Latest / Q & A, Hosted by Jay Nordlinger / By the Ambassador, Briefed

Transcript

By the Ambassador, Briefed · Q & A, Hosted by Jay Nordlinger

• 0:01
  hello everyone and welcome to q a i'm jay nordlinger and our
• 0:05
  guest today is a
• 0:06
  return guest nick burns r nicholas burns the u.s diplomat he is
• 0:13
  what you might call
• 0:13
  a generalist he has served in many capacities in many places he
• 0:19
  has studied and
• 0:19
  worked on a wide range of issues when he was a new foreign
• 0:24
  service officer he was
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: in africa in the middle east at the white house
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: He worked in Soviet then Russian affairs.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: He was State Department spokesman.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: He was ambassador to Greece and ambassador to NATO.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: He was an undersecretary of state.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: More recently, from 2022 to 2025, he was ambassador to China.
• 0:49
  Before going to China,
• 0:50
  he taught at Harvard's Kennedy School where he is once more.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: Nick Burns, thanks for joining us and so good to see you.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Jay, it's good to see you.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: I follow you on social media.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: I always agree with you, so I'm happy to be here.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:06
  I probably left out a post or an assignment or two or ten in my
• 1:10
  introduction of you.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: Nick, on to something grave and big.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Does China aspire to be a global hegemon more than a mere,
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: if mere is the right word,
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: regional hegemon?
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think the Chinese believe in their heart of hearts,
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: the Chinese Communist Party,
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Xi Jinping,
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: that they can be the world's greatest power in five to 10 years.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: But I do think that's an aspiration.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they're very fixed on anniversaries.
• 1:45
  2049 will be the centennial of the takeover of China by Mao
• 1:51
  Zedong and the
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Communist Party in 1949.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: By 2049,
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's one of their ambitions.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: But even sooner than that,
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: there's no question in my mind that China wishes to become,
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: aims to become,
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: determined to become,
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: the strongest power in the Indo-Pacific.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that means overtaking the United States because we have been,
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: since the close of the Second World War in September 1945,
• 2:16
  the strongest naval and air and economic power and diplomatic
• 2:20
  power all across the
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Indo-Pacific.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: And as you know very well, that's a very important part of the world.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Think of it this way.
• 2:30
  four of the five largest economies in the world today and for
• 2:33
  the next 10 to 20
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: years are on that map.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: The United States, we're a Pacific power, China, Japan, and India.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: The other economic power is the European Union.
• 2:44
  And I think the four strongest military powers in the world are
• 2:46
  those four
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: countries,
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: the United States,
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: China,
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Japan,
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: and India.
• 2:51
  So it's our mental map,
• 2:53
  the image that we have in our minds of where power is.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: When you and I were growing up
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: It was probably the Atlantic world.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm from Boston.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: We look out on the Atlantic Ocean.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: I naturally,
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: as a kid,
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: teenager,
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: young adult,
• 3:07
  gravitated towards NATO and Western Europe and the Cold War
• 3:12
  with the Soviet Union.
• 3:13
  The really dramatic power struggle is going to take place on
• 3:16
  the other side of the
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: world in the Indo-Pacific.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's why it's so important for us.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: When you were speaking about China and the United States,
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: I thought of Charles Krauthammer who said,
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: I believe he coined this,
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: there's a long essay,
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: decline is a choice.
• 3:34
  Now,
• 3:34
  not for most nations,
• 3:35
  but he meant for the United States is decline a choice.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: I guess I've always believed it.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: Do you?
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, of course, because there's human agency in terms of our leadership.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: We determine in a democracy what our priorities are.
• 3:51
  We determine,
• 3:52
  are we going to be outward looking as a people or inward
• 3:54
  looking as a people?
• 3:55
  You think of some of the really catastrophic times in the last
• 4:00
  century or so where
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: the United States chose to be inward looking,
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: rejecting the League of Nations in 1920 and 21 after Versailles,
• 4:11
  becoming isolationist in the 1930s as Hitler and Mussolini and
• 4:15
  Tojo rose to power.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we're at one of those moments where we have to decide,
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: 340 million of us,
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: are we going to maintain our outward looking focus in the world?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: And particularly, are we going to maintain our alliances in the world?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because,
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Jay,
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: as I look at our power balance,
• 4:33
  the United States versus our two largest and strongest
• 4:36
  adversaries in the world,
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Russia and China,
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: one of the reasons why we are substantially more powerful than both
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: is because in Europe, we're aligned with 31 other countries in NATO.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: That makes us so much stronger,
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: so much more united,
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: powerful diplomatically,
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: economically than the Russian Federation.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: In the Indo-Pacific,
• 4:59
  we are aligned militarily through treaties with Japan and
• 5:03
  Thailand and the
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Philippines and South Korea and Australia.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: And we have a security partner called India.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so,
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: whereas China and the United States one-to-one,
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: that's a pretty equal power relationship.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you add those allies,
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: particularly Japan and India,
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: to our side of the ledger,
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: we're able to limit their power,
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Chinese power in the world.
• 5:26
  We're able to contain the worst aspects of Chinese communist
• 5:31
  expansionism in the
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: South China Sea,
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: East China Sea,
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Taiwan Strait.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: So for me,
• 5:37
  The United States is powerful because of itself,
• 5:40
  but also in large part because of our allies.
• 5:43
  And I worry that President Trump and his team are limiting our
• 5:50
  ability to work well
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: with our allies.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: And in some cases,
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: actually taking our allies on,
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: questioning Canadian sovereignty and Canada itself,
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: questioning Danish sovereignty and Greenland.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: And more recently, in the National Security Strategy Report, essentially,
• 6:07
  Rejecting the European Union as a political body and saying
• 6:11
  that it's that Europe
• 6:13
  is on the verge of civilizational erasure because Europe has
• 6:18
  become multi-ethnic,
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: multi-religious and and multinational.
• 6:25
  And of course,
• 6:25
  that's exactly what the United States has been for well over a
• 6:29
  century.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: We're multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multinational as well.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so that to me is a key question about the future.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: What are we going to choose?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: An inward looking,
• 6:39
  more isolationist or one dimensional America or an America that
• 6:43
  honors its treaties
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: and its allies.
• 6:46
  And that will keep us ahead of the Chinese and Russians if we
• 6:48
  elect that direction.
• 6:52
  Nick,
• 6:52
  this is a bit of a diversion,
• 6:53
  but let's go back since you brought it up.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of the great what ifs.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: What if the United States had joined the League, the League of Nations?
• 7:00
  Do you think that would have made,
• 7:01
  of course,
• 7:02
  this is conjecture,
• 7:03
  maybe informed conjecture.
• 7:04
  Do you think that would have made a difference or would the
• 7:07
  next war have come in
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: the late 30s anyway?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: What's your hunch?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: It might not have prevented the collapse of the Weimar Republic.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: the ascendancy of Hitler in 1933,
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Mussolini in the 1920s,
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Japanese militarism in the 20s and 30s.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: But we were the strongest economy in the world throughout the 20s,
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: even in the middle of the Great Depression in some ways.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so if we had been outward looking,
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: it is a great what if,
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: it might well have given the democracies,
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: especially Britain and France,
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: much more confidence
• 7:44
  in facing the challenge of the rise of the Nazi party in the
• 7:49
  mid to late 1930s
• 7:51
  until it was too late when Hitler invaded Europe and started
• 7:56
  the Second World War
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: in September 1939.
• 7:58
  So it is a what if,
• 7:59
  but certainly the absence of the United States,
• 8:02
  despite FDR's attempt to
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: to kind of bring the United States into it earlier,
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: an isolationist Congress only passed the draft.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: The first peacetime draft in 1940,
• 8:14
  my uncle Stan Toomey was drafted in that draft and it only
• 8:19
  passed by one vote.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I had uncles who then went into the war.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: My dad, you probably did too.
• 8:26
  I mean,
• 8:26
  everybody,
• 8:27
  when I was growing up,
• 8:29
  all of our coaches and teachers were World War II.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: They paid a great price.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: in large part because we were late to that war.
• 8:39
  And if we had been in the political fight,
• 8:43
  in the jockeying for power in the 1930s,
• 8:47
  who knows?
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: It could have ended up,
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: it wouldn't have been worse,
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: and it could have given more strength to the West European powers,
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: the democracies to oppose the rise of the fascist powers.
• 8:58
  You remind me,
• 8:59
  if I were a betting man,
• 9:00
  Nick,
• 9:01
  this would be a pretty safe bet.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: I bet you're an admirer of George C. Marshall.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I certainly am.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: Years ago, I wrote a history of the Nobel Peace Prize, which he won.
• 9:12
  And he gave a most unusual Nobel lecture,
• 9:14
  saying essentially what you've just said.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well,
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: that generation is such a fascinating generation,
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: and so much has been written about it.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: You've written about it.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Walter Isaacson and the wise men wrote about it.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Indeed.
• 9:28
  Most of them had a personal experience of fighting in the First
• 9:32
  World War.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Or in the case of FDR,
• 9:34
  he was Assistant Secretary of the Navy for President Wilson in
• 9:38
  the First World War.
• 9:40
  And that generation saw the promise of the Allied victory of
• 9:44
  November 1918 kind of
• 9:46
  go up in smoke when the United States rejected the League of
• 9:50
  Nations and began to
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: hunker down for two decades.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: By the way, you can include that scrappy kid from Missouri, Harry Truman.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Harry Truman.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly right.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Harry Truman was in the action in World War I.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so when they emerged from the Second World War,
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: FDR,
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: of course,
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: having died on April 12th,
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: just before the war ended,
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: but Truman and Eisenhower and Marshall and Acheson,
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: they were determined not to repeat the mistake of
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: of an isolationist United States Senate in 19, 19, 20.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: And therefore,
• 10:29
  they went out to actively create a world where the United
• 10:31
  States would be in that
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: world as a guarantor of the peace.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: That leads to the creation of NATO.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: And the creation of these treaties that I referred to earlier,
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: 1950,
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: 49,
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: 50,
• 10:53
  51,
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: with Japan,
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: with the Philippines,
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: with South Korea,
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: with Australia,
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: that we are going to ensure the peace because we,
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: the strongest country,
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: will be there.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: That has worked for the United States.
• 10:56
  And it'll work in the future if we stay with that basic
• 11:00
  attitude that we have to be
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: in the world,
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: not outside it.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: Nick,
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: you mentioned Denmark,
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: and I want to get back to China,
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: but I want to tell you that I was in Denmark earlier this year,
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: speaking with some people,
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure you know them all,
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: or most of them,
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: the basic national security field.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: And they're just, they're incredulous.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: They can hardly believe their eyes or ears.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: What if Denmark had to invoke Article 5 against the United States?
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: How would that work?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: And some of them said, you know, we could invoke Article 4 right now.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't know what Article 4 was.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'd never read it.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'd never read it.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's just,
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: when your territorial integrity is threatened,
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: you can convene a meeting of the whole.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: So this was just dizzying.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I believe Article 5 has been invoked only once in NATO history.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember who was U.S.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: ambassador to NATO at the time.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: It was, well, yours truly.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: You probably do.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: It was September.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: I was trying to be funny.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't come off very funny.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: I know you were.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't come off that way.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: But your audience part doesn't know that.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I had arrived at NATO on August 31st, 2001.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: And 12 days later,
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Al Qaeda attacked the Twin Towers,
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: killed nearly 3,000 people in New York City and its suburbs.
• 12:23
  The attack on the Pentagon,
• 12:25
  the Flight 93 crashing because of the heroism of its
• 12:29
  passengers.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: in Pennsylvania.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I was sitting in with my team.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's the U.S.
• 12:37
  mission to NATO is a combined military DOD,
• 12:40
  Department of Defense,
• 12:41
  and State Department team.
• 12:43
  And the majority of my team were military officers and
• 12:45
  civilians from the Pentagon.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: And were you in Brussels, Nick?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was in Brussels.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: I was at NATO headquarters.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: And,
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: we didn't know where the next attack was coming or if it was coming,
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: but we sure wanted to help our brethren back in the United States.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: And after a couple of hours of conversation...
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: By the way,
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: may I just say,
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: the smell,
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: the stench came through these windows where I am,
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: and I'm way up on 69th Street,
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: and that was way...
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: And over time,
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: the wind,
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: and it was just...
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Were you in New York that day,
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Jay?
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Keep going.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: You have a personal memory.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: Not really.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm lucky.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm luckier than some people.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well,
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: the moral of the story is,
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Jay,
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: and it really answers your question about Denmark,
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: is that my phone rang and it was the Canadian ambassador to NATO,
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: David Wright.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Nick, have you thought about invoking Article 5?
• 13:40
  And for your listeners,
• 13:42
  the key provision of the NATO treaty from 1949 is Article 5.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: If one of us is attacked, all of us will have been attacked.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: We'll all band together to repel that attack.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: And of course,
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: the framers,
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Marshall and Truman and Acheson,
• 13:59
  were thinking of a Stalin attack across the North German plain
• 14:05
  sometime in the late
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: 1940s or early 1950s.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: They were sure it was coming.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: And Article V would give the Soviets pause that if they attacked Norway,
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: or Denmark, or West Germany, they'd be attacking the United States.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: And because of NATO's strength, that attack never came.
• 14:25
  We deterred the Soviet attack all throughout the 50s and 60s
• 14:29
  and 70s and 80s until
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: So when my phone rang,
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: And my friend David Wright,
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: the Canadian ambassador,
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: said,
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: have you thought about invoking Article 5?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: We had never invoked it in NATO history.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, I said, David, we operate by consensus.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: So every member would have to say yes.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: If one member said no, then we would not invoke Article 5.
• 14:52
  And the story for the American people on September 12th would
• 14:55
  have been NATO
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: refuses to back the United States.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a gamble.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: But we counted the votes.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: And by late that night,
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: I talked to Secretary Powell and Secretary Rumsfeld,
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: and we had all agreed to go forward.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: And early in the morning of the 12th,
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: we assembled at NATO headquarters and prepared to vote Article 5.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I figured, you know, I really need a presidential instruction.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so I called my close friend to this day,
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Condoleezza Rice,
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: who was then the national security advisor.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: And she was in the situation room.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: It was four in the morning in Washington, 10 in the morning in Brussels.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Condi, and she hadn't had any sleep.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Condi, the allies want to invoke Article 5.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: She said, go for it.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: I said, thank you, Condi.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think I need the president's instruction to vote for Article 5.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: She said, go for it.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: I tried a third time.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Condi,
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for your instruction.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: I really need to hear from the president.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: She said he's had a really bad day.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: As national security advisor,
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to give you have a presidential instruction through me,
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: which was good enough for me.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: I knew she spoke for President Bush.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so I said, good, I'll go down to room one, NATO headquarters.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'll vote for this.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the kicker, Jay.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: She said one more thing before you get off the phone.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: I said, what's that?
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: She said, it's good to have friends in the world.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I've never forgotten what Gandhi said.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: We're so powerful.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm proud that we're powerful.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: I love our country.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: We want us to be strong.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: But we often need friends in the world.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: If we try to go it alone against Putin or against Xi Jinping,
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: these are pure,
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: especially China in all senses is a pure power.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: Russia is in the nuclear weapons realm.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: But if you add our allies,
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: the European allies and NATO,
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: the East Asian allies,
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: we democratic countries are stronger.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: We can keep the peace through deterrence.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that's probably,
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Jay,
• 16:59
  the most important lesson I've learned since I started as a
• 17:03
  lowly intern for the
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: State Department in West Africa in 1980.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's that key lesson.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm concerned.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Was that Mauritania, Nick?
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: That was Mauritania, West Africa.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: In our tiny embassy, it turned out to be
• 17:17
  Really,
• 17:17
  for most of the six months I was there,
• 17:19
  two of us,
• 17:20
  and I was the number two.
• 17:21
  I considered myself the lowest-ranking person in the United
• 17:25
  States government.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: In 1980, that was me.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: I knew my place.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: I was learning the craft of diplomacy.
• 17:30
  But that's the key lesson I've learned and that I try to impart
• 17:35
  here to my students
• 17:36
  but also in articles and so forth about we Americans need to
• 17:41
  have friends.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I want President Trump to succeed.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: Of course we want him to succeed in the world.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: He's our president.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: But if we go it alone,
• 17:50
  if we criticize the way that Europe has formed its political
• 17:55
  structure in the
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: European Union,
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: if we put 50% tariffs on India...
• 18:00
  And if we've had 25 percent tariffs on South Korea and Japan
• 18:04
  for much of 2025,
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: it's difficult for those allies to think of us as a true ally.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's what's at stake here.
• 18:14
  Nick,
• 18:14
  on NATO,
• 18:16
  several years ago,
• 18:17
  I did a big study of Turkey's membership in NATO.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: And when I say a big study, I'm talking in my journalistic terms.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: I spent like four days on it, which is a lot for someone like me.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: And some very wise heads said to me, take the long view.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: Think beyond Erdogan and that regime.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's good to have Turkey in.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, certainly is.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: And does this apply to Hungary?
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: Would you tell me to take the long view and Orban won't be forever?
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: I just don't know how long a view to take.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: In the case of Turkey,
• 18:54
  it's a continental power of sorts and a historical power
• 18:58
  through the Ottoman Empire
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: in the past.
• 19:01
  And given its geographic location,
• 19:03
  it literally straddles Europe and Asia.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a big country with a lot of power.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's a country you want to give time for.
• 19:12
  And if they're going through an authoritarian period now,
• 19:15
  you're not going to be uncritical
• 19:18
  but you do want to keep them in NATO because they're going to
• 19:21
  be important 30 years from now.
• 19:23
  Hungary is a smaller country,
• 19:24
  landlocked,
• 19:26
  quite isolated in some ways in Central Europe.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, NATO, I think, can survive with Hungary in it.
• 19:34
  The question is,
• 19:34
  can the European Union,
• 19:35
  because the EU operates by consensus.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: And Orban, excuse me, Viktor Orban has been a continual drag to,
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: on the European Union as the EU tries to go forward,
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: modernize itself,
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: make difficult decisions.
• 19:51
  And so a lot of Europeans in the EU are musing whether or not
• 19:57
  Hungary should be in the future.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: If it continues to support Russia,
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: for instance,
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: and be a mouthpiece for Russia in the heart of Europe.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: Does NATO without the United States make sense?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, nations can ally with one another as they will.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: But some of those Danes I was talking with said,
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 20:20
  we'd almost rather have the United States out at this point
• 20:23
  because we're afraid
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: they'll undermine our operations from within.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's a shocking statement.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: Will our planes work when we want to fly them?
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: Or will someone in your country, Jay, turn them off?
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: I would say it's such a good question.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: Two points.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: First point, one is I do give President Trump credit.
• 20:45
  He worked really hard as a bull in a China shop,
• 20:53
  and that's not a criticism.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: He put the arm on the Europeans and said,
• 20:56
  you have to raise your defense budgets because we Americans
• 21:00
  have been spending 3.5%
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: or more of our GDP on national defense for decades.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: And many of the Europeans, Jay, 1%, 1.2%.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: Germany, for instance.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Canada, barely 1%.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think President Trump was right to press them.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: I have to admit, you can rebuke me.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: I sort of liked Germany that way myself.
• 21:22
  Maybe I've seen too many movies,
• 21:23
  read too many books,
• 21:25
  but I didn't mind America's pain.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, anyway, these are long discussions, they're old discussions.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: Thatcher was against the reunification of Germany.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: I always thought that the country that got the most out of NATO,
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: that benefited the most was the payer,
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: us.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: But maybe that's not right anymore.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to – I had two points.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean I was going to get to that and then I agree with you on that.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's okay.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's a fair argument.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: The United States can't shoulder all these awesome burdens by itself.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: And we were doing more than we should have.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: The Europeans are doing less than they should have.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's a better way to put it.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think President Trump was right.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: to convince the Europeans to spend 3.5% of their GDP,
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: which is now the commitment as of this year.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: He accomplished that, and I give him credit for that.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: He was right to do it.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: We tried.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: When I was NATO ambassador and George W.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Bush was president,
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Joe Biden tried,
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: Barack Obama,
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Jimmy Carter tried.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: Harold Brown was really big on this subject.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: He absolutely gave them hell, but to no avail.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: Trump made it happen.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's point one.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: Point two, but we need these allies.
• 22:38
  And so I actually cannot foresee a future of NATO without the
• 22:43
  United States in it,
• 22:44
  because even with this higher defense spending levels of the
• 22:47
  European allies,
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: the United States is such a large presence militarily on the continent.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: We have assets,
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: air power,
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: transport power,
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: intelligence that the Europeans are not going to have anytime soon.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: And here's why I say that.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's in our interest to be in Europe.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: Europe is vital, the future of Europe for the United States.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: We went through two world wars in Europe and a Cold War.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: But Nick, it seems like half the country disagrees with us.
• 23:17
  And so the Europeans are going to have to defend themselves
• 23:19
  against Russia.
• 23:22
  So the majority of Americans consistently in public opinion
• 23:26
  polls support NATO.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: NATO has a very positive image.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: Look at any poll and you will see that.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you poll the far left...
• 23:38
  who don't want the United States even to have a larger defense
• 23:41
  budget or to be
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: involved overseas,
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: you're not going to get support.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you poll the far right MAGA supporters, the same thing.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: But most Americans are between those two polls.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: And they're somewhere center right, center, center left.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: And just look at Chicago Council polls,
• 23:59
  look at the Pew polls that regularly poll the American public
• 24:04
  on their attitudes
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: towards NATO and other institutions.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: NATO gets very, very high marks.
• 24:09
  And I think,
• 24:10
  you know,
• 24:11
  Americans have seen how important NATO has been under U.S.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: leadership for Ukraine and for President Zelensky in the Ukraine war.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: So, no, I can't imagine.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's not in our interest to have the United States out of NATO.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: I was about to say, you know, so our grandfathers...
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: had the First World War.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: And we had 2 million Americans in Europe in 1917-18 to fight that war.
• 24:34
  We had 16 million Americans in uniform between 1941 and 1945 in
• 24:39
  two different
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: theaters,
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: Pacific and Atlantic.
• 24:42
  But as you and I talk,
• 24:44
  we are 81 years past the second day of the Battle of the Bulge.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: That was the final Nazi push for power in Western Europe,
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: the von Rundstedt Offensive,
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: into Luxembourg and Belgium.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it failed to
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: over six weeks, 80,000 American casualties.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's killed, wounded, and missing.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: 80,000.
• 25:04
  It is the bloodiest engagement the United States had in either
• 25:10
  theater in World War II.
• 25:12
  We kept American troops in Europe between 1945 and 1991,
• 25:15
  when the Soviet Union imploded in
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: As a defense,
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: as a deterrent against a Soviet attack,
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: we're still there and our security is bound up with Europe and Canada.
• 25:30
  So I can't see us leaving NATO and I disagree completely with
• 25:35
  members of the
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: administration who think that NATO is yesterday's story.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: Jay, I think you're muted.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: People have tried to mute me for years, probably for good reason.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: You gave me a memory of many years ago.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: It was the early 2000s.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I was talking with Rumsfeld, who was Secretary of Defense.
• 26:00
  And I said,
• 26:01
  do you think the American people will stick for long with the
• 26:04
  war on terror?
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: He said, they stuck with the Cold War.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, I believe we lucked out on that a bit.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, well, yeah, I remember.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: He said, I was ambassador to NATO.
• 26:15
  And I was called on from Portugal to testify against the
• 26:17
  Mansfield Amendment,
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: which I believe would have called for the withdrawal of,
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: which did call for the withdrawal of American troops from Europe.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: So he said, yeah, it was touch and go.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's ever been thus, I'm sure.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I try to look.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: Here's why what President Trump did was so important and so positive.
• 26:36
  Convincing the Canadians and the West Europeans and the Central
• 26:40
  Europeans and NATO,
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: you got to spend more on defense.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's important for us, too.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: Europe's our largest trade partner.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: Europe's the largest investor into our economy.
• 26:52
  And the European allies are the greatest number of American
• 26:54
  treaty allies anywhere
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: in the world.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: So what happens in Europe,
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: and we've seen it with Putin's invasion of Ukraine,
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: he's trying to recommence a version of the Cold War,
• 27:05
  an update of the Cold War by drawing a line between an
• 27:09
  authoritarian East Russia
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: and the democratic powers in the West.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the line that was erased with the collapse of the Berlin Wall
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: the collapse of the Warsaw Pact countries between 89 and 91,
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
• 27:23
  You and I are old enough to remember what an incredible
• 27:26
  achievement that was.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: I never thought, Jay, when I was 20...
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: and I was 20 in 1976, that we would ever see the end of the Cold War.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: I thought it was going to be a feature of my entire life.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: We saw the end of it,
• 27:38
  and we saw the liberation of hundreds of millions of East
• 27:42
  Europeans from communism.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: What a great achievement.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't do it on our own.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: Pope John Paul II was instrumental.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: The people of Eastern Europe liberated themselves,
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: but we were a moral and military voice to support them.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so for the Americans on the isolationist wings of the two parties,
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: left and right,
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: say,
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: get the United States out of NATO,
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: why would that be in our interest?
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: It would hurt us.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: It would isolate us.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: It might ensure that Putin gets his way.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: And we can't have that happen.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well,
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: you've reminded when we spoke,
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: we saw the liberation of these cities,
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: these great capitals,
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: Warsaw,
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: Prague,
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: Berlin.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: Wasn't it extraordinary?
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it was.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: And by the way,
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: on expecting the end of the Cold War,
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: I want to tell you about one of the most honest answers I ever received.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: Long ago,
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: I said to Paul Nitze,
• 28:36
  were you surprised by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the
• 28:38
  end of the Cold War?
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: This is after they could have told me and he said, yes, I was.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: I thought that was such a humble answer because he could have said,
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: no,
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: I expected it for this,
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: that,
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: and the other reason.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: He said, yeah.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: And he elaborated, mind you, but that's how he began.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: And, but you've reminded me of Hong Kong and, um, uh,
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: Perry Link said something arresting on this program.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: He said,
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: before our eyes,
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: he said,
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: we're seeing the murder of a great dynamic,
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: one of the freest,
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: most dynamic cities in the world.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought because of our age,
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: I guess that's the first reversal that I saw,
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: that we saw a free city just come under the hammer.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: Of authoritarianism.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: I can't think of another example in our lifetimes.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: No, I can't either.
• 29:30
  And I first went to Hong Kong with Secretary George Shultz in
• 29:33
  1988 and saw it in its glory.
• 29:35
  I went back with Secretary Madeleine Albright for the handover,
• 29:39
  June 30th,
• 29:39
  1997.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: When Britain handed it back...
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: to mainland China, communist China.
• 29:48
  And I remember the commitments the Chinese government made to
• 29:51
  the British and to
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: the people of Hong Kong.
• 29:53
  50 years of autonomy,
• 29:55
  50 years where your personal freedoms will be ensured.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: One country, two systems, I think was the... One country, two systems.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: I was back in Hong Kong
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: in March of 2024 with my wife Libby.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the week that Hong Kong passed the national security law,
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: which effectively gave the government authoritarian powers,
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: the city government of Hong Kong over the people of the country.
• 30:22
  I've been back in Hong Kong twice this year since I left my job
• 30:25
  as ambassador to China.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it is a shadow of its former self.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's a wholly owned subsidiary of the Communist Party of China.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's very sad to see that the people of Hong Kong,
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: and we saw the struggle in 2019,
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: the umbrella movement for democracy.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: And we've seen just in the last week,
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: Jimmy Lai put on trial and convicted of crimes he did not commit.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: He's a great champion of freedom of the people of Hong Kong.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: So it's very sad.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: And there's been a reversal.
• 31:00
  That's what happens when authoritarian powers believe that they
• 31:04
  can expand their
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: power outside their own borders.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: You're a diplomat and I'm not, so I usually speak undiplomatically.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think or fear that Taiwan is a goner?
• 31:20
  I don't know if goner is a word one uses in diplomacy,
• 31:23
  but I have sweated it for some years.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like I matter.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: Who cares about my opinion?
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the people of Taiwan have sweated this for some years.
• 31:34
  I do not believe that the takeover of Taiwan by the government
• 31:42
  of the People's
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: Republic is inevitable.
• 31:46
  I certainly believe that the leadership of the People's
• 31:50
  Republic of China wants to
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: get Taiwan back under the control of mainland China.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now,
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: it's interesting,
• 31:56
  and I never tired of just dropping this into conversations at
• 31:59
  the Chinese foreign
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: ministry,
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: that that government in Beijing has not ruled Taiwan since 1895,
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: when the Qing dynasty lost Taiwan in the war that they lost to Japan.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: And Japan ruled it from 1895 to 1945 with the defeat of Japan.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: Taiwan became what it is.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: autonomous, not an independent state.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: And there's no question that Xi Jinping,
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: in legacy mode,
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: wants to have Taiwan come back into the fold.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: But think of how hard that's going to be.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: Taiwan is an island democracy.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's a true democracy.
• 32:39
  Taiwan has an economy that's critical for the rest of the world
• 32:42
  because of the
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: presence of TSMC,
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: the most important semiconductor manufacturer in the world.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: The people of Taiwan want to be free.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: They want to be autonomous and not to be ruled by Beijing.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: And for a long time,
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: a lot of analysts assumed,
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: well,
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: the way that China would get it back would be a cross-strait invasion,
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: 100 miles of open water.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: which is a lot longer than what we faced in D-Day, June 6, 1944.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: The topography of Taiwan is mountainous,
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: shallow beaches,
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: mountainous coming right down to the shore.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's very different than Omaha Beach or Juneau or Sword Beach of 1944.
• 33:25
  And that was an extraordinarily difficult and bloody and costly
• 33:28
  operation back in D-Day.
• 33:32
  The Taiwanese have been watching very carefully what the
• 33:35
  Ukrainians have done so
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: effectively against a much stronger force.
• 33:40
  They've used asymmetric technology,
• 33:42
  in this case drone warfare and intelligence and missiles.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: to neutralize,
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: in part,
• 33:51
  the advantage of this larger behemoth army that Putin has put
• 33:55
  in the field.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: Taiwan's trying to take a page out of the Ukrainian playbook.
• 33:59
  And so if you're in Beijing and you're thinking about a
• 34:02
  cross-strait invasion,
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: you're going to have to assess the probability of success.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: How successful would that be?
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: And what you don't know is
• 34:10
  Would the United States and Japan and the Philippines intervene
• 34:13
  on behalf of Taiwan?
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because,
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: and I think this is the key to all this,
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: since Richard Nixon,
• 34:19
  every American president has been ambiguous about whether or
• 34:24
  not we'd invade,
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: excuse me,
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: not invade,
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: to enter the fray,
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: to keep China off balance.
• 34:32
  And so at the same time that the Chinese are trying to
• 34:34
  calculate what the U.S.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: and Japan would do,
• 34:37
  President Xi Jinping keeps firing senior admirals and senior
• 34:41
  generals of the
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: People's Liberation Army.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: So how much confidence does he have in that?
• 34:45
  So a lot of analysts now think that the more likely option for
• 34:49
  China would not be a
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: cross-strait invasion,
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: which would be a near-run thing.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it might fail.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: And if it fails, a dramatic defeat for China.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: So the alternative could be an anaconda strategy.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: A slow asphyxiation through a blockade or customs union,
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: China intercepting ships,
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: LNG,
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: food for the island economy.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that would be slow, almost imperceptible.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so that might be
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: the more likely scenario that a future U.S.
• 35:26
  president and Taiwan leadership will have to really examine and
• 35:32
  figure out how to respond.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: I've also heard from Taiwanese the word absorption.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure you have too.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: The danger that they'll absorb us rather than conquer us.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'll give you a memory.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: You may remember that...
• 35:47
  Deliberately or inadvertently,
• 35:50
  Bush 43 broke the sort of policy of strategic ambiguity.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, we will defend Taiwan.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: And someone,
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think I asked a national security official,
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: did he mean to do that or was it a slip?
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: And borrowing on the history of advertising and its slogans,
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: this fellow said,
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: only his hairdresser knows for sure.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think Biden also did he not say, yeah, we'll come to Taiwan's defense.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: He did say that.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: Under President Biden's leadership,
• 36:27
  he never changed the one China policy that every administration
• 36:32
  has inherited from
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: President Nixon,
• 36:33
  which is to say that we are ambiguous and will not telegraph
• 36:42
  decisions ahead of
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: time.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: So he said all those things.
• 36:47
  But what's happened is that both President Biden and now
• 36:50
  President Trump have been
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: selling defensive weapons to Taiwan to strengthen their deterrence,
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: to make this a harder bet for the Chinese leadership.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what we should be doing.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I think some of your listeners may know,
• 37:06
  in addition to the one China policy that President Nixon agreed
• 37:09
  to in 1972,
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: the Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: January 1, 1979.
• 37:16
  And that act requires American governments to assist Taiwan in
• 37:22
  strengthening its
• 37:23
  deterrence and in maintaining American military forces in the
• 37:27
  region to ensure the
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: peace.
• 37:30
  That gets to the American military bases in Japan,
• 37:34
  in South Korea,
• 37:35
  in the Philippines.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: I wish I'd brought our masks.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: island chain of the Pacific,
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: which runs from the Japanese home islands south,
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: and then the second island chain that runs all the way out to Guam.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: In my great power class here at Harvard Kennedy School,
• 37:52
  we examined that geography and the jockeying for position
• 37:58
  between the People's
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: Liberation Army on one hand,
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: the U.S.,
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: the Japanese Defense Forces,
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: the Filipinos on the other.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is the power map of the future.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where all this is going to be decided.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: And of course,
• 38:16
  it's in our interest that we're strong enough in our
• 38:19
  commitments to our allies that
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: the PLA is dissuaded from
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: from trying to expand its reach further than it has so far.
• 38:27
  They've been contesting the Philippines at three different
• 38:30
  atolls in the West Philippine Sea.
• 38:33
  China has this extravagant and illegal definition of its own
• 38:37
  maritime boundaries in
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: the South and East China Seas.
• 38:41
  There is no provision of international law that agrees with
• 38:44
  them,
• 38:44
  so it's our job.
• 38:46
  to draw those proverbial red lines through our treaty
• 38:50
  obligations to Japan and the
• 38:52
  Philippines specifically to let the Chinese know there's only
• 38:56
  so far you're going
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: to go here.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: If we don't do that,
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: and we've been doing it very effectively,
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: then the Chinese,
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: would feel they have an open avenue to expand their borders.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's maddening.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: that the Chinese continue to say,
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: they said to me privately,
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: and they've said publicly,
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: well,
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: these are the borders of the Ming Dynasty.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: The Ming Dynasty went out of business in the middle of the 17th century.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: And in modern law,
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: international law,
• 39:28
  you own 12 nautical miles out from your coast or from your
• 39:36
  continental shelf,
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: but you don't own 500,
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: 600 miles out,
• 39:40
  which is what the Chinese are claiming by pushing out against
• 39:44
  the Philippines,
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: against Vietnam,
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: against Malaysia,
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: against Brunei in the South China Sea,
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: and against Japan in the Sakakudayu Islands of the East China Sea.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: This is a really important cat and mouse game,
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: if you will,
• 39:58
  where the United States has to stand by its allies to keep the
• 40:01
  peace and to prevent
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: China from doing
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: what those powers did in the 1930s that we talked about,
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: run amok and run over other people's borders with impunity.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: Nick,
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: you may agree that Chinese nationalism is a great and fearsome thing,
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: a commonly shared thing.
• 40:22
  And I'm thinking about the Beijing government's,
• 40:25
  the Chinese government's appetite for Taiwan.
• 40:28
  I wonder if it's just sheer nationalism,
• 40:30
  a united China and Taiwan's kind of an insult.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: Or do Chinese leaders,
• 40:37
  do Communist Party leaders not like the example that Taiwan is
• 40:41
  setting of a Chinese
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: democracy?
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: Taiwan being a Chinese country that is a democracy.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: That must be a tremendous provocation of perhaps fear, or maybe not.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I think it is.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's,
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: when you have 25 million people who have free elections,
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: free speech,
• 41:02
  the same type of liberties that we Americans have in our from
• 41:06
  our Bill of Rights,
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: that is a thorn in the side of the Communist Party of China.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you know, it's always important.
• 41:14
  Is that because mainland ordinary mainland Chinese might get
• 41:17
  big ideas that perhaps
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: they could have this,
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: too?
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they certainly don't want that to happen.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's why they lock down their own people.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: And if you stand up in China and say one word of public opposition to the
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: government,
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: you are going to go to jail.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, it's tragic.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: It happens all the time.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that you have to do as a diplomat
• 41:38
  is be analytical and try to get and try to understand the
• 41:41
  perspective of the other
• 41:42
  side i don't you don't have to agree with it and i don't agree
• 41:45
  with chinese of
• 41:47
  course we must understand of course but here's the story that
• 41:50
  the chinese people
• 41:52
  and leadership say to themselves we underwent a cent we chinese
• 41:56
  underwent a century
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: of humiliation from the opium wars of the 1840s
• 42:03
  to Britain and France burning down the summer palace of the
• 42:07
  Qing emperors in the
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: 1860s,
• 42:10
  to the fact that the United States and Britain and France and
• 42:13
  Japan and other
• 42:14
  colonial countries at the turn of the 19th and the 20th
• 42:17
  centuries established zones
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: inside China where we established our own laws
• 42:24
  that didn't respect the laws of the Qing Dynasty and then of
• 42:26
  Nationalist China after 1911.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: So in Shanghai,
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: in Beijing,
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: in Tianjin,
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: there were essentially American colonies operating under US law,
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: impervious to any Chinese law or regulation.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: Then,
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: of course,
• 42:42
  the big event was the Japanese occupation of Manchuria in 1931
• 42:48
  and of the big East
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: Coast cities in China from 1937 to 1945.
• 42:52
  The Chinese had tremendous loss of life in the 30s and 40s in
• 42:58
  the Second World War,
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: second only to the Soviet Union,
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_00: but in the tens of millions of Chinese.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was a searing event.
• 43:06
  So the Chinese tell themselves and they instruct their kids in
• 43:09
  school,
• 43:10
  we suffered.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: humiliation.
• 43:13
  And China was nearly broken apart and extinguished by these
• 43:18
  foreign forces.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: So Mao rode to power and the communists have governed saying,
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_00: we need to control China,
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_00: our own country.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that meant, and this is tragic, what happened.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: It meant
• 43:32
  the so-called pacification of Tibet and Xinjiang in the Western
• 43:35
  China by force,
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: a bloody pacification by the communist forces in the 50s and 60s.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_00: It meant getting Hong Kong and Macau back.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why under Xi Jinping's conception of this China dream,
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: the rebuilding of a Chinese people,
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: Taiwan,
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: in their view,
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: has to come back.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't agree with that.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_00: You don't agree with that.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_00: And most importantly, neither...
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: Our Republican or Democratic Party leadership agrees with that.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_00: So we resist that part of it.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_00: We say if the Taiwanese people want to live a free life,
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: they should have the right to live a free life.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_00: And this is part of the drama.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: Same with the Tibetans.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: I wonder if Tibet will ever be a country again.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, ever, ever is a long time.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of my favorite lines, but it's hard to see.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, it's interesting to get back to your Paul Netza quote.
• 44:26
  I never thought,
• 44:28
  and I was working in the White House on Soviet affairs in 1990,
• 44:32
  91,
• 44:32
  and 92.
• 44:34
  I never thought the Soviet Union would in my lifetime cease to
• 44:38
  exist,
• 44:39
  but it did cease to exist.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: So miracles can happen in big, positive ways.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_00: even dreamlike changes can happen in the world.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: The key thing is that we held the line between 1949, 1945, and 1991.
• 44:58
  We kept our military forces in both Japan and South Korea and
• 45:01
  Germany to prevent a
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: third world war.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then these Chinese,
• 45:06
  these communist regimes collapsed under their own weight in
• 45:10
  Eastern Europe.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what George Kennan said, the architect.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: of the containment policy.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_00: He said,
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_00: if we're patient and we apply pressure,
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_00: don't go to war,
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: they will collapse under their own contradictions.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not a bad way of thinking about the next 10 to 20 years.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: You're right.
• 45:29
  And I just think in that period,
• 45:31
  other people have made this point very strongly to me,
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: There was also the moral, symbolic, and diplomatic.
• 45:37
  For example,
• 45:37
  we never recognized officially the captivity of the Baltic
• 45:41
  states.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we always said that these are states.
• 45:45
  And maybe it was just a fig leaf or just mere diplomacy or just
• 45:50
  a matter of a moral stance.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: But it wasn't nothing either.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_01: And the Balts appreciated it.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 45:56
  that was Franklin Delano Roosevelt when Hitler and Stalin made
• 46:00
  their pact that they
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: would divide Eastern Europe,
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: And when the Soviets went into both Finland,
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_00: but also Estonia,
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: Latvia,
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: Lithuania,
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_00: all independent states in 1940,
• 46:14
  FDR refused to recognize the Soviet onslaught that extinguished
• 46:19
  the nationhood of
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_00: each of those three Baltic countries.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_00: Did we have the Wells Declaration in there?
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: We had the Sumner-Wells Declaration.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_00: He was FDR's chief diplomat on this.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_00: And we would not recognize it.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_00: We then helped them to spirit their gold reserves.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: Back to Washington.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_00: We held onto those reserves from 1940 to the end of 1991.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: And this is an interesting story.
• 46:45
  When I started at the White House in April 1990,
• 46:48
  my boss was a woman named Condoleezza Rice.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_00: We were this two-person Soviet team.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_00: And she said,
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_00: Nick,
• 46:54
  one of the things I want you to do is I want you to be the
• 46:56
  liaison to the Baltic
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_00: legations.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_00: These were diplomats.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_00: In two cases,
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_00: diplomats who had arrived in Washington in the 1930s,
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_00: Ernst Jaksson in Estonia and Anatole Dindbergs of Latvia.
• 47:14
  They arrived in their embassies,
• 47:17
  representatives of these independent nations.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: Their nations were subsumed by the Soviet Union violently in 1940.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_00: Those two guys stayed in those buildings from 1940 to 1991.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine?
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_00: 51 years.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: They never gave up the dream.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it was an unlikely dream.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: Very.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: At some point, they would be liberated.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_00: They were.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the proudest and most memorable days of my career was,
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_00: September 17th,
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: 1991,
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_00: when these elderly gentlemen,
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_00: along with Stasi Lozeraitis,
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_00: the Lithuanian ambassador,
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_00: I walked them into the Oval Office to see President George H.W.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_00: Bush.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: And President Bush said to them,
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_00: We're recognizing your independence today.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_00: And they were going up to the United Nations,
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_00: the three of them,
• 48:07
  to reassert their independence because the Soviet Union was two
• 48:12
  months away,
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_00: three months away from disintegration.
• 48:17
  What a great moment about faith and about persistence of people
• 48:23
  who did not want to
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_00: be communist.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_00: They wanted to be free.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's a wonderful story.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_00: So great.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_00: So great.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_01: Let me take you back to China for a minute.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_01: One of our,
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_01: we've had him several times on this show,
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_01: Nuri Turkel,
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_01: the Uyghur American lawyer and actor.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_01: He's a great champion of human rights.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_01: And his family refers to you as, quote, our angel.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_01: He said this on this program.
• 48:50
  I believe you walked his mother up onto the plane when she was
• 48:54
  allowed out of China.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: I wonder if,
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_01: is there,
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_01: of course,
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_01: we could spend 10,
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_01: 15 minutes on parsing definitions of genocide.
• 49:05
  Do you have any doubt that the Chinese government's persecution
• 49:10
  of the Uyghurs
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: amounts to genocide?
• 49:14
  persecution of the Uyghurs,
• 49:16
  specifically between 2017 to 19,
• 49:19
  was monstrous.
• 49:21
  A conservative figure is that the Chinese authorities locked up
• 49:26
  unjustly over one
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_00: million people,
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: threw them into so-called education camps.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_00: Muslim men
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_00: most Muslim men wear beards.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's part of their faith.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_00: They made the Muslim men shave their beards.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_00: Muslim women, if they're religious, headscarves.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_00: They made the Muslim women take off the headscarves.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_00: People disappeared in this Chinese gulag of sorts,
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_00: in this huge Western province of China,
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_00: Xinjiang province.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so I thought that
• 50:02
  Secretary Pompeo and President Trump at the end of the first
• 50:06
  term in 2020 were
• 50:07
  right to say there have to be sanctions for the Chinese
• 50:13
  government for having
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_00: carried out this monstrous crime against these defenseless sanctions.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_00: people, the Uyghur people, Muslims of Western China.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then President Biden came along and signed a bill that Marco Rubio,
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: when he was senator,
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_00: sponsored with the Democrats,
• 50:32
  the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act that basically said to
• 50:34
  American companies,
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: manufacturers,
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_00: textiles in Xinjiang,
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: if you are producing
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_00: Anything in Xinjiang province, you have to demonstrate to us, the U.S.
• 50:44
  government,
• 50:45
  that there's no slave labor in your supply chain,
• 50:48
  which was nearly impossible.
• 50:49
  So a lot of American companies had to leave because they were
• 50:52
  employing people at
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_00: very low wages,
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_00: people who were being mistreated,
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_00: not by the companies,
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_00: but by the government of China.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that both actions.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think, made sense.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_00: And we carried out that law when I was ambassador.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_00: That was one of the obligations of our embassy and consulates.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, there were people caught
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_00: In house arrest, people imprisoned.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_00: And one of them was the mother,
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_00: a woman in her 80s,
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_00: who hadn't seen her,
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_00: who'd never met her grandchildren in the Washington suburbs.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_00: She hadn't seen a couple of her sons for 20 years.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_00: She couldn't get out of China.
• 51:31
  And,
• 51:31
  you know,
• 51:32
  victory,
• 51:32
  as President Kennedy said,
• 51:33
  has a thousand fathers.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_00: President Biden pushed on this.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_00: Secretary Tony Blinken pushed on it.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_00: And as their ambassador, I certainly pushed the Chinese authorities.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_00: And there were many Americans involved in this.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_00: And again,
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_00: one of the most memorable days of my time in China was November 2024,
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_00: just before Thanksgiving,
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_00: the day before,
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_00: when we were able to get Nuri's mom out of house arrest.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_00: She was transferred to Beijing.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: I met her at the airport.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_00: I escorted her up on the plane.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_00: And she was a free woman.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_00: And just about two weeks ago,
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_00: Thanksgiving this year,
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_00: 2025,
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_00: Nuri and his mom and I had a Zoom meeting.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a tearful meeting on all sides.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because this was a woman who should have been free.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_00: Her husband died under house arrest two years prior.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_00: All she wanted...
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_00: was to go live with her sons and daughter-in-laws and grandchildren.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_00: And now she has that chance, you know, to live a free life.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_00: And what a great thing that our government supported this.
• 52:40
  And I give President Biden and Secretary Blinken a lot of
• 52:43
  credit for having made
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_00: the decision to press really hard.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_00: I was their agent on the ground as ambassador pushing.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_00: So victory has a thousand fathers and mothers in this case.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_01: Nick, I'd like to ask you about a mentality.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's sort of a psychological question.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_01: Reagan for one was very big on separating governments from people.
• 53:03
  He spoke of the Soviet government or the Kremlin versus the
• 53:06
  Russian people,
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_01: and so on and so forth.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_01: And same with all,
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_01: There's a Cuban dictatorship and the Cuban people and so on.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_01: Let me tell you what a Chinese-American woman said.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if she's a U.S.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_01: citizen,
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_01: but a Chinese-born woman in America said,
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_01: the problem with you Americans,
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_01: you have this mentality that
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_01: You want to separate the government from us.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_01: You have the government and you have the people.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_01: But darn it, we're different, said she.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, no one person can speak for more than a billion people.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_01: She said, we're different.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_01: You criticize our government.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_01: We take that personally.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_01: You're criticizing us.
• 53:38
  We don't make the separation that you guys do in your little
• 53:40
  Western minds.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm paraphrasing.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_01: She has a right to her opinion if she's living in the United States.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_01: I disagree with her.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 53:49
  Well,
• 53:50
  you've met a good many Chinese people and not all of them high
• 53:54
  officials,
• 53:54
  I imagine.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_01: I imagine you spent some time with so-called ordinary Chinese.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_01: Did this woman have a point or not a point?
• 54:02
  I would say,
• 54:02
  Jay,
• 54:03
  there's a high degree of patriotism and nationalism in China.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_00: You sometimes see it in full-throated volume.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_00: When Speaker Nancy Pelosi went to Taiwan August 2022,
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_00: there were tens of millions of netizens who were out to criticize her.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I defended her, by the way.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_00: But they criticized her on Chinese social media, Weibo, and WeChat.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_00: But on the other hand,
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_00: When you travel in China,
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_00: and I went to 26 of the 34 provinces,
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_00: I was not allowed to travel to Tibet,
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_00: for instance,
• 54:36
  and I didn't want to go to Xinjiang to be a stooge in a Chinese
• 54:41
  propaganda play.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_00: When you meet the Chinese people, a lot of them want freedom.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of them want civil freedoms.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_00: sometimes they'll say in one voice,
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_00: of course,
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a proud Chinese and I support our government,
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_00: but I want to live this kind of life.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's very hard to generalize about 1.4 billion people.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_00: I resist that temptation.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_00: When people ask me now that I'm back, what were the Chinese people like?
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_00: I always say, well, it depends.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of them.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, just as in the United States, um,
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_00: People tend to reflect the regions from which they come.
• 55:19
  So you have a lot of Chinese living in Southwest China that
• 55:21
  borders Myanmar,
• 55:23
  Burma,
• 55:24
  or Laos.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_00: Other provinces border Vietnam.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_00: You go up to North China,
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_00: to Northeast China,
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_00: to the Rust Belt,
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_00: the Dongbei of China,
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_00: and it borders North Korea and Russia.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_00: And people's views are very different depending on where they live.
• 55:38
  If you're members of what the Chinese call a minority group,
• 55:43
  so a Uyghur or the Miao community,
• 55:45
  you're not going to have such tender feelings for the Chinese
• 55:48
  state because you've
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_00: been subjugated by those states.
• 55:50
  So I think you do have to have a very specific conversation
• 55:53
  about what we're talking about.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_01: I often say, would you agree with this, Nick?
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_01: Xi Jinping is Chinese.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_01: So was Liu Xiaobo.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_01: Vladimir Putin is Russian.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_01: So was Alexei Navalny.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_01: So was Vladimir Karimurza.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_01: So was Sakharov.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_00: So is Jimmy Lai, Chinese.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, indeed.
• 56:14
  He's just been unfairly convicted of a crime he didn't commit
• 56:18
  by the Chinese government.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_01: He's so stubborn.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, he's Chinese-born, but he likes to call himself a Hong Konger.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_00: He is a Hong Konger.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_01: He's of that age that makes the distinction.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_01: Nick, you've been so generous with your time.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_01: A couple more subjects, if you don't mind.
• 56:34
  On Ukraine,
• 56:37
  my worry has been,
• 56:38
  I thought that Ukraine could survive as a nation with U.S.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_01: neutrality.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't like U.S.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_01: neutrality,
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_01: but I thought that Ukraine with its,
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_01: I was about to say other allies,
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_01: with its allies could survive.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_01: What I'm not sure of is whether Ukraine could survive U.S.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_01: hostilities.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_01: or U.S.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_01: sympathy with Moscow?
• 57:07
  I guess the way I'd respond,
• 57:08
  Jay,
• 57:08
  is to say...
• 57:09
  I'm too blunt for diplomacy,
• 57:10
  you can tell,
• 57:10
  Nick.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_00: No, you're not.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_00: You're straight talking.
• 57:13
  It's disheartening to see the United States position itself as
• 57:19
  some kind of neutral
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_00: mediator between the aggressor Putin and the victim Zelensky,
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_00: the aggressor,
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_00: the Russian state,
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_00: the victim,
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_00: the people of Ukraine.
• 57:31
  We have to be on the side of the people of Ukraine because
• 57:33
  Putin has crossed the
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_00: most important red line in global politics.
• 57:37
  You cannot go into someone else's country and overtake it by
• 57:42
  force and get away
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_00: with it,
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_00: especially given Russia's history.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_00: and Soviet history over the last 100 years or so.
• 57:51
  And so we've got to be on the side of the Ukrainians to help
• 57:55
  them maintain the
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_00: integrity of the Ukrainian state.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_00: And as we get close,
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_00: if we are close and it's unclear,
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_00: to a ceasefire agreement where the forces would stop in place,
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's anathema.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's just completely wrong for us
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_00: to ask President Zelensky to give up territory to Russia,
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_00: to Putin,
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_00: that is Ukrainian national territory.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so my view is Ukraine needs America's support in its camp.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_00: And the United States,
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_00: if it was aligning itself with our West European allies,
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_00: the United Kingdom,
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_00: Canada,
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_00: would be much stronger in trying to face down Putin and pressure him
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_00: into an agreement that helps preserve the Ukrainian state.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, it will stop the fighting.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_00: It won't end all the issues that provoke the war.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_00: But if the Ukrainians can pause and rebuild their country,
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_00: and,
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_00: nurse the wounded and bring the refugees back,
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_00: another generation of Ukrainians can then attempt,
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_00: hopefully peacefully,
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_00: to bring,
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_00: to liberate Crimea and the rest of the Donetsk,
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_00: the Donbass,
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_00: from Russia itself.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_00: But that's for another decade, perhaps.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's probably the best deal that the Ukrainians can get.
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_00: And we need to be on their side.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_00: And the fact that
• 59:19
  when we initially proposed the peace plan when the trump
• 59:21
  administration did to the
• 59:23
  ukrainians that was a russian peace plan that had all the
• 59:27
  russian desiderata
• 59:29
  involved in it i thought that was a that was shameful nick i'm
• 59:34
  i'm old-fashioned
• 59:35
  i'm a man of the 20th century and i believe in such bromides as
• 59:41
  you know president
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_01: of all the people not just your party and so on or your supporters and
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think of our cabinet departments, our executive agencies as American.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_01: But here's the State Department on Thanksgiving.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_01: They issue this statement.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_01: This Thanksgiving, we're grateful for President Trump.
• 1:00:00
  Because of his bold and visionary leadership,
• 1:00:02
  our nation commands respect on the world stage.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_01: A little later,
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_01: this morning,
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_01: the State Department,
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_01: the official State Department proclamation,
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_01: this morning,
• 1:00:11
  the State Department renamed the former Institute of Peace to
• 1:00:14
  reflect the greatest
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_01: dealmaker in our nation's history.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace.
• 1:00:21
  If the Republican National Committee talks this way,
• 1:00:24
  I say,
• 1:00:24
  fine,
• 1:00:25
  when's politics?
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, it's boobish, but it's politics.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_01: If this is the U.S.
• 1:00:30
  State Department,
• 1:00:31
  and maybe I was just naive or asleep or not a very good student
• 1:00:35
  of history,
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember the State Department ever acting like this,
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_01: or I should say people in the State Department.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_01: Before I let you answer,
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_01: Nick,
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_01: you may have heard Schultz say this,
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_01: but I thought it was just charming.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_01: He said, people tell him, Mr. Secretary, the White House is calling.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_01: Schultz would say, the White House can't call.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's a building.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_01: Who in the White House is calling?
• 1:01:00
  So I know the State Department's a building,
• 1:01:02
  so I'm talking about human beings.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_01: But did we act this way in the past, Nick?
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_01: Am I just an old fogey?
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_00: Not a chance.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_00: We never acted this way in the past.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you why.
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_00: I worked for six presidents, nine secretaries of state for both parties.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_00: And when I took the oath of office,
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_00: and everyone does,
• 1:01:20
  you raise your right hand and you take an oath of office to the
• 1:01:23
  Constitution of the
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_00: United States to preserve and defend and protect it.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_00: You do not take an overall office,
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't,
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_00: to President Reagan in 1982 when I took the oath of office.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so we are nonpartisan.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're nonpartisan in our brains.
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_00: We're nonpartisan in everything we do.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's the law governing the United States Foreign Service.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I was a member of the Foreign Service.
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_00: Still am.
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just retired from it.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the Civil Service.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_00: And what's happening now since the January 20th of this year.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, 3,000 officers in the State Department have been fired.
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_00: And we're a very small service.
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_00: The Foreign Service is only 15,000 people.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_00: 10,000 members of U.S.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_00: Agency for International Development fired.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_00: Summarily, there are only 15 officers left and USAID has ceased to exist.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_00: That makes no sense.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_00: That was a populist moment.
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_00: And populists just tear things down and don't replace it with anything.
• 1:02:26
  So now we've left ourselves nearly defenseless,
• 1:02:30
  I think,
• 1:02:31
  in U.S.-China's terms.
• 1:02:32
  China's Belt Road Initiative is about a trillion dollars spent
• 1:02:35
  over the last 12,
• 1:02:37
  13 years.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's given China enormous cachet and influence in the
• 1:02:43
  The USAID was really our answer to it in part through the
• 1:02:47
  tremendously valuable
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_00: work USAID was doing on global public health,
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_00: on vaccine programs,
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_00: on HIV care for people afflicted with it.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_00: And they just destroyed it in two weeks.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_00: This was Elon Musk and the Doge.
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's one.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm searching for the word here.
• 1:03:07
  one of the most colossal mistakes in modern American history to
• 1:03:11
  tear off your right
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_00: arm and tear off your left arm and leave the country defenseless.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things to add to this,
• 1:03:21
  that my team and I were trying to fight every day in China was
• 1:03:24
  the battle of ideas.
• 1:03:26
  We were trying to project into China across the Great or
• 1:03:29
  through the Great Firewall
• 1:03:31
  that prevents the Chinese people from knowing what's happening
• 1:03:34
  in the rest of the world.
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_00: We were trying to inject the American ideas, July 4th, 1776.
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that was through Radio Free Asia and the Voice of America.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_00: And both of them were dismantled this past summer by this administration.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't get it.
• 1:03:51
  We're in a competition with China and we have just basically
• 1:03:55
  destroyed the
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_00: institutions that were helping us to compete.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think I get it, Nick.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm blunter than you may be.
• 1:04:02
  I think there's antipathy to liberal democracy and an
• 1:04:06
  admiration of strongmen.
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_01: And this is going to be my last subject for you.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_01: Might makes right,
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_01: spheres of influence,
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_01: as one of these Danes put it to me,
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_01: back to the law of the jungle.
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_01: And,
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 1:04:18
  international order and international legal order may sound
• 1:04:21
  sort of prissy,
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_01: but God,
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_01: it's meant the world to us in practice,
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_01: right?
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_00: It has.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_00: And,
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_00: our greatest presidents,
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_00: Abraham Lincoln,
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_00: Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_00: Theodore Roosevelt,
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_00: George Washington,
• 1:04:36
  SPEAKER_00: our first president,
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_00: these were not perfect people,
• 1:04:40
  including the slaveholders who were signers of a Declaration of
• 1:04:44
  Independence,
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_00: many of them.
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_00: But the nation went forward with this big idea that we were different,
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_00: that we were a nation of ideas.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that big idea was freedom, human freedom.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you begin to pull back on that,
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_00: and if you begin to act like the other authoritarian powers,
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_00: and you don't support freedom,
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_00: in this case,
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_00: the people of Ukraine,
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_00: this is the great moral crisis of our time,
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_00: then we become just power.
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_00: that's not supported by what made us truly great over the last 250 years,
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_00: all men and women are created equal.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_00: And the Bill of Rights,
• 1:05:22
  SPEAKER_00: we have freedoms that are not given to us by the government,
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_00: but by God,
• 1:05:26
  SPEAKER_00: in the words of the framers,
• 1:05:27
  SPEAKER_00: God-given rights of our Constitution.
• 1:05:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's what has made us different.
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's the idea of America.
• 1:05:34
  SPEAKER_00: And what we haven't talked about,
• 1:05:37
  SPEAKER_00: but maybe we can end on this,
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_00: is what also made us a great,
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_00: great nation,
• 1:05:42
  is that we accepted immigrants,
• 1:05:45
  legal immigrants,
• 1:05:46
  from all over the world.
• 1:05:47
  SPEAKER_00: My grandparents, my father's parents, two Irish blue-collar workers.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_01: I was going to say, they weren't fancy, were they?
• 1:05:56
  SPEAKER_01: They weren't doctors or engineers or lawyers or scientists.
• 1:05:59
  SPEAKER_00: No, they were children of farmers and they couldn't...
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_00: The farm wasn't big enough to support them.
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_00: My grandmother was 15.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_00: My grandfather was 18.
• 1:06:08
  SPEAKER_00: They came here with nothing.
• 1:06:10
  SPEAKER_00: They built a life.
• 1:06:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that story is the American story.
• 1:06:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you begin to say,
• 1:06:15
  SPEAKER_00: well,
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_00: we're going to exclude people based on race,
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_00: or we're going to exclude people based on the color of their skin,
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_00: where they come from,
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_00: these recent actions of the Trump administration,
• 1:06:26
  SPEAKER_00: essentially to keep people out with brown skin or Muslim by population,
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_00: that is
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_00: That is anti-American.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what made us great.
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_00: What made us great is that we are multi-religious,
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_00: multi-ethnic,
• 1:06:39
  SPEAKER_00: multi-national,
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_00: and we all become Americans when we get here as my grandparents,
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_00: and I'm sure your ancestors as well,
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_00: Jay.
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_00: If that is being thrown into question,
• 1:06:50
  then we have to make sure that those of us who believe in the
• 1:06:57
  Statue of Liberty
• 1:06:59
  And the words on the Statue of Liberty that we are a nation
• 1:07:05
  that is comprised of
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_00: people from all over the world struggling to be free,
• 1:07:10
  SPEAKER_00: breaking those chains of bondage.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_00: That is the American dream.
• 1:07:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so I want that to be our future.
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the majority of Americans would say the same.
• 1:07:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well,
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_01: Nick,
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was just saying,
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_01: when I was in college,
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_01: some of us political junkies,
• 1:07:25
  we would have these sort of fantasy sessions and we'd compose
• 1:07:27
  our ideal cabinets.
• 1:07:29
  You know,
• 1:07:29
  if I were president,
• 1:07:32
  I wouldn't count on a Nordlinger administration.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't wait up at night for it.
• 1:07:37
  SPEAKER_01: But if such a thing came to pass, I hope you'd be ready.
• 1:07:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, listen, it's the greatest.
• 1:07:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that's my roundabout.
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I'm saying in a roundabout way.
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_00: The greatest honor that any American can have is to serve the country.
• 1:07:53
  SPEAKER_00: whether it's in the military or, in my case, in the Foreign Service.
• 1:07:56
  SPEAKER_00: And,
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_00: of course,
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_00: you never tire of public service,
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_00: but we need to get back to our roots and what made us great.
• 1:08:05
  And I think you and I have talked about many of those elements
• 1:08:07
  that made us and
• 1:08:09
  SPEAKER_00: will continue to make us a great country.
• 1:08:12
  SPEAKER_01: Ladies and gentlemen,
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_01: I am Jay Nordlinger doing Q&A,
• 1:08:14
  SPEAKER_01: and we've been listening to R.
• 1:08:16
  SPEAKER_01: Nicholas Burns.
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_01: Nick, thank you so very much.
• 1:08:21
  SPEAKER_01: Jay, it's a pleasure to be with you.
• 1:08:22
  SPEAKER_01: Happy holidays.
• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_01: You too.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_01: So long, everyone.
• 1:08:25
  SPEAKER_01: Till next time.