It really is. I mean, Taiwan is a red line. But at the same time, I think the idea that it would be a cakewalk for them is just really not something that they can calculate. What they want, of course, is to make us so afraid of getting involved that we stay out

of it, the Japanese stay out of it. That's one reason they're really worried is what's been coming out of Japan and what former Prime Minister Abe, who was tragically assassinated last month, was saying about the U.S. has to defend Taiwan and Taiwan is essentially Japan's front line of defense. This to them changes the ballgame. So what they're trying to do is ratchet up the intimidation so we would stay out and make it easier for them to figure out how do they just keep control of this island without the risk of having to send a full invasion force. Should we be doing things like sending special forces to help the Taiwanese engage in kind of guerrilla homeland warfare against a Chinese invasion?

Should we be doing things that, or are we too afraid to do those kinds of things that might actually deter China from considering an actual invasion, an amphibious invasion of Taiwan? Yeah, I think we should be doing everything we can. We should be doing it quietly. For years, people have talked. It's not a new thing, though. It's come up again recently, a porcupine strategy. You want to raise the risks to China as much as you can. We shouldn't be sending our special forces over there. We should have their special forces come to us quietly. We shouldn't know about it because we don't have those formal military-to-military ties yet. But we should be doing that. We should

be having our allies who are willing, and there's not that many, but those who are willing to do this. And I would say the Japanese are there working with them. We should be doing training. The Taiwanese have to make a lot of hard decisions, though. They've had a plan for years to move to a volunteer force as opposed to conscription, which is not a good idea. They should be thinking about how you buy porcupine type weapons as opposed to tanks, which will just get destroyed on the beachfront. You know, they have to do their job too, and they have to train better. They have to be more prepared. But yeah, we should be doing everything we can and doing it quietly enough that it makes a material difference, but it doesn't become a diplomatic issue until we decide we need it to be. All right, Misha, I've got one more serious

question. I've got many, but I'm going to give you one because we're short of time. Then a quick personal question at the very end. Lucretia asked the question I did have in my mind, which is what should be done? What should we be doing? The question I have, and the problem is, is that you have a whole book written on this, I'm sure, somewhere that I haven't read. I want to get in the mind of the Chinese a little bit. And here's what's behind that premise. People asked me months ago, why in the world did Putin want to invade Ukraine? What's this all about?

It's, you know, the sanctions are ruinous to the Russian economy. And I keep coming back to you cannot underestimate the role of megalomania and people like Putin in dictators and authoritarian governments that this is a lesson of hundreds of years, I think. And so there are these estimates that if you had a full-blown war between us and China at whatever degree of intensity, it would be a 5 to 10 percent hit to U.S. GDP. It's a lot larger than most recessions. A 25 to 35 percent hit to the Chinese economy. Obviously catastrophic. Could set off a worldwide depression. And so you think, well, would they want to get rich? Why would they do such a thing?

And I keep saying maybe they have the same kind of megalomania that someone like Putin has. So, again, with only a couple minutes for you to answer, is China different? Is it alike? I mean, could they have the same kind of megalomania we've seen in tyrants throughout history and make them go for it against all the logic and forces that would make you say they shouldn't? Well, you know, usually, Steve, you know better than I do. You know, megalomania is really one person who controls an entire system and is therefore able to push through that system their you know warped and twisted desires um i thought you were referring to steve himself as an example of megalomania and his position at powerline uh there's there's more to this story i guess

far be it for me to you know to pull back the whole curtain but yes um so uh the the way that the chinese after mao set up the system was that they wouldn't ever have to face megalomania again, which they did under Mao. And so you had a largely and certainly over time until 2012 evolving set of collegial, you know, collegial leadership. Right. I mean, you had a group. And that's what we're moving away from under Xi Jinping over the past decade. That's why the 20th Party Congress this fall, which is just going to, you know, ratify something that's baked in the cake, which is his continuing hold on power, is so important, because we don't know if we're moving towards a system of megalomania in China. I tend to think it's still a little bit harder to do that. You know, Xi Jinping does not control

China the way that Putin controls Russia, let alone the way Mao or Stalin controlled their societies or the Kims. So I think it's harder. What makes it easier in terms of, let's say, a societal megalomania is that no matter who you talk to, the most liberal of Chinese in China, in the People's Republic, they all believe Taiwan is part of China. So the megalomania can actually come into play in a sort of narrower way towards Taiwan, because you could talk about people who are like, we need a constitution, we need elections. Oh, Taiwan? No, that's part of China. So they, you know, that is what sort of skews the whole situation is that it's not saying there can be a sort of rational calculation about Taiwan. And I would say in some ways, the Taiwanese are split, you know, older Taiwanese are more, feel more connected to the mainland and younger Taiwanese don't. They feel that they are Taiwanese, not Chinese. And so over time, that is also something that the Chinese face is, how do you control a society that, unlike 30 years ago, really does feel completely separate? Does that complicate it or not? Well, the megalomania aspect may come into it. I'm sorry, Steve, you had one more.

Well, I was just going to a quick personal question, Misha, you know, all those years we worked down the hall from each other and we talk in the lunchroom. I never thought to ask, how did you come to be called Misha? How did you get that nickname? Yeah, it's not because I'm Russian, nor is it a, you know, nor is it a pilot's nickname. It's from the good old days of the Cold War. Yeah, I wish it were. I wish it were my call sign, but it's not. I was coming up at the end of the Cold War. I was doing Russian studies. I got my master's in Russian studies in 1991.

Oh, what a great time. Exactly. So they're handing me my diploma, the flag is coming down, my dad's looking at me saying, now what? So it's just got tagged onto me as Misha back in the days when we knew who our enemies were, things were clear. It was such an easier time to be in DC. But now, yeah, now everyone thinks I'm, you know, one of those, you know, oligarchic refugees from Putin's Russia. And sadly, you know, neither a refugee nor, oligarchic refugees from Putin's Russia. Sadly, you know, neither a refugee nor an oligarch. Yeah, you don't have one of those big super yachts. I'm disappointed. I just keep it hidden very well. I'd like John Kerry, you know, I'm in Maryland, but I park it off, you know,

in another coast where I don't have to pay taxes. Right. Well, thanks, Misha. This has been really fun. Hey, guys, thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it. It does indeed. All right. We hope to have you on soon between your Russian expertise and your Asian expertise. Anytime. The guy to go to on just about any single day. So we'll talk to you again soon. Thanks, James. And before we go on, though, I should notice here that Stephen Hayward, who is a guest host, right? That's how you describe yourself, Stephen, as a guest host?

Yes. The megalomaniac one, though, but so sure. Took control of the conversation and concluded it on his own. This is something a guest host has never actually done before, and we're sort of scrambling here to find out the protocols about what the consequences should be. Yeah, but James, i have gotten over taking the rob long role of trying to interrupt your segues i've given up that bad habit right well even rob and peter knew so much as to placate me with the fiction that i was in some some realm of control here so so we're going to have i was uh actually i don't care what i wanted to talk to you about though think about it and and let me bounce this off you two guys, because I find the whole China subject to be endlessly fascinating, is that this whole wolf warrior diplomacy thing that we've

seen in the last few years, this aggressive posture, which strikes us over here as completely unnecessary. It's like you can get a lot of what you want without being such a jerk about it. I mean, you could have Hong Kong and if you behaved about it, then it would have faded from public consciousness. And so we pay attention to you. Taiwan would probably eventually exceed perhaps if you'd not been who you seem to be this aggressive, angry barking, there will be consequences postured. So given all the rhetoric that we saw from Xi and the rest of them before Pelosi's visit, did he not lose an extraordinary amount of face by her coming and going? And the Chinese doing nothing about it. They shot a few things off, but they did nothing about it.

Yeah. So go ahead. You go first. You want me to go first? I was just going to say, I wonder. No, I get to say who goes first, Steve. Just take it over. Do the spots. it i'm used to it you just have to talk over him james that's what works for me drives people crazy unless they like me but anyway i was just gonna say i you know the chinese are

much much better at manipulating their public pronouncements in ways that our, at least our current set of diplomats, like Wink and Blink and Anod, can't seem to do. I mean, they'll just come out and say, look, look how generous we are after you insulted us and did all of these things, and they'll get away with it. That's sort of my continuously sarcastic and negative view of things. Mostly a result of our ineptitude and a little bit less the result of Chinese cleverness, although it is that too. That's what I would say. Steve? Yeah, I think you need to go back about three years in the historical tape and take in the fact that China decided to rubbish their agreement with Great Britain on the autonomy of Hong Kong. And essentially, they violated that whole agreement.

And if I'm over in Taiwan watching this, I think it hardens my attitude, if I'm Taiwanese, that we're going to be able to have an entente with China where we unify more formally, I think that increased their inclinations to resist mainland China's blandishments. The basic social contract in China for quite a while now to its rising middle class and upper classes has been pretty simple, which is, we give you a good life and you shut up. And I've met a few senior Chinese business people, very well paid, running international companies, traveling back and forth between the US and China, and you cannot get them to say a single word about politics in China. Because that's how thoroughly, as Lucretia puts it, they've intimidated their own population. There's a lot of economic integration between

Taiwan and the mainland. Just to give one example I have to know a little bit about, Starbucks China, the territory includes both Taiwan and China. They don't separate them as territories like you would, you know, New York and Florida or something in this country. And so international pressures are trying to push them together too. So I don't know, I think it could all come apart. And, you know, I listened to Misha, I listened to Nick Eberstadt and others, and I don't know i think it could all come apart um and i you know i listen to misha i listen to nick eberstadt and others and i don't know what to make of it all unfortunately no well we'll find out i would have loved to been at the airport before pelosi was leaving and she stops and walks away and just goes over the little kiosk and fills out some life insurance forms and puts you know puts that in the old airport life she's smart that way you know she probably has

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the Ricochet podcast. I believe, Stephen, you had a question you wanted to ask here. I love the fact that we're just throwing out, you know, what we're doing here in the chat box and the Slack and the rest of it. Usually with Peter and Rob, it's this finely tuned, well-oiled machine. I mean, you don't know how oily Rob can be. So, you know, for people to see the sausage being made like this is just stuffed into the case. Extraordinary. Lucretio has the question for you, James, not me.

Oh, I see. I'm sorry. Actually, so it's a little bit old and stale now. I just actually wanted to ask you about your question about China. How much you thought that China's communist ideology actually played a role in that if they could not be anything but mean and rude and demanding and all those other dictatorial things? I mean, is it possible for a communist regime on the order of China to to be kind to its client states. I don't know. You know, I don't know either. The thing of it is, you know, as everybody will tell you,

well, real communism has never been tried. And we have different flavors in all of its iterations throughout the last hundred years. And looking at the Chinese government and the Chinese economy and calling it communist seems absurd. I mean, the idea that they have a political structure, which indeed is nominally communist i guess but when you consider that the whole point of communism seems to be the antithesis

of the consumer economy that they've created i you know i don't think they're communist that the aggressiveness comes from communism i think it comes from from a resurgent nationalism that is you know lurks in nearly every single culture, except perhaps some mythical little place on Earth where everybody's holding hands and dancing around the maple. So I don't know. I don't think it's that. I think it's just that it's the character that has been encouraged by Xi. And it's fun now because you have the ultra-nationalists grumbling, saying, if Putin ran this country,

we would already have gone to war with Taiwan. Well, we'll see. Here's the thing, though, folks. What you want to do is you want to look at your calendar in the future and say, what's going to happen? I don't know what's going to happen in the future. Yes, you do. Yes, you do. In September, you're going to be in Austin. Hey, it's possible. Ricochet is going to be a media partner with the Texas Tribune Festival. It's taking place September 22nd to 24th in downtown Austin. Flood, DOS, downtown Austin, Ricochet people. Change the political demographics, if only for a couple of days.

Full program, it's going to be announced next Tuesday soon, but we do know that David Drucker, who hosts the In Trump's Shadow podcast, which is available here at Ricochet, will be doing interviews with Governor Glenn Youngkin of Virginia and Governor Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas. So this is going to be fun. If you'd like to attend the event yourself, and why wouldn't you, use our special discount code for a one-time 15% off discount on one general admission ticket. Go to the TribFest.org, T-R-I-B-F-E-S-T. Yeah, it'd be great if I could spell T-R-I-B-F-E-S-T.org and

enter the code RICOCHET15 in the promo code box at the bottom of the page. Click apply and the money's off and we hope to see you there. A lot of meetups being planned as well, too. See, that's the thing about Ricochet. Unlike the rest of these places, you go and you have your preconceptions reconfirmed and all the rest of it. We have debate. We have lively things. And we meet in what we used to call meet space.

Hate the word. Glad it's dead. But in real things, and we meet in what we used to call meat space. Hate the word. Glad it's dead, but in real life, in other words. A couple are set later for this month. Brian Stevens hosting one in Atlanta over the weekend on the 19th. Michael Collins is hoping to get the UK members together in Dublin, Ireland on the 26th. That's fantastic. Just love it. I'd love to be at all of them.

More meetups coming down the pike in various stages of planning for Northern California, Huntsville, Alabama, New Orleans, and if none of these are for Northern California, Huntsville, Alabama, New Orleans. And if none of these are close to you, join Ricochet. Give us a place and time and have the Ricochet friends come to you. Wouldn't that be cool? I think that'd be cool. So that's what Rob would have said if he's here.

And he's not. But I am. And as long as we got you guys here, let's ask the perennial question. What's the matter with Kansas? A lot of people are disappointed that kansas did what it did other people you know somebody was uh saying on twitter it's like this here's the conservative reaction uh we're sorry that it they voted as they did as they decided as they did in the abortion issue but that was that was really the whole point of what the supreme court did, right?

I would agree with that, but I would also, I've been thinking of this as Kansas, bloody Kansas, very similar to what actually happened in the 1850s, where a lot of outside influence ended up with the Lecompton Constitution. We don't go into all the details of it but a lot of outside influence from pro-slavery advocates in kansas produced a pro-slavery constitution that did not accurately reflect i think the views of the people at the time in kansas and i think that there's some truth to that today does it matter probably not really but let's not make the huge assumption that the voting population of Kansas made a really reflective choice about what they were voting on, because the whole campaign there was just so vile and so much disinformation that I wasn't surprised it came out that way. Yeah, you know, yeah, there's a lot of outside money was spent on it, which most of the media accounts glosses over if they mention it at all. You know, I, as a student of public opinion surveys, I don't know another issue where the ordering of the questions

and the way the questioner's styled can so change the outcome. But I think if the initiative or the referendum that Kansas voters had been presented with was, should there be restrictions on abortion after 15 weeks, like the Mississippi law, or 20 weeks, I'll bet the outcome would have been different. This got presented and spun out as, oh, this is going to outlaw all abortions under any circumstances, which it wasn't that. It was just trying to replicate on the state level what Justice Alito and the Supreme Court did on the federal level. And so, you know, I've listened to Peter talk about this issue, saying we're now in the domain of where neighbors have to persuade neighbors. And the first time out of the box, I think we have a set of circumstances that the left and the media, but I repeat myself, are rushing to say shows that this was a crazy thing for the Supreme Court to have done. And I think I'm with Lucretia. I think that reading is completely wrong.

One last question. Then before we go, there was some interesting news done in Florida where. Yes, Ron DeSantis suspended a Florida prosecutor. The prosecutor said, I'm not going to. The prosecutor said, I will not enforce these laws. Okay, all right, fine, you're gone. DeSantis said, state attorneys have a duty to prosecute crimes as defined in Florida law, not to pick and choose which laws to enforce based on your personal agenda. He said, it is my duty to hold Florida's elected officials to the highest standards for the people of Florida.

Well, the guy suspended shot back saying it's a stunt, right? Quote, it's illegal overreach that continues a dangerous pattern by Ron DeSantis of using his office to further his own political ambition. It spits in the face of the voters of Hillsborough County who have twice elected me to serve them, not Ron DeSantis. Now, the them would seem to be the law but no i guess it's the the voters uh so was this a uh another example of the fascistic authoritarianism we could expect under president desantis or is this somebody who's saying no uh we don't get to pick and choose the laws these are the laws do your job lucretia well i think you actually the the point is it's not illegal for what Ron DeSantis did. He has the duty under Florida law, under the Florida Constitution, to remove elected public officials, state officials that do not do their duty. Whether that's refusing to enforce the law, there's a whole lot of different things.

So he acted perfectly legally. Of course, these things aren't legal questions, they're political questions. And I think, quite frankly, Mr. Warren's going to lose this battle. I don't think that his constituents are probably likely to bring him back. He's one of those really despicable people that push so hard on the COVID nonsense. And I think's gonna lose uh lose the battle and lose the war now how did you put it james is this the kind of authoritarian dictatorial government we can expect from the santa fascist fascist authoritarian right something like yeah oh i certainly hope so that that's my answer to the whole thing uh there's two the subtext here is

partly what's going on in other states so we recalled in san francisco jesse budin the governor of new york has the same power to remove prosecutors and they're having this big fight in new york among democrats because the story was out this week that um the and then your post reported this of course that a very small number of criminals like 30 to 50 something like that committed hundreds and hundreds of crimes after being arrested repeatedly and released within hours uh and the governor of new york or kathy hochul or whatever her name is uh refuses to exercise the same prerogatives the governor de santis has exercised and so it gives us again a nice contrast between new york and florida between leftist governance and conservative governance. And I think I know who's going to win that with the American people. Particularly in a time of rising crime, which we're told, of course, has its reasons,

its antecedents, in things that we have to address first. We can't really do anything about crime without doing something about the structural reasons. And since, of course, the structural reasons can never be completely fixed and require a great deal of state intervention to even do anything, that's what they're going to push for. Great in peaceable times doesn't work so well when you have cities that have gone through what cities have gone through in the last two years. I mean, here in Minneapolis, in the last week, the place I just walk by every day, one kid shot another at a transit platform. And, of course, there was that lovely little brouhaha at the Mall of America where there was a shooting in a shoe store, which led to the place being locked down and people streaming out and screaming. And, of course, Twitter responding to the event saying, well, this is what the GOP wants. They want to sell guns to everybody so that everybody shoots each other in the shopping malls. No, no, actually, what we want is a return to a culture where that sort of nonsense is that behavior that seems incapable of apprehending consequences in the future and

the effect of all of this on society, where that's not the norm, where that is actually discouraged and punished, and everyone knows that it's discouraged, and everyone knows that it's punished. It seems obvious. James, may I ask you a question? I grew up in Iowa, and so a trip to Minneapolis where I had relatives was, of course, a trip to the big city. Me too. I mean, I grew up in North Dakota, same thing. Okay, so, but what I don't remember, and of course I'm old, is any kind of hint that Minneapolis was an unsafe, crime-ridden city. It just seemed like another Midwestern city. When did all that change? Have you lived there most of your life? I've lived here since 1976.

It changed most in the 90s when there was a big gang war and we got the reputation of murderopolis and all of a sudden people stopped feeling that sort of basic safety everywhere because a lot of the of the internecine squabbles

spilled out into other parts of the city and cops started getting shot and there was a galvanic change in the way people identified the city. Then, as happened, everything got better. And we flourished.

And downtown flourished. And we have all kinds of tens of thousands of people living downtown now. And all these wonderful new apartments that have sprouted by the river. It's beautiful. We have a Robert Graves, not Graves. We have a beautiful designed tower on the river that's just gorgeous, commanding views. But unfortunately, what you have also is the diminution of the police's ability to do anything about the disorder. So you have in downtowns on weekends, you have these spiky, energetic elements that, shall we say, enter in, and you have a lot of shootings.

And you got a lot of people, as we saw in the fourth, driving around with rocket launchers, shooting Wisconsin-style fireworks at people's houses. And just the sense of disorder has permeated every single aspect of this city. Where I live, we are pretty much immune to it, except that I hear gunfire, except that there was a woman got carjacked at gunpoint a block from my house last year, except that I hear the people racing their mad cars up and down the street, 50, 60 miles an hour, residential neighborhoods all the time. Everybody feels it. Everybody's got that certain little tingly vibe. Now, are we a hellscape that burns every night? Is Laura Ingraham's description of us correct? No, we're not. But it's changed, and everybody knows it's changed, and everybody's waiting, waiting, waiting for something to happen that says it's not going,

it's going to go back to where it was before, where we felt safe, where we didn't hang our collective net, you know, city heads in shame because the guy who came here for a wedding caught a stray bullet that somebody was firing off on the bridge. And he's, you know,

in a coma in the hospital for six months. Yes, it changed. And then it got better. Then it changed again. So we're thinking, we're hoping, we're looking for the ways in which it'll go back to what it was before, because it is a beautiful place. And I love it that it's full of great people. Stephen, you grabbed the reins out of my hand before you want to do it again and close the show. Can I close the podcast?

No, James, you do it, but I can't possibly. Okay. All right. Well, if Stephen had closed the podcast, he would have told you that it was brought to you by Raycon and by PolicyGenius, and you can support them for supporting us, and you can join Ricochet Today, as I'm sure Stephen would tell you as well. And if Lucretia was closing the podcast, she would tell you to leave a minute. Take a minute. Not leave a minute.

Would it take a minute to leave a minute? What is this, a jar of, you know, by the cash register? Take a minute to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. The reviews allow new listeners to discover us, as we've been saying, for 604 episodes, and that keeps the show going. Well, I know it'll be here on number 605. Will Rob be back? Will Peter be back? Will Stephen do something to either of them to make sure that he's back? I don't know. I don't think Lucrezia's going to do anything skullduggery-wise. She's just not that sort. But who knows what lessons in continental

intrigue Stephen's been absorbing over there in Blighty. So maybe we'll see you both next week. I don't know. Maybe I'll be taken out by some wolf warrior assassin. It's an uncertain world. I don't know. Maybe I'll be taken out by some wolf warrior, you know, assassin. It's an uncertain world. Although we do know for certain that it's been great to have you guys. And we'll see everyone in the comments at Ricochet 4.0.

Bye. Thanks, James. Thanks, James. Bye. Ricochet. Join the conversation.