Latest / UK Column Radio / The Iran War Was Supposed to Cripple China. It Backfired Spectacularly. | Silk and Steel

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The Iran War Was Supposed to Cripple China. It Backfired Spectacularly. | Silk and Steel · UK Column Radio

0:01
Speaker 1: Today, I'm talking to the man, the myth, the legend,
0:04
Speaker 1: Carl zaw. He is the host and the founder of
0:07
Speaker 1: the Silk and Steel podcast, which is a podcast on
0:10
Speaker 1: Chinese history and politics, and he also has his own
0:13
Speaker 1: YouTube channel and x account with hundreds of thousands of
0:16
Speaker 1: followers and subscribers, where he provides his geopolitical commentary and analysis.
0:21
Speaker 1: People love hearing from him. You love hearing from him.
0:23
Speaker 1: That's why we've had him on the program several times,
0:26
Speaker 1: and so I wanted to bring him in again today
0:29
Speaker 1: in the lead up to what could be an aggressive
0:32
Speaker 1: end to the ceasefire and what all of this means.
0:36
Speaker 1: So I want to welcome our guest, Carl. Carl, thanks
0:39
Speaker 1: for being here again.
0:42
Speaker 2: Thanks Ama, thank you for that lovely Andtrol.
0:45
Speaker 1: Absolutely my friend. So Carl, people are talking a lot
0:50
Speaker 1: about the petro gas dollar. This is something that Richard
0:54
Speaker 1: Medhurst introduced, but it's also something that Brian Burledick also
0:58
Speaker 1: kind of alludes to, and both of them argue that
1:01
Speaker 1: the United States is not acting as impulsively as some
1:04
Speaker 1: people might think. That this isn't a mad king Donald
1:09
Speaker 1: Trump held hostage by neo cons and zionis that this
1:12
Speaker 1: is actually a multi decade plan by the United States,
1:16
Speaker 1: not only to destroy Iran, which we've seen in the
1:18
Speaker 1: think tank papers, but it's also something that they've been
1:22
Speaker 1: planning to do in order to corner China, and that
1:25
Speaker 1: this is their way of trying to limit China and
1:29
Speaker 1: disrupt the Belton Road initiative, and so they want to
1:32
Speaker 1: disrupt energy flow. And so from that perspective, the closure
1:37
Speaker 1: of the Straight Orfoar moves is not an accident or
1:39
Speaker 1: a miscalculation. It's actually a deliberate designed tactic and action.
1:46
Speaker 1: And for this reason they argue that there will be
1:49
Speaker 1: no end to the war and that this is actually
1:51
Speaker 1: designed to try and curb China. So I wanted to
1:53
Speaker 1: get your thoughts on the entire war excuse me so far,
1:58
Speaker 1: and how you feel this may or may not be
2:00
Speaker 1: related to China. So I guess we can start first
2:03
Speaker 1: with the war itself and its relations and how China's
2:08
Speaker 1: perceiving it well.
2:11
Speaker 2: I mean, China has made it very clear during the
2:14
Speaker 2: recent UN Security Council debate on basically on whether it's
2:23
Speaker 2: legal to close the Straight or Homus, China made it
2:27
Speaker 2: clear this is not about this is this is not
2:31
Speaker 2: on Iran. This whole situation was brought about by the
2:35
Speaker 2: illegal attack by US in Israel on Iraan. This is
2:40
Speaker 2: Iran is doing what it could to defend its own sovereignty.
2:43
Speaker 2: The only realistic solution to the crisis is to have
2:48
Speaker 2: a peace deal. That has been China's position all along.
2:52
Speaker 2: You know, China always supported Yurung's position in this. And
2:57
Speaker 2: as for the plan that you were referring to, my
3:03
Speaker 2: take is just because they have a plan doesn't mean
3:07
Speaker 2: they are competent implementers. You know, for a little bit
3:11
Speaker 2: historical perspective, people may or may not remember the Iraq War,
3:18
Speaker 2: and the Iraq War was turns out also about oil,
3:22
Speaker 2: because Alan Greenspan wrote that in his memoir and according
3:27
Speaker 2: because he was one of you know, the top USC
3:31
Speaker 2: leite who are in on the plan. According to Alan
3:34
Speaker 2: Greenspan's memoir, the plan was not necessarily to for the
3:39
Speaker 2: US companies to take over the oil in the region,
3:43
Speaker 2: but it's rather allow United States to control the flow
3:47
Speaker 2: of the oil. This was back in two thousand and
3:49
Speaker 2: oh three. This was like China's rise which spout to
3:53
Speaker 2: take off this But even back then, according to Alan Greenspan,
3:58
Speaker 2: the Pentagon and Washington has saw that China has been
4:02
Speaker 2: become increasingly dependent on the oil and gas flow from
4:06
Speaker 2: Persian golf. So they thought, by capturing Iraq, United States
4:11
Speaker 2: will get to dictate how the oil will flow and
4:15
Speaker 2: thus getting a huge leverage over China. Well, how did that?
4:19
Speaker 2: How did that work turn out? You know, in the beginning,
4:22
Speaker 2: they say, okay, China lost bigly because China had a
4:27
Speaker 2: lot of investment oil investment in the oil sector in
4:33
Speaker 2: Saddam's Iraq. But as the war progress, it turns out
4:37
Speaker 2: China actually did pretty well. China, Chinese Oil Company went
4:41
Speaker 2: back right now, Chinese Oil Company are still in rock
4:44
Speaker 2: digging oil. Uh, you know they have they have a
4:46
Speaker 2: lot of oil contract Uh. This is this this Uh,
4:51
Speaker 2: let's just show you how poorly the plan was carried
4:57
Speaker 2: out by the United States. You know, this is us.
5:00
Speaker 2: Nobody ever accused Dick Cheney being a dumb dumb right,
5:04
Speaker 2: Dick Cheney was an evil genius behind the whole Iraq
5:08
Speaker 2: war operation. Yet the whole war on Iraq was so
5:13
Speaker 2: poorly conceived and so poorly implemented. They're there. In the end,
5:19
Speaker 2: China did end up getting a huge share of the
5:25
Speaker 2: Iraq's oil oil sector. So how how how did that?
5:29
Speaker 2: It did not absolutely did not crimped China's rise in
5:37
Speaker 2: any way. Well, what he did though, what the Iraq
5:40
Speaker 2: War did, as a sun Chez pointed out, you know,
5:43
Speaker 2: he was talking about Afghanist kind of Stone war at
5:46
Speaker 2: the time. What the war really did is to wash
5:49
Speaker 2: vast sum of money from the tax basis of North
5:53
Speaker 2: America and Europe and into the pockets of a very
5:57
Speaker 2: small transnational security lead that it did very well, you know,
6:02
Speaker 2: including Dick Cheney's Holly Burton. You know, they made out
6:07
Speaker 2: like bandit in the Iraq War. But it's to the
6:11
Speaker 2: detriment of everybody else. Did that stop China? No, it didn't.
6:18
Speaker 2: So this so it this current war. It doesn't mean
6:23
Speaker 2: that United States didn't have you know, it's very possible
6:26
Speaker 2: that US went into this war planning to gain leverage
6:31
Speaker 2: on China again. You know that there's a lot of
6:34
Speaker 2: talks from various conservative neo think tanks, like particularly Hudson Institute,
6:40
Speaker 2: talking about this is how Trump is going to gain
6:42
Speaker 2: leverage over China prior to his trip to meet with
6:46
Speaker 2: Chijin Pin in Beijing by locking down the oil in
6:50
Speaker 2: Venezuela and then locking down the oil in Iraq, and
6:53
Speaker 2: then Trump can go to Beijing and say I got
6:57
Speaker 2: you by the balls now about opening up your rare
7:02
Speaker 2: earth supply chain to us. Well, uh, that may have
7:06
Speaker 2: been the plan, but that that's not how you know. Currently,
7:10
Speaker 2: if Trump does go to Beijing, which is still big
7:14
Speaker 2: question mark at this point, he will go to Beijing
7:17
Speaker 2: with a very weak can because he does not have
7:21
Speaker 2: control over Iranian oil. In fact, the straight Horn moos
7:25
Speaker 2: is closed. And China, as I have pointed out before,
7:30
Speaker 2: China has the world's largest strategic oil reserve. The size
7:35
Speaker 2: of China's strategic oil reserve is bigger than United States, Europe,
7:40
Speaker 2: Japan combined. That's how big it is. And and it's
7:46
Speaker 2: it's it's China has about like one point four trillion
7:51
Speaker 2: barrels of oil. And a month into this war, China
7:56
Speaker 2: has not drawn down on its reserve because oil still
8:00
Speaker 2: coming in. Oil continue to come in to China from Russia,
8:05
Speaker 2: from Iran and from Venezuela. So there's and so we
8:12
Speaker 2: can see the effect of that. In the beginning of
8:13
Speaker 2: the war, China says, Okay, we're gonna lock down our
8:16
Speaker 2: export of all the refined petroleum products. China is one
8:20
Speaker 2: of the largest exporter of gasoline, diesel, and jet field
8:24
Speaker 2: to Asia. Because China has huge refining capacity, China says, okay,
8:29
Speaker 2: we're going to have to reserve all these for ourselves
8:32
Speaker 2: or for our domestic producers. And that caused a huge
8:35
Speaker 2: supply chain disruption because countries like Australia, for example, they
8:40
Speaker 2: depend thirty two percent of their jet field on imports
8:43
Speaker 2: from China. But China just recently announced that they are
8:48
Speaker 2: going to lift the export ban on gasoline, diesel and
8:53
Speaker 2: jet fuel. That's not a country that that that's not
8:57
Speaker 2: does not look like a country that seems to be
9:00
Speaker 2: is running out of oil, right, I mean the fact
9:03
Speaker 2: that they're going to allow these uh re export and
9:06
Speaker 2: this is huge because like not not just these gasoline
9:12
Speaker 2: product but also fertilizers. You know, China is also one
9:15
Speaker 2: of the largest exporter of chemical fertilizer to the world Japan.
9:20
Speaker 2: Japanese farmers heavily depend on uh imports of chemical fertilizer
9:25
Speaker 2: from China, for example. And and this is actually good
9:30
Speaker 2: news for all the countries in Asia. Now they don't
9:33
Speaker 2: have to worry about getting gasoline diesel, jet fuel, and
9:39
Speaker 2: fertilizer from China is particularly now because it's spring planting season.
9:46
Speaker 2: If farmers don't get their fertilizer now, we're gonna have
9:50
Speaker 2: food shortages, you know, later later this year. So by
9:54
Speaker 2: China public announcing they're going to open up and and
9:58
Speaker 2: and resume export of these petroleum products means China is
10:03
Speaker 2: not worried about its oil supply. So, I mean, it's
10:09
Speaker 2: quite possible that was a United States plan to choke
10:13
Speaker 2: off China's energy supply, but it doesn't. He affected US
10:19
Speaker 2: allies far more than you affected China because US allies
10:23
Speaker 2: like Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Australia, Singapore, they're all heavily
10:30
Speaker 2: dependent on oil and gas coming from the Gulf. China
10:34
Speaker 2: was always getting oil from elsewhere as well, like from
10:37
Speaker 2: Russia for example. This is this is the whole reason
10:40
Speaker 2: Scott Besson has waved the waves as Russian oil sanction,
10:45
Speaker 2: because his idea is, Okay, we gotta if all those
10:49
Speaker 2: Russian oil are going through China, if we wave the
10:51
Speaker 2: Russian sanction, at least some of our allies can buy
10:55
Speaker 2: some of this Russian oil.
10:56
Speaker 1: Right.
10:56
Speaker 2: That's why they granted a waiver to India, for example,
11:01
Speaker 2: to allow India to resume purchasing Russian oil, and recently
11:05
Speaker 2: they extended that to the Philippines as well. But China,
11:10
Speaker 2: China has a less of that problem than than these
11:14
Speaker 2: other countries. And and this and this, this also pointed
11:19
Speaker 2: out a huge problem of the whole logic of choking
11:22
Speaker 2: off China's energy supply. You know, US Navy and all
11:26
Speaker 2: these think tanks has publicly stated for years that Straight
11:29
Speaker 2: of Malacca is a choke point on Chinese energy supply.
11:33
Speaker 2: But you know, if you choke out Straight of Malacca,
11:37
Speaker 2: you're not just choking off supply for China, You're choking
11:40
Speaker 2: off all the countries in East Asia, Japan, South Korea, Philippines,
11:47
Speaker 2: all these countries will have will turn against you. And
11:51
Speaker 2: and like I said, these countries are far more, far
11:55
Speaker 2: more dependent on the Persian UH Persian Gulf energy imports.
12:00
Speaker 2: China is about eighty six percent energy independent, energy self
12:06
Speaker 2: sufficient in terms of primary energy production because China has
12:12
Speaker 2: it produces electricity from solar, when nuclear, hydrol and coal,
12:20
Speaker 2: and China has one of the world's largest deposit col deposit.
12:26
Speaker 2: So you know, when when you cut off of the
12:32
Speaker 2: world's gas supply from Persian Gulf. Well, that just means
12:36
Speaker 2: a lot of the power station power plants they're going
12:40
Speaker 2: to have to they're going to switch to burning coal
12:43
Speaker 2: rather than burning natural gas. And China has plenty of coal.
12:46
Speaker 2: So and China also possessed the world's top coal to
12:51
Speaker 2: oil technology. So, but the threshold for that that the
12:59
Speaker 2: cold to oil oil process is only profitable around seventy
13:05
Speaker 2: five dollars per you know, if the oil price is
13:09
Speaker 2: about seventy five dollars per barrel. But right now the
13:12
Speaker 2: brand is about way over one hundred dollars barrel for oil.
13:16
Speaker 2: So that makes the code to oil a process immensely profitable.
13:22
Speaker 2: China can just switch that on and and make it economics,
13:26
Speaker 2: so so China would be okay. In the end, China
13:30
Speaker 2: is much better prepared than most of the other countries
13:33
Speaker 2: in the world. So if that was a US plan
13:37
Speaker 2: to choke off China's energy, then it's a stupid plan.
13:40
Speaker 2: And and and it's a they didn't think about the
13:44
Speaker 2: consequences because this does affect People say, oh, but the
13:47
Speaker 2: United States, this United States will be fine because US
13:51
Speaker 2: is a net energy explorer. Well that is true. But
13:56
Speaker 2: US is actually a net oil importer. United States export
14:01
Speaker 2: is a lot of gas, but United States imports about
14:04
Speaker 2: six million barrels of oil per day, and so when
14:09
Speaker 2: the oil price goes up, it does hit US as well.
14:12
Speaker 2: And this in fact, we're getting reports as seventy the
14:16
Speaker 2: farm bankruptcy in the United States had goung up forty
14:18
Speaker 2: five percent since the war because farmers can no longer
14:22
Speaker 2: afford the increase in diesel price and the increase in
14:25
Speaker 2: the in the fertilizers. So this does affect United States
14:29
Speaker 2: as well. But and US economy is about forty more
14:37
Speaker 2: oil intensive than the Chinese economy, which is pretty mind
14:42
Speaker 2: boggling considering everything is made in China already, and yet
14:46
Speaker 2: the United States is still far more hydrocarbon dependent than
14:50
Speaker 2: China is.
14:52
Speaker 1: So I want to ask you for a couple of clarifications.
14:55
Speaker 1: So you said that China had one point four trillion
15:00
Speaker 1: with a.
15:00
Speaker 2: T barrels billion, billion, billion, billion, okay, sorry, billion, all right,
15:09
Speaker 2: all right.
15:09
Speaker 1: Maybe I misheard you, but I thought I heard it
15:11
Speaker 1: with the T that was maybe a billion a few
15:13
Speaker 1: minutes ago. But okay, so one point four bill I
15:16
Speaker 1: actually read it was one point eight billion. The other day.
15:18
Speaker 1: Whatever the number is, it sounds like it's because of
15:22
Speaker 1: what you just mentioned here, which is their domestic stockpile surge,
15:27
Speaker 1: because they limited the export of the refining process. I guess.
15:32
Speaker 1: So they receive crude oil and then they refine it
15:35
Speaker 1: and then they would give it to Australia and other places.
15:37
Speaker 1: You said, you know, Australia was dependent on like thirty
15:40
Speaker 1: percent of their jet field came from China or whatever
15:42
Speaker 1: the case was. So China limited the domestic sorry, they
15:48
Speaker 1: limited the international exports, increased the domestic stockpile. And now
15:51
Speaker 1: you're saying the situation is so stabilized for them that
15:54
Speaker 1: they may restart exporting the oil, right, Okay, So.
16:00
Speaker 2: This is actually refined petroleum products. So China imports crude oil,
16:05
Speaker 2: but China has a lot of refining capacity, so China
16:08
Speaker 2: will export refine gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. Yeah, and
16:13
Speaker 2: all of these Australia.
16:17
Speaker 1: I was just gonna ask, all this fuel, all of
16:20
Speaker 1: this fuel, these different kinds of petroleum products require different
16:25
Speaker 1: refineries and refining processes. Is that correct? Okay? And China's
16:31
Speaker 1: in the world doing that.
16:33
Speaker 2: That's in fact, But by the way, China has come
16:38
Speaker 2: a long way because when I was growing up in
16:41
Speaker 2: China nineteen eighties, back then, China was exporting crude oil
16:46
Speaker 2: and importing gasoline, diesel and jet fuel because China back
16:50
Speaker 2: then didn't have enough refining capacity, so it was exporting
16:54
Speaker 2: crude oil to Japan and importing gasoline, diesel, jet fuel
16:59
Speaker 2: and chemical fertilizers. But over the last forty years, China
17:03
Speaker 2: has built out so much capacity. Now China is one
17:07
Speaker 2: of the major exporter of gasoline, diesel, chemical fertilizer to
17:14
Speaker 2: Asia region. And and this is uh and and and
17:17
Speaker 2: and you brought a good point actually about different type
17:21
Speaker 2: of oil fuel and different type of oil.
17:24
Speaker 1: Uh.
17:24
Speaker 2: You know, people talk about Venezuela right For example, people
17:28
Speaker 2: often say Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserve. Now
17:33
Speaker 2: what people don't understand is there's different grade of crude oil.
17:40
Speaker 2: The type of crude oil that's coming from Venezuela is
17:44
Speaker 2: called the very heavy crude. It's almost like tar like.
17:49
Speaker 2: And what they usually use that type of oil is
17:53
Speaker 2: used is for paving the road asphalt, you know, like
17:58
Speaker 2: but to actually X track like useful like like gasoline, diesel,
18:08
Speaker 2: jet fuel from from the Venezuelan type of crude actually
18:12
Speaker 2: requires a lot of energy and and and this is
18:16
Speaker 2: why a lot of the oil during the meeting with
18:19
Speaker 2: a big oil majors, they are all very hesitant to
18:22
Speaker 2: invest in Venezuela because they will have to invest tongues
18:26
Speaker 2: of money over decades too, you know, to to even
18:30
Speaker 2: recoup their their investment. And they are just not sure
18:34
Speaker 2: that's uh that that that's worth it. And and the
18:38
Speaker 2: the the type of oil coming from the from the
18:41
Speaker 2: Golf region on the Persian Golf region, they are light sweet,
18:46
Speaker 2: so they they they require very little processing. But and
18:52
Speaker 2: for example Venezuela, for for a long time, the Venezuelan
18:56
Speaker 2: oil industry, they actually had to import a lot of
18:59
Speaker 2: oil from you wrong because uh, they have to mix
19:04
Speaker 2: in the Uranian oil with the Venezuelan oil so that
19:08
Speaker 2: you will actually flow through the pipelines, you know, because
19:11
Speaker 2: the Venezuelan oil is so heavy, so dense, it's like
19:16
Speaker 2: almost solid. You know, it doesn't it doesn't even flow.
19:19
Speaker 2: You have to mix it in with with other more, uh,
19:23
Speaker 2: you know, the light sweet oil from your wrong to
19:26
Speaker 2: make it even flow through the pipelines. So so you know,
19:31
Speaker 2: you know, by just by United States capturing Venezuela oil.
19:36
Speaker 2: It doesn't mean that. Okay, now now United States own
19:39
Speaker 2: all these uh energy source and and also Venezuela and
19:45
Speaker 2: oil is still going to China by the way as
19:48
Speaker 2: we speak. So yeah, so I to say that somehow
19:52
Speaker 2: this is gonna be how US will have China buy
19:56
Speaker 2: the balls. It's nonsense, and this is not what US
20:01
Speaker 2: have is not even enough to convince China to give
20:04
Speaker 2: up on its export control on rare earth, because China
20:08
Speaker 2: did place export control on rare earth since last year,
20:12
Speaker 2: particularly against the US military industrial complex, you know, so
20:17
Speaker 2: they're going to have some serious trouble to replin tash
20:20
Speaker 2: their ammunitions, particularly cruise missiles. You know, a lot of
20:24
Speaker 2: there's a lot of rare earth going to F thirty
20:26
Speaker 2: five and Patreon missiles, et cetera.
20:30
Speaker 1: So it sounds like you don't think that this strategy
20:34
Speaker 1: will work, and that's a question of whether or not
20:36
Speaker 1: this is even the strategy. So I guess it comes
20:39
Speaker 1: down to like is there a method to this madness
20:42
Speaker 1: or not? And you know, people like Brian Berlettikaev pointed
20:45
Speaker 1: out very correctly that the Iran war has been planned
20:48
Speaker 1: for a very long time. Curbing China obviously is in
20:50
Speaker 1: the US interest. There are think tank papers detailing this,
20:53
Speaker 1: which path to Persia, et cetera. And so this was
20:56
Speaker 1: always going to be the plan. I guess the question
20:59
Speaker 1: has always been why now? And I used to perceive
21:02
Speaker 1: it as strictly sorry, if you'll just allow me to
21:06
Speaker 1: finish my point, the reason I interpreted it happening now
21:10
Speaker 1: because of Zionist pressure. But then I came across this
21:13
Speaker 1: piece of information that the Chinese had actually discovered this
21:16
Speaker 1: like the world's largest deposit of uranium like ever in history,
21:20
Speaker 1: like thirty million tons underneath a basin. And recently they
21:25
Speaker 1: also increase their nuclear power plant reactor production capacity. They're
21:30
Speaker 1: doing they can build fifty reactors at the same time,
21:33
Speaker 1: so they have the production coupled with the fuel in
21:36
Speaker 1: terms of the uranium that could diversify their economy's energy
21:39
Speaker 1: portfolio within like five years. So does so From that perspective,
21:46
Speaker 1: it made me realize that if they are going to
21:48
Speaker 1: curb China and they are just a couple of years
21:50
Speaker 1: away from going nuclear in terms of powering and electrifying
21:53
Speaker 1: their energy grid, that might explain why it's happening now.
21:59
Speaker 1: How do you you interpret it? Okay, we've lost Carls here.
22:12
Speaker 2: Uh because of internet connection, I think. Yeah.
22:15
Speaker 1: Okay, you're back, You're back, gotcha.
22:17
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, okay here my internet Okay, sorry, my question
22:23
Speaker 2: only the beginning, Only the beginning. If you could repeat that, that
22:26
Speaker 2: would be great.
22:28
Speaker 1: The beginning of what my my monologue or the question?
22:32
Speaker 2: No, no, no, your question, your question, your Okay.
22:35
Speaker 1: I was just gonna say how you think it's.
22:38
Speaker 2: It's because they you think they have a small, limited
22:41
Speaker 2: window to choke off China's energy supply because China is
22:46
Speaker 2: bringing all this nuclear energy online. Uh that's what I heard.
22:50
Speaker 1: Yes, So the question is, I guess multi prong. It's
22:55
Speaker 1: you know, why do you think the war was rushed?
22:59
Speaker 1: And why is it happening now? And do you feel
23:03
Speaker 1: after everything you've seen over the last two months, do
23:06
Speaker 1: you feel as though this was always the plan? Or
23:09
Speaker 1: is this actually an impulsive, foolish war?
23:13
Speaker 2: Well, I mean they have this plan called the Clean Break,
23:16
Speaker 2: this from back in nineteen like nineteen ninety seven or
23:20
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety eight. I think it was presented by Daniel
23:24
Speaker 2: Pipe to Netayahu. And this was actually referred to by A.
23:31
Speaker 2: Wesley Clark, the Spring Commander of NATO. He said, there
23:36
Speaker 2: was that the plan was to take out seven countries
23:40
Speaker 2: well in seven years, right, and these are among the
23:45
Speaker 2: seven countries. Among the said seven countries, Iran was basically
23:52
Speaker 2: last one standing. And the idea of the clean break
23:56
Speaker 2: is really to remake the Middle East for for the
24:01
Speaker 2: greater Israel, to enable the greater Israel project. But the
24:06
Speaker 2: Uran remained the biggest obstacle to this plan, and they're
24:11
Speaker 2: the reason Iran has been left out of that. You
24:14
Speaker 2: know that seventh country lists for for a long time
24:17
Speaker 2: because it's just a Uran. Is just hard not to crack.
24:21
Speaker 2: All these seven seven US presidents, UH have resisted Israeli
24:26
Speaker 2: pressure to carry out this plan for the clean Break plan. Well, well,
24:32
Speaker 2: I mean no, no, they didn't resist the clean Break plan.
24:35
Speaker 2: They have implemented, you know in Iraq, you know, going
24:39
Speaker 2: to war against Iraq and and and all that. But
24:42
Speaker 2: they have resisted going war against you wrong because you
24:46
Speaker 2: wrong presents a much harder not to crack. But I
24:51
Speaker 2: think it does brings question right now, why was Israel
24:56
Speaker 2: able to get Trump to do their bedding? I still
25:00
Speaker 2: think I still think they have some compro mode on Trump,
25:06
Speaker 2: you know, like there must be some nasty stuff in
25:08
Speaker 2: the Epstein file, and Trump is just happened to be
25:11
Speaker 2: dumb enough to actually go go through go through with this.
25:14
Speaker 2: We have we have people coming out now saying that
25:18
Speaker 2: the Tyahu has been, you know, trying to pressure in Obama,
25:23
Speaker 2: Biden and then none of them, none of them took debate,
25:28
Speaker 2: uh and and and and here Trump, what you know, Trump,
25:35
Speaker 2: I I can only speculate. I still think this is
25:39
Speaker 2: a Zionist plan to go after you're wrong. Uh not.
25:43
Speaker 2: It doesn't mean that United States also do not want
25:46
Speaker 2: to take out your wrong, but they also have recognized
25:50
Speaker 2: the kind of the difficulty to actually uh wage a
25:54
Speaker 2: war against Iran, and and that you know, US Pentagon
26:00
Speaker 2: has did many war games and and they have never
26:06
Speaker 2: succeeded even in their in there's a worst war game
26:09
Speaker 2: scenario against yourn and particularly when he comes down to
26:13
Speaker 2: the closure of the strad or Homuz.
26:15
Speaker 1: So.
26:15
Speaker 2: So this is a well known problem and yet for
26:20
Speaker 2: some somehow Trump when when ihead with it, I think,
26:24
Speaker 2: you know, Trump is he got some really bad advice
26:28
Speaker 2: from some of his advisors. Well, Trump for for his
26:31
Speaker 2: part he blames Kushner. He said, Kushner told him he
26:35
Speaker 2: will be easy, and I think that's quite possible. Uh.
26:39
Speaker 2: You know, you have people like Kushner like peak headset,
26:44
Speaker 2: you know, telling him, oh sure, yeah, yeah, he will
26:47
Speaker 2: be a be a cake walk and and Trump was
26:50
Speaker 2: probably foolish enough to believe them. But I I this
26:54
Speaker 2: is this is not a well executed plan. I mean,
26:58
Speaker 2: look look at the latest report. They just confirm that
27:02
Speaker 2: Iran has completely, you know, completely destroyed eleven US bases
27:07
Speaker 2: in the region. And they did it with F five.
27:11
Speaker 2: That's a sixty year old airframe. You know, like like
27:15
Speaker 2: that the airplane is older than me. You know that
27:19
Speaker 2: F five was came out between end of Korean War
27:23
Speaker 2: and the beginning of the Vietnam War, and and somehow
27:29
Speaker 2: the uranium pilot was able to fly those F five
27:34
Speaker 2: bombing the US bases unopposed. You know, this is a
27:38
Speaker 2: plot of top Gaumaverick. I just never expect top Gaumaverick.
27:44
Speaker 1: To be Persian.
27:45
Speaker 2: But yet yet, yet here we are, and all the
27:47
Speaker 2: kopium about that is like, oh, this is because the
27:51
Speaker 2: US person military personnel has already evacuated the base. This
27:55
Speaker 2: is why there was no one to man the air
27:57
Speaker 2: defenses against that F five. But that's not a win.
28:01
Speaker 2: You abandon your base in the face of Urania attacks,
28:05
Speaker 2: that's not a win for the United States. Uh So,
28:08
Speaker 2: this this war has exposed a lot of problems about
28:13
Speaker 2: the U. S. Military. You know, US Navy they can
28:15
Speaker 2: barely feed their soldiers. Uh. You know, we have all
28:19
Speaker 2: these photos showing the kind of uh the pathetic type
28:26
Speaker 2: of meal they serve to the US sailors right now.
28:29
Speaker 2: And the US Navy came out with a disclaimer which
28:34
Speaker 2: which was a group of AI generated images trying to
28:38
Speaker 2: convince us that the sailors have enough to eat. And
28:42
Speaker 2: and there's there's a reason for that because all their
28:45
Speaker 2: logistic bases has been destroyed. You know, the U. S.
28:49
Speaker 2: Navy they can't you know, they need to regularly restock,
28:55
Speaker 2: refeel and and and and right now all their base
29:01
Speaker 2: has been destroyed. Uh they so they can they can't
29:06
Speaker 2: do carry out the regular restocking. And they're there. And
29:11
Speaker 2: also the US US military they contract out the off
29:16
Speaker 2: source their their their supply line. So you know a
29:19
Speaker 2: lot of the for example, all these meals they're not
29:23
Speaker 2: being shipped from mainland continental United States to Persian golf
29:28
Speaker 2: to supply those those sailors. They what they usually do
29:31
Speaker 2: is they contract out to some some local suppliers. And
29:35
Speaker 2: all these local suppliers usually will be like suppliers in
29:39
Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia and UAE. This is why the US sailors
29:43
Speaker 2: they usually get some the pack the food packaging was
29:48
Speaker 2: like some you know, like the type of milk that
29:51
Speaker 2: that's specific to Middle East. So what happened is that
29:57
Speaker 2: now all these all these suppliers would normally have supplied
30:02
Speaker 2: US Navy out of ports of UAE, out of ports
30:07
Speaker 2: of Saudi Arabia. Well, guess what, they can't do that anymore.
30:11
Speaker 2: They can't they can't do that reliably anymore. And this
30:15
Speaker 2: is the whole reason. The food problem is only a
30:20
Speaker 2: small facet. It's just a symptom of the disruption of logistics,
30:27
Speaker 2: US military logistics. The modern wars are fought with logistics,
30:31
Speaker 2: and we have shown that US Empire turns out it's
30:35
Speaker 2: a real paper tiger. It's very fragile.
30:43
Speaker 1: So I want to ask you about the fertilizer again.
30:48
Speaker 1: So we know that fertilizer prices are rising, and fertilizer
30:53
Speaker 1: is essentially a byproduct of it's a byproduct of natural
31:00
Speaker 1: gas production, and so yeah, and so Katar apparently Qatar
31:07
Speaker 1: led this industry and they had about thirty percent of
31:10
Speaker 1: the fertilizer going through the straight of hor moves from
31:13
Speaker 1: their natural gas productions. And so as a result, there's
31:16
Speaker 1: a shortage and now seventy percent of farmers cannot afford
31:19
Speaker 1: the fertilizer that they need for this crop growing season
31:23
Speaker 1: in the United States, and so American farmers now are
31:26
Speaker 1: at risk of either bankruptcy or abandoning fertilizer, which could
31:29
Speaker 1: limit the amounts of output, which obviously could push food
31:32
Speaker 1: prices up. But those are effects that could take a
31:34
Speaker 1: year to come in. You've pointed out that China actually
31:39
Speaker 1: also leads the world in fertilizer production, which seems like
31:43
Speaker 1: they just lead the world and producing everything, but you're
31:47
Speaker 1: saying now that they're they So it looked like China
31:51
Speaker 1: tightened their fertilizer exports, but now they're going to start
31:53
Speaker 1: increasing those exports. So could you elaborate a little further
31:56
Speaker 1: on the Chinese fertilizer relationship terms of the global economy.
32:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're you're correct, the fertilizers are uh You know,
32:06
Speaker 2: there are several type of fertilizers, urea and nitrogen potassium.
32:12
Speaker 2: The nitrogen and urea, they're all they're all extractive on
32:16
Speaker 2: the natural gas. Qatar exports about twenty percent of the
32:21
Speaker 2: world's natural gas supply, and that that shut that shut
32:24
Speaker 2: off completely. Now, and you know there's and and they're
32:29
Speaker 2: also you know, it affects more than fertilizer. But but
32:33
Speaker 2: let's focus on fertilizer for a second. Uh, people's US
32:38
Speaker 2: actually have a lot of natural gas. US is a
32:41
Speaker 2: net exporter of natural gas. But what people forget is
32:46
Speaker 2: that natural gas or oil, these are global, globalized commodities.
32:52
Speaker 2: So what what it means when you restrict supply in
32:55
Speaker 2: one area, that's going to be make the price go
32:59
Speaker 2: up everywhere because other people are now going to bid
33:04
Speaker 2: on the natural gas from North America. Uh. It's great
33:08
Speaker 2: for oil companies in US, no doubt. I mean that
33:12
Speaker 2: that's it's great for for the oil majors, but for
33:16
Speaker 2: the for the consumers not so much so. So this
33:20
Speaker 2: is why even though US is abundant in natural gas
33:24
Speaker 2: and the net natural bad gas exporter, farmers still can't
33:29
Speaker 2: afford the increase in in the fertilizer prices because those
33:33
Speaker 2: natural gas have been bid up, uh by by everywhere,
33:38
Speaker 2: you know, like the big oil oil companies. They can
33:42
Speaker 2: make more profit by exporting those natural gas to other places,
33:47
Speaker 2: to Europe, to to India, you know, to to to
33:51
Speaker 2: these other to to Japan, to these other places. So
33:55
Speaker 2: so there will be less fertilizers for domestic consumpt and
34:00
Speaker 2: this is the whole reason that the price is going up.
34:05
Speaker 2: And this is this is also behind China's initial ban
34:09
Speaker 2: on fertilizer export because they want to they want to
34:13
Speaker 2: cap they want to make sure the Chinese farmers will
34:17
Speaker 2: get their first dip on the Chinese fertilizers, rather have
34:22
Speaker 2: them send them out export for you know, for higher profit,
34:27
Speaker 2: because food security is you know, China always take food
34:30
Speaker 2: security very seriously, and and China has been China. So
34:37
Speaker 2: I'm not sure about the food fertilizer situation, but I
34:41
Speaker 2: know China just recently relaxed thinking about reopening export for gasoline,
34:47
Speaker 2: diesel and jet feel fertilizer might might be further down
34:55
Speaker 2: the queue because you know, like I said, China takes
34:59
Speaker 2: food security very seriously. They'll make sure the Chinese farmers
35:03
Speaker 2: will get their first dip on fertilizer, then they might
35:05
Speaker 2: consider export if they're having excess. But this is not
35:10
Speaker 2: how it works in the United States, right, US said
35:12
Speaker 2: they will export to whatever, you know, to make the
35:16
Speaker 2: higher profit to. So this is why, you know, the
35:20
Speaker 2: prize continued to rise in the United States even though
35:23
Speaker 2: US has abundant natural gas and a net natural gas exporter.
35:29
Speaker 1: So it sounds like the Straight of Hormuz has not
35:32
Speaker 1: really affected China, at least not yet. China has been
35:36
Speaker 1: preparing for this for a very long time with the
35:38
Speaker 1: strategic reserves and the fertilizer export controls, and so they're
35:41
Speaker 1: prioritizing their own domestic population. But they've done such a
35:45
Speaker 1: good job of this that now they're you know, potentially
35:48
Speaker 1: going to start exporting again to countries in need. This
35:52
Speaker 1: is what kind of fascinates me about the situation because
35:55
Speaker 1: we think about it in a very simplified manner, like
35:57
Speaker 1: Iran closed the Straight of Hormuz and for like economic catastrophe, right,
36:02
Speaker 1: and it kind of is brewing in that direction. But
36:05
Speaker 1: it's two months out now and life is mostly the same.
36:07
Speaker 1: It's just slightly more expensive.
36:10
Speaker 2: And then you have let let me let me, let me,
36:13
Speaker 2: let me chech I think. So there's a time delay
36:18
Speaker 2: right there. It takes about fifty days for an oil
36:22
Speaker 2: gas tanker from Middle East fun from Persian Golf to
36:26
Speaker 2: travel to say to United States. So just about a
36:31
Speaker 2: few weeks ago, the last batch of tankers UH that
36:36
Speaker 2: have left the Persian Golf before the war started just arrived, right.
36:41
Speaker 2: So people have been buffeted by kind of this time delay.
36:47
Speaker 2: We have not even seen the real shortage yet. The
36:50
Speaker 2: real shortage is coming. I mean like it's gonna get
36:53
Speaker 2: much much worse. Because even even if they reopen, even
36:59
Speaker 2: if they reach a peace deal today and and and
37:03
Speaker 2: we opened the street hor moves, things are not going
37:05
Speaker 2: to be back to the level of pre war because
37:09
Speaker 2: you know, the gas production Urani and Gas field was
37:13
Speaker 2: hit by Israeli and in return, the Katari gas facility
37:17
Speaker 2: got hit by by Irani missiles. It's gonna take months
37:23
Speaker 2: to restore production and you might not even restore to
37:26
Speaker 2: the previous level because these these oil gas productions, they
37:30
Speaker 2: are very kind of intricate processes. They have to maintain
37:33
Speaker 2: constant pressure. Just to give an example, Kuwait, the Kuwaiti
37:40
Speaker 2: oil and gas field, they still have not reached the
37:45
Speaker 2: same level of production pre uh pre uh invasion by Saddam.
37:53
Speaker 2: This is and that they were only they only had
37:56
Speaker 2: like experienced several months of outage, you know outage is
38:00
Speaker 2: uh uh uh. They only had the several month stoppage
38:04
Speaker 2: of production, you know back back then. We're gonna this
38:07
Speaker 2: is gonna be much much worse because when these when
38:10
Speaker 2: these oil people think like oil well, you just like
38:15
Speaker 2: turn a knob and you know, things just flow back again.
38:19
Speaker 2: No no, no, no, that's not how it works. Like
38:21
Speaker 2: they you have to maintain like a constant pressure. Otherwise
38:27
Speaker 2: it's gonna damage the wells, it's gonna damage the facility,
38:31
Speaker 2: and it's gonna take it's a lot of the I
38:36
Speaker 2: just read a reports. Even if they were trying to
38:40
Speaker 2: restart production today, a lot of to restore the production
38:44
Speaker 2: level to pre war level, they will have to in
38:47
Speaker 2: many cases don't have to make new drill new holes,
38:52
Speaker 2: which is very expensive and and take take a lot
38:56
Speaker 2: of time. So the we we just have not seen
39:01
Speaker 2: real shortage yet because you know, we were still getting
39:05
Speaker 2: the oil and gas, the fund the proaching golf, but
39:08
Speaker 2: the last batch that left the perching golf before the war.
39:13
Speaker 2: They already arrived a few weeks ago, so we're gonna
39:15
Speaker 2: sae much much worse shortage in the coming weeks and months.
39:23
Speaker 1: Very interesting point. I'm glad that you clarified that logistics,
39:26
Speaker 1: supplied line and supply chain in the travel times. That
39:30
Speaker 1: definitely helps us understand why it took so long for
39:32
Speaker 1: prices to finally break one hundred and twenty dollars per
39:35
Speaker 1: barrel on the crew prices sixty days out, and it
39:39
Speaker 1: seems like there's no end in sight. The point I
39:42
Speaker 1: was trying to make, though, is that we view these
39:45
Speaker 1: conflicts and these strategies in a very simplified manner, but
39:47
Speaker 1: it actually seems as though the global economy is a
39:51
Speaker 1: lot more sophisticated and complex than we think. And so
39:54
Speaker 1: I remember asking you three months ago before the war
39:57
Speaker 1: kicked off, wouldn't the closure of the straight up hor
40:00
Speaker 1: affect China, given that China's like thirteen percent of their
40:03
Speaker 1: energy comes from Iran, But you pointed out how it's
40:07
Speaker 1: actually a lot more complicated than that, and they haven't.
40:09
Speaker 1: Not only have they not experienced a shortage, they've increased
40:12
Speaker 1: their strategic reserves during this time, and so that was
40:16
Speaker 1: very interesting. And now we're seeing Russian sites are being attacked,
40:21
Speaker 1: but also Russia themselves are also cutting off pipelines, They're
40:24
Speaker 1: preventing oil from reaching Germany, and so Russia's also playing
40:28
Speaker 1: this game of trying to cut off energy and everyone
40:31
Speaker 1: seems like they're trying to maximize pressure on everyone else.
40:34
Speaker 1: So how do you interpret this game we're seeing of
40:39
Speaker 1: you know, China prioritizing the population, cutting off supplies, but
40:44
Speaker 1: then also thinking about maybe helping the world by continuing
40:47
Speaker 1: to export again, Russia turning off oil the US, you know,
40:51
Speaker 1: continuing this blockade. There's a lot of conflicting interests and
40:55
Speaker 1: strategies here, and then Iran is of course just trying
40:58
Speaker 1: to maximize what they can gain from the closure. What
41:01
Speaker 1: exactly is the Russian strategy here and how does it
41:04
Speaker 1: fit in?
41:05
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know if Russians are attacking their own
41:08
Speaker 2: oil facility, there is a Ukraine, there's a Ukrainian angle here,
41:14
Speaker 2: and then you know, the Ukrainians are backed by by NATO.
41:18
Speaker 2: And right now there's a lot of oil refineries are
41:23
Speaker 2: are getting attacked all over the world, which is which
41:26
Speaker 2: is concerning and U for China's perspective, China will be hurt.
41:32
Speaker 2: I mean, don't get me wrong, China will will be
41:35
Speaker 2: Everybody will hurt. China will hurt, but China will hurt
41:38
Speaker 2: a lot less than other countries in in a in
41:42
Speaker 2: a in a situation. Oh, actually black Kazakh oil flow
41:47
Speaker 2: to Germany, Okay, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, because there there's
41:51
Speaker 2: a lot of Russian there's so so despite the sanctions
41:55
Speaker 2: on Russian oil and gas, there's a lot of still
42:00
Speaker 2: the Russian oil and gas continually flow to other markets,
42:05
Speaker 2: including Europe. This this happened u you know, for a
42:08
Speaker 2: while India was making banks by you know, essentially reselling
42:13
Speaker 2: Russian gas and oil to Europe at a premium. And
42:16
Speaker 2: it looks like Russia is cutting off the other alternative route,
42:21
Speaker 2: which well, gang does help them gain leverage. But for China,
42:28
Speaker 2: I would rather focus on China because you know, like
42:32
Speaker 2: Russia is not my expertise. China itself has It will hurt,
42:37
Speaker 2: but it will be hurt a lot less than other countries.
42:40
Speaker 2: This is like a case of running away from the bears.
42:44
Speaker 2: You know, you you are not trying to outrun the bears,
42:48
Speaker 2: You're trying to outrun other guys. You know, China will
42:51
Speaker 2: be outrounding the other guys. China will hurt the least
42:57
Speaker 2: among all the people that will be heard, but China
43:00
Speaker 2: will still be heard, and and and this will just
43:03
Speaker 2: push China's accelerate China's current drive to achieve energy independence.
43:10
Speaker 2: Like you already allude to it earlier about Chinese expansion
43:13
Speaker 2: on nuclear power, China has been China never actually put
43:16
Speaker 2: all eggs in one basket. You know, China has been
43:19
Speaker 2: doing a huge rollout of solar, when hydro nuclear, and
43:24
Speaker 2: they have that. They're now making real headway in nuclear fusion,
43:29
Speaker 2: which it will be huge you know once the once
43:31
Speaker 2: the nuclear fusion became commercialized. That that's that's a you know,
43:36
Speaker 2: boundless energy because uh uh, the current nuclear power is
43:44
Speaker 2: provided by nuclear fiesion, but the nuclear fusion is a
43:49
Speaker 2: lot cleaner, uh you know, rather than produce nuclear waste,
43:52
Speaker 2: it produced water and and once the nuclear fusion, and
43:56
Speaker 2: China also it has commercialized the Thorian reactor, which is
44:03
Speaker 2: much much more cheaper. So so China already achieved about
44:09
Speaker 2: eighty six percent of energy self sufficiency in primary energy production,
44:16
Speaker 2: but that number continue will continue to go higher and
44:20
Speaker 2: higher and this is why China has been pushing to
44:24
Speaker 2: electrify in the country. The reason they're they're connecting the
44:28
Speaker 2: country from end to end with high speed rail, and
44:30
Speaker 2: all these high speed rail lines are electrified is so
44:33
Speaker 2: they will be less dependent on using less dependent on
44:39
Speaker 2: imported oil. I think that that and Chinese evs I
44:44
Speaker 2: think now will gain wider adoption outside of China as well.
44:49
Speaker 2: So we're going to see a huge push in that direction.
44:53
Speaker 2: This this you know, like the oil shock in the
44:58
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies, that kind of compos reoriented UH economy. You know,
45:03
Speaker 2: that's when Japanese car became very popular because they are
45:07
Speaker 2: more fuel efficient. What we're seeing right now, we're gonna
45:12
Speaker 2: this this war is going to give a huge push
45:14
Speaker 2: to the to the adoption of Chinese evs everywhere and
45:19
Speaker 2: uh and and as well as the importation of Chinese
45:22
Speaker 2: solar panels. You know in a lot of the global
45:24
Speaker 2: seals country, particularly where the where the state capacity is
45:28
Speaker 2: rather weak and they couldn't provide enough grid power. Now
45:32
Speaker 2: people can just buy affordable solar panels put on their
45:36
Speaker 2: roof and then you don't need to be on state
45:39
Speaker 2: grid and you can be energy self sufficient, and and
45:42
Speaker 2: and the batteries has come down such a in such
45:46
Speaker 2: a level that now you can store the actually the
45:50
Speaker 2: solar energy for you to use at night. So I
45:53
Speaker 2: think the world is going to move a lot quicker
45:56
Speaker 2: in that direction. But but fur lzer is do an
46:00
Speaker 2: issue because we still need the fertilizers and that will
46:05
Speaker 2: still have to come for natural gas and and and
46:09
Speaker 2: this is so that that that that part really concerns
46:12
Speaker 2: me because we are we cannot people say, oh, you know,
46:16
Speaker 2: by in November, Trump will you know, Trump will will
46:20
Speaker 2: get his lesson in the November election, But the world
46:23
Speaker 2: cannot wait till November. By by November, it's too late,
46:26
Speaker 2: like the whole year's worth of crop would have uh
46:31
Speaker 2: have gone unplanted because of lack of fertilizers. So that
46:36
Speaker 2: that's that's the part I worry the most. The other
46:39
Speaker 2: parts US blockade will fail. Yeah, I mean, I mean
46:45
Speaker 2: right now, I.
46:46
Speaker 1: Just wanted to ask you about this. Yeah, okay, we've
46:49
Speaker 1: been talking for forty five minutes, so I want to
46:50
Speaker 1: get your thoughts on, uh obviously, whether you think the
46:54
Speaker 1: blockade is actually going to work. It sounds like you
46:56
Speaker 1: don't think it will. But I wanted to just get
46:58
Speaker 1: you to elaborate on that a little bit and then
47:00
Speaker 1: I'll ask you a final quote after that.
47:02
Speaker 2: Sure, I mean the Trumps blockade on blockade is just
47:08
Speaker 2: the very typical Trump negotiation tactic, right, I mean the
47:12
Speaker 2: idea is you want to break the Iran's economy and
47:18
Speaker 2: by preventing the Uranian oil export. So this is this
47:23
Speaker 2: is actually interesting, enticing what we said earlier about blockading
47:28
Speaker 2: China's energy supply. So right now, the US Navy is
47:32
Speaker 2: playing a cat and mouse game with Iranian tankers in
47:35
Speaker 2: Indian Ocean. So a lot of the Indian Iranian tankers
47:39
Speaker 2: what they do is after they sail out the Iranian
47:42
Speaker 2: territorial water, they just hug the coastline and sail in
47:46
Speaker 2: the territorial water of Pakistan and India and the United States.
47:51
Speaker 2: You know, at this point they do not want to
47:53
Speaker 2: violate the territorial water or package in India, so they
47:56
Speaker 2: set out. So instead the wait until those uh Iranian
48:01
Speaker 2: tankers travel out of the Indian territorial waters.
48:05
Speaker 1: Uh, you know the.
48:07
Speaker 2: Gap between India and Sri Lanka. When when those tankers
48:10
Speaker 2: sell out of Indian territorial waters and before they reach
48:15
Speaker 2: the next territorial water of the next country. In the
48:18
Speaker 2: open sea. That's where US Navy carry out a lot
48:21
Speaker 2: of it its interdiction. But if if the I keep
48:27
Speaker 2: in mind, most of the Uranian tanker are heading over
48:29
Speaker 2: to you know, their their ultimate destination. Those oil are
48:32
Speaker 2: going to China. If the goal was for United States
48:36
Speaker 2: to choke off China's energy supply, they should just place
48:39
Speaker 2: a blockade at Straight of Malacca because a lot of
48:42
Speaker 2: the Uranian tankers their destination is to travel traversus Straight
48:46
Speaker 2: of Malacca, go to the go to the go to
48:50
Speaker 2: the east side of the Straight Malacca into South China Sea,
48:53
Speaker 2: where a lot of the Iranian crude will will get
48:57
Speaker 2: loaded offloaded and loaded into different tankers, and those those
49:02
Speaker 2: oil will be marketed off as Malaysian crude oil and
49:06
Speaker 2: get exported to China. This is where we get to
49:09
Speaker 2: figure about thirteen percent of Chinese oil import actually come
49:14
Speaker 2: from Iran because thirteen because right now, according to official sources,
49:19
Speaker 2: thirteen percent of Chinese oil import come from Malaysia. You know,
49:23
Speaker 2: most of that is actually Iranian and venezuel and oil,
49:28
Speaker 2: and so so if US really want an effective blockade
49:33
Speaker 2: rather than Placata mouse game in the in the Indian Ocean.
49:37
Speaker 2: They could have just blockade the Straight of Malacca like
49:40
Speaker 2: they always claim they would, to blockade the Chinese energy supply,
49:44
Speaker 2: because that's you know, the Uranian tankers will have to
49:48
Speaker 2: traverse straight on Malaca anyway. But yet United States chose
49:52
Speaker 2: not to do that. You know, I'll leave. I mean,
49:55
Speaker 2: I have a couple. I think there's a couple of
49:58
Speaker 2: reasons for that. One is, US don't want to panic
50:03
Speaker 2: the world market. You know, the moment US blockade the
50:09
Speaker 2: Straight of Malacca, that's gonna that's gonna tank the stock
50:12
Speaker 2: market everywhere. This is something that Trump administration do not
50:15
Speaker 2: want to do because a lot of the world marine
50:18
Speaker 2: traffic goes through Straight of Malacca, you know, not just China.
50:22
Speaker 2: But this is this affects that everybody everywhere, the whole
50:25
Speaker 2: the stock market will definitely be spooked. Another, uh, reason
50:30
Speaker 2: US decided not to blockade the Straight of Malacca is
50:33
Speaker 2: now you are talking about where they're they're they're we're
50:38
Speaker 2: gonna have to carry this out at the tip of
50:41
Speaker 2: South China Sea. Now, Chinese Navy they may not have
50:46
Speaker 2: the capability projection, the power projection to go challenge the
50:52
Speaker 2: US Navy in Indian Ocean. But they they have been
50:58
Speaker 2: building their their their whole capacity to dominate South China.
51:03
Speaker 1: Seed.
51:04
Speaker 2: That's the whole point of the Chinese navy. So this
51:08
Speaker 2: is why I think, this is my personal estimate, why
51:12
Speaker 2: US chose not to blockade cat and mouse game in
51:24
Speaker 2: the Indian Ocean. Okay, okay, yeah.
51:35
Speaker 1: A final question, if I may. We're pushing fifty minutes now.
51:38
Speaker 1: I appreciate you spending this time with us today. It's
51:41
Speaker 1: been a while since we've spoken, and so there's been
51:43
Speaker 1: a lot to cover.
51:44
Speaker 2: But so.
51:47
Speaker 1: Long story short, China's handling this situation very well and
51:50
Speaker 1: then preparing for it for a long time. I think
51:53
Speaker 1: Russia has been conditioned for this Iran as well, given
51:55
Speaker 1: that they've been under attack under sanctions for many years.
51:58
Speaker 1: Now everyone else is catching up. It seems like the
52:01
Speaker 1: US is with every sanction and every aggressive act, they
52:05
Speaker 1: are hurting their supposed allies more and more. And it
52:08
Speaker 1: got me thinking that the US is even though they've
52:12
Speaker 1: built these institutions NATO, they give their blessing to the
52:16
Speaker 1: European Union, they have all these arrangements with their allies
52:19
Speaker 1: like South Korea, Japan, India, Western Europe, etc. They don't
52:22
Speaker 1: trust the institutions they've built, they don't trust the alliances
52:26
Speaker 1: or friendships they've made, so they're aggressively trying to cement
52:30
Speaker 1: their gains heading into a multipolar world. And that's why
52:34
Speaker 1: they will blow up the North Stream to pipeline, affect
52:37
Speaker 1: the energy market so they can aggressively insert American companies
52:41
Speaker 1: that are too expensive for these people to do business with.
52:44
Speaker 1: But now that there's a shortage, they have no choice.
52:45
Speaker 1: And so the way I see it is that the
52:47
Speaker 1: US is either this is like at the worst end,
52:51
Speaker 1: potentially leading to god forbid, World War II level escalation,
52:57
Speaker 1: and on the best case scenario, they're just trying to
53:00
Speaker 1: cement and aggressively insert their American companies into a multipolar
53:04
Speaker 1: world where they can't really compete with China, Russia or Iran.
53:08
Speaker 1: How do you interpret this overall strategy?
53:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's definitely the latter. I mean, Marco
53:16
Speaker 2: Rubio himself, I acknowledge the multipolarity is already here. So
53:21
Speaker 2: you know, if you read the their their the Pentagon papers,
53:25
Speaker 2: that that's what they claim, you know, to to to
53:28
Speaker 2: refocus on us dominance of the West Hemisphere and and
53:34
Speaker 2: and yeah, there's there's not gonna be a pivot to
53:39
Speaker 2: Asia as seem visioned by Hillary Clinton. Uh, because right
53:45
Speaker 2: now there's the you know, by the way, when they
53:48
Speaker 2: say pivot to Asia, they're talking about pivot to East Asia,
53:50
Speaker 2: that that ain't happening because right now all the they're
53:53
Speaker 2: they're drawing away all the US military assets away from
53:57
Speaker 2: East Asia, including marines from ok Kinawa and that and that, uh,
54:05
Speaker 2: ballistic missile defense from South Korea. Now they're shipping them
54:08
Speaker 2: to to to West Asia. You know, it turns out
54:12
Speaker 2: the pivot to Asia is pivot to West Asia. I
54:16
Speaker 2: they yeah, I don't think the was uh that it's
54:23
Speaker 2: their plan again US, what's that say? The plotters plan.
54:30
Speaker 2: The plotters plot and plan, but but a lot is
54:34
Speaker 2: the best planner. United States is just not very good
54:39
Speaker 2: at this. I mean, we we don't have the best brains.
54:43
Speaker 2: You know, you have you have Twamp claim that he
54:46
Speaker 2: liberated eight a I generated Iranian women right from execution.
54:52
Speaker 2: So you know, we're not dealing with a with the
54:55
Speaker 2: sharpest tool in the shed here. So you know, I'm
54:59
Speaker 2: you can you can count than to f up whatever
55:03
Speaker 2: whatever grand strategy they originally have.
55:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, Carl, I thank you so much for being
55:12
Speaker 1: here today. I'm just gonna quickly share on the screen
55:14
Speaker 1: your X account so that people can follow you and
55:19
Speaker 1: check out your work. So let me just add that
55:21
Speaker 1: to the scene. Here, Here we go, Carl zas so
55:25
Speaker 1: you can follow him on Twitter. Of course, I'm gonna
55:27
Speaker 1: be linking all this information in the description, but check
55:30
Speaker 1: out his ex account. He has two hundred thousand plus
55:32
Speaker 1: followers for a reason. His tweets are routinely going viral
55:35
Speaker 1: for their sarcasm and wit, which is a nice addition
55:39
Speaker 1: to geopolitical analysis, which is usually pretty cold and dark.
55:43
Speaker 1: So he's fun to follow on X. He also has
55:46
Speaker 1: the Silk and Steel podcast, which you can see here.
55:49
Speaker 1: He has how many episodes have you released now? I
55:54
Speaker 1: don't know a lot.
55:56
Speaker 2: Guess I'd be doing it for several years now, but
55:59
Speaker 2: I am doing a chronological retelling of the Chinese history
56:03
Speaker 2: from the very beginning and currently I'm in the year
56:07
Speaker 2: two twenty one BC at the unification of China under
56:12
Speaker 2: the first import. So if that's your couple of tea,
56:15
Speaker 2: you know, follow me on Patreon, where I run the
56:19
Speaker 2: Silken Steal podcast on Chinese history.
56:39
Speaker 1: Yeah so, Carl, thank you so much for being here,
56:40
Speaker 1: and I look forward to the next time we have
56:42
Speaker 1: a discussion. My pleasure.
56:44
Speaker 2: I'm on anytime.