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Trump, Putin & Xi — The New World Order Is Here | Silk and Steel · UK Column Radio

0:01
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Silk and
0:04
Speaker 1: Steel Podcast. I'm your host car O Za. Today we
0:07
Speaker 1: have back on our show, doctor Warwick Paul from Australia. Uh,
0:13
Speaker 1: Doctor Paul, Uh, A lot has happened like this week
0:19
Speaker 1: we have. We just had the Trump visit to China
0:23
Speaker 1: and now President Putin is also in Beijing. What what's
0:28
Speaker 1: your take on this? Why are why is this such
0:31
Speaker 1: a flurry of activity right now?
0:35
Speaker 2: Well, the Trump visit happened as a as a delayed visit,
0:39
Speaker 2: didn't it right, Because the original scheduled visit was from
0:43
Speaker 2: memory in the first week of April, and I remember
0:47
Speaker 2: that because it coincided with when I was planning to
0:51
Speaker 2: go to Beijing, and I adjusted my visit times in
0:55
Speaker 2: anticipation that Beijing goes into a little bit of a lockdown,
0:58
Speaker 2: and getting around Beijing can be quite difficult when visiting
1:04
Speaker 2: dignitaries are in town, particularly presidents of the United States. Anyway,
1:10
Speaker 2: the war against Iran clearly hasn't quite panned out in
1:14
Speaker 2: line with the anticipated time frames that President Trump was
1:19
Speaker 2: probably working under, and the trip got postponed. So the
1:24
Speaker 2: postponyment took place, and the trip was late last week.
1:28
Speaker 2: I think the visit from Russian President Putin was always
1:33
Speaker 2: slated to happen about now anyway. But interestingly, the sequence
1:38
Speaker 2: of visits over the course of the last month, I think,
1:41
Speaker 2: whether it's by design or partly by happenstance, enables Beijing
1:48
Speaker 2: to play, I guess, a very well informed pivotal curatorial role.
1:54
Speaker 3: So we had the visit of.
2:01
Speaker 2: Jungly went from the KMT from Taipei about a month
2:06
Speaker 2: or so ago, which obviously was a bit of an
2:10
Speaker 2: icebreaker in so far as cross strates, dynamics and dialogue
2:15
Speaker 2: was concerned. Then we had prior to Trump visiting Beijing,
2:21
Speaker 2: the Iranian foreign Minister Achi visiting, Then we had Trump,
2:25
Speaker 2: and now we have putin clearly all of these four
2:29
Speaker 2: visits are pivotal to not only China's own narrowly defined
2:35
Speaker 2: national interest, but ultimately also the broader interests. I should
2:39
Speaker 2: add that on the eve of President Trump arriving, we
2:44
Speaker 2: also had a state visit from the leader of Tajikistan
2:51
Speaker 2: from Central Asia. And many people will recall that because
2:56
Speaker 2: on the day that President Trump arrived in Beijing, the
3:00
Speaker 2: front page of the China Daily English version actually featured
3:04
Speaker 2: the visit of the Tajikistan leader instead of President Trump.
3:13
Speaker 2: I mean, it is actually an important observation because Tajakistan
3:18
Speaker 2: is one of the Central Asian states, is quite clearly
3:22
Speaker 2: important in many ways, not only for Beijing, but for
3:28
Speaker 2: the broader Eurasian project, if you will, And that involves security,
3:35
Speaker 2: it involves energy, it involves terrestrial transportation routes, et cetera,
3:41
Speaker 2: et cetera, all of which, of course are even more
3:43
Speaker 2: important at the moment when maritime transport is increasingly understrained,
3:49
Speaker 2: both because of blockages that blockades that are being implemented,
3:57
Speaker 2: but also clearly great state piracy. So anyway, so President
4:03
Speaker 2: Trump arrives, and look, I think that there's a few
4:08
Speaker 2: ways of reading it. One way, of course, is that
4:13
Speaker 2: not a hell of a lot happened, right That's certainly
4:17
Speaker 2: in a certain sense. There wasn't the flurry of agreements
4:22
Speaker 2: being executed or anything like that. But at the same time,
4:27
Speaker 2: I think some things did happen, and those things will
4:30
Speaker 2: take some time to unfold, and the things that happened
4:34
Speaker 2: will in large part depend now on how the United
4:37
Speaker 2: States responds, because what I think happened, or one way
4:43
Speaker 2: of looking at what happened is that clearly there was
4:48
Speaker 2: that there's a lot of fluidity in the world at
4:51
Speaker 2: the moment. The Americans are prosecuting wars in different parts
4:55
Speaker 2: of the world, and they're prosecuting blockades as well.
4:58
Speaker 3: From China's point of.
4:59
Speaker 2: View, who it seeks to stabilize its own by lateral relationships.
5:05
Speaker 2: Given all of that that's going on on top of that,
5:09
Speaker 2: as we discussed last time, very little preparation was undertaken
5:13
Speaker 2: from the American side, right, and I think Beijing really
5:17
Speaker 2: understood that the lack of preparation basically meant that this
5:22
Speaker 2: summit had to fulfill a different kind of role. It
5:26
Speaker 2: couldn't be a summit that delivered a whole raft of
5:29
Speaker 2: concrete agreements that parties got action. So it had to
5:33
Speaker 2: do something slightly different. And what it did was that
5:37
Speaker 2: it provided President.
5:38
Speaker 3: She with an opportunity to in vite.
5:44
Speaker 2: The United States and President Trump in particular, to get
5:51
Speaker 2: away from the nonsensical idea of the Thucidides trap, transcend
5:57
Speaker 2: that and actually become part of a broader multipolar project
6:04
Speaker 2: that would align China's rise and development and American rejuvenation.
6:11
Speaker 2: So the invitation was laid out there and in terms
6:14
Speaker 2: that I think buying large the Americans should understand. Raising
6:19
Speaker 2: the facility's trap in his opening remarks really was a
6:24
Speaker 2: way of communicating with the American side on terms that
6:29
Speaker 2: both included some state craft, but also it was intelligible
6:34
Speaker 2: from the American side. The practical elements of all of
6:38
Speaker 2: that were wrapped up in this idea of constructive strategic stability,
6:46
Speaker 2: and the practical manifestations will hopefully unfold over the next
6:51
Speaker 2: little while.
6:52
Speaker 3: Whether they do or not is the test.
6:56
Speaker 2: Modest agreements on trade, a bit of agriculture, nothing really
7:01
Speaker 2: of note at this stage. On technology, the Boeing, of course,
7:07
Speaker 2: Boeing is always an interesting one because President Trump has
7:10
Speaker 2: been Boeing's best salesman over the course of the last
7:13
Speaker 2: fourteen months. But Boeing is many years behind in its
7:17
Speaker 2: own production backlog, so any commitments made today won't actually
7:22
Speaker 2: see airplanes delivered for quite a number of years anyway.
7:26
Speaker 2: So it's an easy commitment in a sense to make
7:29
Speaker 2: you know it's down the track.
7:31
Speaker 3: But it.
7:34
Speaker 2: Sounds good, looks good, and it plays to the audience
7:39
Speaker 2: in the way that.
7:39
Speaker 3: It needs to.
7:42
Speaker 2: I think we touched on it last time in a sense.
7:45
Speaker 2: Maybe it was my hope or whatever it was, but
7:49
Speaker 2: I was hoping that they would at least open up
7:51
Speaker 2: a pathway to have discussions around artificial intelligence. And as
7:54
Speaker 2: things have panned out, it looks like they have. They
7:57
Speaker 2: had detailed discussions themselves about AI issues, and there is
8:02
Speaker 2: now an agreement to move forward with interstate dialogue on
8:07
Speaker 2: artificial intelligence development and governance. I think that that's a
8:10
Speaker 2: good sign. The reason why I say that a lot
8:14
Speaker 2: now depends on how the US responds is going to
8:18
Speaker 2: be whether or not the US responds to the invitation
8:21
Speaker 2: to join the multipolar world in a sense, and that
8:26
Speaker 2: perhaps will be something that putin and she will push
8:30
Speaker 2: forward a little bit more on over the next twenty
8:33
Speaker 2: four hours or so, But all will the Americans, in
8:36
Speaker 2: a sense.
8:37
Speaker 3: Institutionally, the blob.
8:39
Speaker 2: As they call it in Washington, will that ultimately reassert itself,
8:44
Speaker 2: and all the machinery that's in place, the processes, the
8:49
Speaker 2: general animosity towards China and anyone else, the framing of
8:53
Speaker 2: China as an adversary, the sort of attempt by the
8:58
Speaker 2: Americans to cling on to unipl larity wherever it can,
9:01
Speaker 2: the ongoing efforts to blockade or starmy, China's own development,
9:06
Speaker 2: the war on multipolarity, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Ultimately,
9:10
Speaker 2: will all of that continue to unfold despite what happened
9:14
Speaker 2: the summer. My own instinct is that the latter will
9:21
Speaker 2: be more than likely the case. But you know, one
9:25
Speaker 2: can always be a little bit pleasantly surprised if if
9:28
Speaker 2: at best, perhaps some of those things might be tempered
9:30
Speaker 2: for a little while anyway, So that's sort of my
9:34
Speaker 2: my general take on the Trump visit.
9:41
Speaker 3: You're muted, muted.
9:48
Speaker 1: Sorry, So what do you say? Before that, I had
9:54
Speaker 1: to mute MyCase my son was crying. So what do
9:58
Speaker 1: you say to the way how statement that China agree
10:01
Speaker 1: in principle that the strait or Homu should be open
10:05
Speaker 1: and no nation should be charging a toll on marine
10:08
Speaker 1: time traffic. You know, some people interpret that as somehow
10:12
Speaker 1: China is back stabbing you wrang. I like to get
10:17
Speaker 1: your take on that.
10:19
Speaker 2: Well, again, the sequence of meetings. Arachi arrives in Beijing,
10:26
Speaker 2: has a meeting before the Chinese side and the Americans met. Look,
10:32
Speaker 2: I think China's position on the war and the situation
10:36
Speaker 2: in the straight up hoor moves is actually quite straightforward.
10:39
Speaker 3: It would have preferred the war not happened. Number one.
10:42
Speaker 3: It would prefer that the war end. Number two.
10:45
Speaker 2: It would prefer that ships could flow as freely as possible.
10:49
Speaker 2: And in fact, in an ideal world we would go
10:51
Speaker 2: back to the status co anti number three and number four.
10:54
Speaker 2: Anybody in their right mind would of course not be
10:58
Speaker 2: willingly accept thing of the need to pay fees. That's
11:02
Speaker 2: pretty straightforward, and it's a simple thing to agree to
11:07
Speaker 2: those propositions. YEP should be open for sure. Absolutely, there
11:13
Speaker 2: should be no tolls, absolutely no problems at all either.
11:17
Speaker 2: But then there's reality, and the difference between the American
11:20
Speaker 2: view and the Chinese view is not on what a
11:23
Speaker 2: desirable ideal state might be. It's actually on the diagnosis
11:27
Speaker 2: of what caused the problem in the first place, and
11:29
Speaker 2: what the solutions therefore are and what possible solutions are available.
11:36
Speaker 2: And you'll recall that after Arachi visited, the statements that
11:40
Speaker 2: came out from Arachi and also from the Chinese Foreign
11:43
Speaker 2: Affairs Ministry actually talked about a settlement in the Persian
11:48
Speaker 2: Gulf that involved a new security architecture agreed to by
11:53
Speaker 2: the nation states of the region, meaning without American presence
11:59
Speaker 2: in the area, certainly not in the way that they've been,
12:02
Speaker 2: and that the agreement be built on the idea of
12:06
Speaker 2: good neighborliness. So China does have a view about what
12:10
Speaker 2: the future looks like, and it's a view that's based
12:12
Speaker 2: on an understanding of what's actually happened. There is no
12:16
Speaker 2: return to the status co anti So yes should be open,
12:21
Speaker 2: Yes there should be no fees, but how do you
12:24
Speaker 2: even get remotely close to those outcomes? And the Americans
12:29
Speaker 2: have no military answer to the problems that they caused
12:33
Speaker 2: by initiating this war. And we see this because President
12:38
Speaker 2: Trump has again, after having threatened all sorts of calamity.
12:44
Speaker 3: On Iran, has.
12:47
Speaker 2: Under the guise of being requested to defer the next
12:51
Speaker 2: round of attacks, has deferred the next round of attacks.
12:56
Speaker 2: There is no simple, straightforward military salution. China actually understands this.
13:02
Speaker 2: So whilst it can agree on these questions of sort
13:08
Speaker 2: of principle, it also knows that in reality you've got
13:13
Speaker 2: to just move on and deal with reality as it is.
13:17
Speaker 2: The other factor, remember is that ships continue to flow,
13:21
Speaker 2: but they need to coordinate with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard,
13:26
Speaker 2: and of course that's not an easy thing to do,
13:29
Speaker 2: quite clearly, because the numbers have fallen dramatically from about
13:34
Speaker 2: one hundred and forty ships a day down to a trickle.
13:38
Speaker 2: But the Iranians have established the new authority, a regime
13:44
Speaker 2: is emerging in terms of what the administrative processes they expect.
13:49
Speaker 3: To be adhered to are likely to be.
13:52
Speaker 2: And as these sort of new systems emerge, I wouldn't
13:56
Speaker 2: be surprised if more ships begin to flow again, but
13:59
Speaker 2: under new conditions. You know, whether the Americans, then out
14:03
Speaker 2: in the in the wider ocean, seeks to interdictation ships
14:08
Speaker 2: will be a matter for the Americans, and we'll watch
14:11
Speaker 2: with interest how they respond. But but but you so,
14:15
Speaker 2: from China's point of view, you know, certainly things aren't
14:18
Speaker 2: flying like they once did. There is some flow. Ships
14:22
Speaker 2: are moving, taking oil and other things to China, and
14:27
Speaker 2: and they're getting on with reality.
14:31
Speaker 1: There's also a lot of the Western press right now
14:34
Speaker 1: they're asking about Taiwan. Did Trump or did he or
14:38
Speaker 1: did he not sell out Taiwan? And you know, he
14:42
Speaker 1: was in fact asked about, you know, specifically that the
14:45
Speaker 1: Taiwan issue, where Trump says, well, Taiwan is pretty close
14:49
Speaker 1: to Melee Child, it's pretty far from us. And so
14:53
Speaker 1: what do you take of that Trump's statement, And does
14:56
Speaker 1: that mean there's some change afoot in American approach toward
15:01
Speaker 1: Taiwan and mainland China.
15:04
Speaker 2: I think we've got always remember that presidents come and go,
15:08
Speaker 2: but the machinery of state tends to be relatively permanent,
15:11
Speaker 2: and the Taiwan lobby, so to speak, has been an
15:17
Speaker 2: active and permanent feature of the American political institution since
15:22
Speaker 2: roughly nineteen fifty. They have had various levels of influence
15:28
Speaker 2: over the course of the last seventy five years, but
15:31
Speaker 2: they have been a permanent feature of American domestic politics,
15:35
Speaker 2: contributing finance and influence to different degrees at different times.
15:42
Speaker 2: And they've of course become quite embedded into the apparatuses
15:47
Speaker 2: of state and the surrounding ecosystem through think tanks, involvement
15:53
Speaker 2: in political parties, political action committees, and those sorts of things.
15:57
Speaker 2: So the idea that a president can singularly and in
16:04
Speaker 2: one stroke of the pen or in one small moment,
16:07
Speaker 2: fundamentally alter that set of attitudes and perspectives that have
16:12
Speaker 2: been around now for seven plus decades, I think is
16:15
Speaker 2: a little bit fanciful. Certainly, I don't anticipate President Trump
16:20
Speaker 2: signing any executive orders concerning Taiwan, so we've got to
16:24
Speaker 2: take that context into account. I think he made at
16:30
Speaker 2: least two sort of interesting types of remarks about Taiwan
16:35
Speaker 2: that are probably worth just trying to pick over a
16:38
Speaker 2: little bit. One was the issue of arm sales that
16:43
Speaker 2: he has yet to approve, and it was interesting that
16:46
Speaker 2: he talked about those arm sales depending arm sales as
16:50
Speaker 2: bargaining chips. The Taiwan Act, of course, does not view
16:56
Speaker 2: things that way, and is on that basis that the
17:00
Speaker 2: congressional voices, you know, the traditional voices, if you will,
17:03
Speaker 2: you know, had a total apoplectic reaction to all of that.
17:07
Speaker 2: You know, you can't you can't bargain, you know this question. Well, anyway,
17:11
Speaker 2: let's see what President Trump does on that. The other
17:13
Speaker 2: thing was this attitude that he displayed, and he talked
17:16
Speaker 2: about this issue of Taiwan being nine and a half
17:18
Speaker 2: thousand miles away. It's only fifty nine miles from mainland China.
17:23
Speaker 2: A little bit further than that, but not that much further.
17:25
Speaker 2: But I think he was making a point that the
17:28
Speaker 2: island is actually very very close to the Chinese mainland,
17:34
Speaker 2: and it's a very, very very long way away from
17:37
Speaker 2: the American mainland. And in that context he also talked
17:41
Speaker 2: about the Chips, which I'll come back to, I guess
17:43
Speaker 2: in a tick. But he made these remarks in the
17:47
Speaker 2: context of an observation about the about Lai Chingda and
17:58
Speaker 2: his lean and his parties stated platform objectives of abolishing
18:06
Speaker 2: the Republic of China and declaring the Republic of Taiwan,
18:08
Speaker 2: in other words, Taiwanese independence. So he made that remark
18:13
Speaker 2: about the distance, specifically about there being some people on
18:17
Speaker 2: the island who want independence, and he said, and if
18:20
Speaker 2: they want independence and think that America is going to
18:24
Speaker 2: come along and fight this war for them, they need
18:27
Speaker 2: to have a cold shower and reflect upon the reality
18:33
Speaker 2: that President Trump then articulated, which is, look, we're a.
18:36
Speaker 3: Long way away, and.
18:39
Speaker 2: Implied in essence that if you want to fight a
18:42
Speaker 2: war of independence, don't count on us.
18:45
Speaker 3: That's actually quite consistent.
18:47
Speaker 2: With long term American policy ambiguity in a sense and
18:51
Speaker 2: officially not supporting Taiwanese independence. So in some ways, in
18:55
Speaker 2: his own colorful hate, President Trump reaffirmed them and policy
19:01
Speaker 2: we don't support Tawanne's independence, and it was interesting that
19:04
Speaker 2: Luging that then spent the next day trying to scramble
19:08
Speaker 2: around with different formulations of what he meant by independence
19:11
Speaker 2: and stuff. And all it tells you is that what
19:17
Speaker 2: may have been progress from an independent point of view
19:22
Speaker 2: over the course of say, the last ten years, has
19:25
Speaker 2: already begun to unravel, partly because of jung Lewin's visit
19:30
Speaker 2: to the mainland, but also I think broadly speaking this
19:34
Speaker 2: you know, there is a little bit of shift in
19:35
Speaker 2: mood on the island itself. There is growing concern right
19:40
Speaker 2: across East and Southeast Asia and North Asia about the
19:46
Speaker 2: changing landscape as a result of America's incapacity to defend
19:52
Speaker 2: its bases in the Middle East, and consequently concerns about
19:55
Speaker 2: whether it can even defend its bases in Asia. And
19:58
Speaker 2: if it can't do any of that, then the entire
20:01
Speaker 2: de terrence architecture that had been built up over the
20:04
Speaker 2: course of the.
20:04
Speaker 3: Last seven last decades is over. Now.
20:08
Speaker 2: How are people responding to that? Well, you know, some
20:10
Speaker 2: people are responding with some concern. Others are desperately trying
20:14
Speaker 2: to rope the Americans back in. So that's light Chinda,
20:17
Speaker 2: that's the Philippines. Japan's actually not right. Japan's not trying
20:22
Speaker 2: to rope America in Japan's using this as an opportunity
20:25
Speaker 2: to say, will fill the breach for you, of course,
20:29
Speaker 2: but for them it's both well, it's an opportunity, right.
20:33
Speaker 2: It's a concern. The Japanese have long been scared of,
20:39
Speaker 2: frightened about China, and as China's emerged as by far
20:45
Speaker 2: the largest economy in the region and in fact the world,
20:49
Speaker 2: the Japanese have been concerned about that. You know, whether
20:55
Speaker 2: that's rational or not, it's a bit beside the point.
20:57
Speaker 2: But I think it's fair to say that there are
20:59
Speaker 2: many in the Japanese political system and within their security
21:03
Speaker 2: environment or national security environment, who do view China's rise
21:09
Speaker 2: as something to be frightened of. So in that context,
21:13
Speaker 2: the Japanese are clearly wanting.
21:15
Speaker 3: To muscle up a bit.
21:16
Speaker 2: The fact that they sort of contextualized that in relation
21:19
Speaker 2: to the question of Taiwan, I think was look, it
21:24
Speaker 2: was unnecessary, It was unnecessarily provocative because in many ways
21:28
Speaker 2: they could have built up their military under the pretext
21:32
Speaker 2: of supporting the American ambitions in the region as a
21:35
Speaker 2: good ally without even having to stir up the Taiwan
21:39
Speaker 2: hornets nest.
21:39
Speaker 3: But they did that anyway.
21:44
Speaker 2: The Philippines, we know, Marcos Junior said, I think in
21:48
Speaker 2: the last forty eight hours that from his point of view,
21:52
Speaker 2: it was inconceivable that the Philippines could not become involved
21:56
Speaker 2: in a Taiwan Straights conflict. And frankly, if if there
22:00
Speaker 2: is anything that embodies a loss of national sovereignty, then
22:06
Speaker 2: that's probably it. You know that the country basically says, look,
22:12
Speaker 2: we have no choice but to join into someone else's war.
22:15
Speaker 3: That's a very.
22:18
Speaker 1: And that's crazy that he made that statement while there
22:21
Speaker 1: was a literal gunfight breaking out in the Filipino Senate
22:26
Speaker 1: because he was trying to impeach the Vice President of
22:29
Speaker 1: the Philippines. And I think that might just be him
22:33
Speaker 1: trying to distract the public from the real domestic issue
22:37
Speaker 1: he's having internally.
22:40
Speaker 2: Look, I think the Philippines obviously is confronting some very
22:45
Speaker 2: significant challenges at the moment. Obviously the energy crisis is
22:52
Speaker 2: the most pressing of them. And ultimately, these sorts of
22:56
Speaker 2: very very real things that affect the lively hoods of
23:00
Speaker 2: people begin to assert themselves right you can have whatever
23:04
Speaker 2: ideological leanings you know that you might have, but if
23:10
Speaker 2: people can't get from A to B and they can't
23:13
Speaker 2: access food and essentials of life, and they can't deliver things,
23:17
Speaker 2: then you start to have real problems. And in some
23:21
Speaker 2: regards they're not really ideological problems. They are just material
23:25
Speaker 2: problems that you need to find practical solutions to. And unsurprisingly,
23:30
Speaker 2: the Philippines, whilst carrying on a little bit about the
23:33
Speaker 2: South China Sea and Taiwan and China is also putting
23:39
Speaker 2: out feelers to the People's Republic of China to collaborate
23:44
Speaker 2: on exploring natural energy reserves in the South China Sea
23:49
Speaker 2: in some of the disputed areas. So, you know, reality
23:53
Speaker 2: reality does that last, and energy reality and food reality
23:57
Speaker 2: is the most significant, you know reality that countries have
24:02
Speaker 2: to face.
24:04
Speaker 1: Is a big importer of energy. They depend on import
24:09
Speaker 1: of gasoline, diesel, fertilizers and the biggest exporter in Asia
24:16
Speaker 1: Pacific region of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and fertilizers, which
24:19
Speaker 1: is actually China. And China's decision to lift the ban
24:24
Speaker 1: on export of petroleum refined petroleum product is actually what's
24:29
Speaker 1: saving South East Asia at the moment.
24:32
Speaker 2: It's it's also giving Australia an extra four days of
24:35
Speaker 2: jet fuel. So yeah, so look they you know this,
24:42
Speaker 2: this whole situation is incredibly fluid, but so look, I
24:47
Speaker 2: guess you know, coming back, I don't think China's thrown
24:52
Speaker 2: Iran under the basle or sold them out at all.
24:57
Speaker 2: I think China uh recognize as realities as what they
25:01
Speaker 2: are that Iran is currently.
25:05
Speaker 3: Involved in a war, and the war.
25:09
Speaker 2: Does have wider implications, quite obviously, but Iran has successfully
25:16
Speaker 2: demonstrated its ability to push the Americans not just back
25:21
Speaker 2: but out of the region so far. And as much
25:25
Speaker 2: as China would prefer all of this to have not happened,
25:30
Speaker 2: it has happened. And yes, it would like the world
25:32
Speaker 2: to go back to something resembling, you know, normality exanty,
25:38
Speaker 2: but that's not going to happen either. And the American
25:44
Speaker 2: situation I think is actually far more fragile than it
25:48
Speaker 2: appears as well, which I think partly explains President Trump's
25:53
Speaker 2: general demeanor on his visit to Beijing, you know, And
26:01
Speaker 2: that's why it does open up an interesting window for
26:05
Speaker 2: American recalibration. But so much of this is going to
26:07
Speaker 2: depend upon whether President Trump has the ability to carry
26:11
Speaker 2: the day domestically in terms of the politics of things.
26:15
Speaker 3: The Taiwan staff.
26:19
Speaker 2: I know that, you know, people, particularly pro independent types,
26:27
Speaker 2: got very anxious over all of this stuff.
26:31
Speaker 3: But my own sense is.
26:33
Speaker 2: That they probably have less to be anxious about from
26:38
Speaker 2: his words, and actually a lot more to And they
26:42
Speaker 2: should get no comfort, by the way, from the noises
26:47
Speaker 2: of support that they get out of Washington. You know,
26:50
Speaker 2: those noises will always be there. What they really should
26:53
Speaker 2: be concerned about is not what Washington says, but whether
26:58
Speaker 2: or not Washington actually has either well not just the intent,
27:02
Speaker 2: but actually the ability to sustain the security architecture that
27:08
Speaker 2: Taipei has depended upon for all of these years, And
27:15
Speaker 2: frankly put, I don't think it can now. If that
27:20
Speaker 2: understanding progressively internalizes across the minds of ordinary residents on
27:27
Speaker 2: the island and ultimately into the political apparatus and importantly
27:32
Speaker 2: into the military apparatus, the kinds of calculations that will
27:36
Speaker 2: start to play out on the island itself will change.
27:39
Speaker 2: And you know, we're not talking about people suddenly having
27:44
Speaker 2: a road to damastus conversion on the island, you know,
27:49
Speaker 2: to the idea of communism or whatever. We're literally just
27:54
Speaker 2: talking about a confrontation with reality, and of course a
28:01
Speaker 2: deep seated desire to be able to pursue lives that
28:06
Speaker 2: are relatively peaceful and that have a good chance of flourishing.
28:12
Speaker 2: And if the Americans can't actually deliver the security architecture,
28:18
Speaker 2: let alone the economic foundations, then people on the island
28:22
Speaker 2: will start to have serious rethink. I think the thing
28:25
Speaker 2: that's really shaken people is arguably the very non ideological
28:35
Speaker 2: attitude that President Trump has taken in relation to the island.
28:38
Speaker 2: And that became very apparent when he again talked about
28:41
Speaker 2: the island as having stolen America's semiconductor industry right an
28:47
Speaker 2: ongoing pressure for that industry or more to the point
28:51
Speaker 2: TSMC to relocate to America. Now, if I was somebody
28:59
Speaker 2: on the island and my instincts was towards independence or
29:03
Speaker 2: at least something resembling the status quo, the idea that
29:07
Speaker 2: an American president has actually just said, look, you know,
29:11
Speaker 2: your most valuable thing to us is something that we're
29:13
Speaker 2: going to try and lift off the island and move
29:15
Speaker 2: to the main land of America.
29:17
Speaker 3: That would concern me greatly.
29:18
Speaker 2: See you package all of that together, I'm less concerned,
29:22
Speaker 2: or I would be less concerned about President Trump.
29:25
Speaker 3: Talking about the island being a long way away.
29:27
Speaker 2: And I'd be a lot more concerned about President Trump's
29:31
Speaker 2: obvious limited commitment to the island beyond beyond its semiconductors
29:40
Speaker 2: and the material reality the United States actually just simply
29:45
Speaker 2: no longer has the wherewithal to sustain its deterrence posture
29:50
Speaker 2: in Asia.
29:51
Speaker 3: End of story. You know, the world's.
29:52
Speaker 1: Changed, Yeah, And it's at this critical juncture that President
30:00
Speaker 1: Utin is visiting Beijing. Why do you think he came?
30:06
Speaker 1: Why do you think there was a meeting between the
30:08
Speaker 1: Russian president Vlatnir Putin and Chinese president She's in pin
30:12
Speaker 1: right now at this point.
30:15
Speaker 2: Well, in many ways, As I said, I think it
30:18
Speaker 2: was in train anyway, for a few different reasons. Firstly,
30:21
Speaker 2: President Putin has visited China twenty five times now, so
30:26
Speaker 2: him visiting Beijing is actually not that unusual an event.
30:33
Speaker 2: This was the first time in nine years that an
30:34
Speaker 2: American president's visited Beijing, right, So there's a contrast straight away.
30:39
Speaker 2: The second thing is is that this is the twenty
30:41
Speaker 2: fifth year of a special relationship between the Russian Federation
30:45
Speaker 2: and the People's Republic of China, so a formal occasion
30:50
Speaker 2: to celebrate that it has come hot on the heels
30:55
Speaker 2: of President's Trump visit, I think is well, if it
31:00
Speaker 2: was coincidental, it's coincidental. And even if it wasn't coincidental, the.
31:06
Speaker 3: The optics is the same. And the optics is that.
31:10
Speaker 2: China and Russia will now be swapping notes as a
31:14
Speaker 2: result of the discussions held last week between Sijinping and
31:18
Speaker 2: President Trump, and Russia and China will continue to consolidate
31:25
Speaker 2: their own bilateral relationships, but with a view to how
31:29
Speaker 2: that intersects with the wide you know, war against multipolarity
31:36
Speaker 2: that the Americans have been prosecuting. So you know, that's
31:41
Speaker 2: that's important. The other thing to remember, Sergei Lavrov is
31:45
Speaker 2: that the China about three weeks ago, you know, to
31:47
Speaker 2: lay the groundwork for this trip, so we knew the
31:49
Speaker 2: trip was on. And I think one of the most
31:52
Speaker 2: important things he mentioned in that trip is actually Russia's
31:55
Speaker 2: willingness to supply oil to China that would offset and
32:03
Speaker 2: he losses that China would experience as a result of
32:05
Speaker 2: the situation in the Persian Gulf, and that is already
32:10
Speaker 2: manifest itself. I mean, there's some announcements made about oil
32:15
Speaker 2: that will be shipped across Kazakhstan into Western China, and
32:22
Speaker 2: that will in volume terms, will largely plug the gap.
32:26
Speaker 2: So Russia is in a sense come good on that,
32:29
Speaker 2: and China is willing to to purchase the oil. But
32:35
Speaker 2: you know, this is really about an ongoing process of
32:37
Speaker 2: consolidation of the Eurasian economic land mass. So Russia twelve
32:45
Speaker 2: years ago really made a turn to the east.
32:47
Speaker 3: Began its turn.
32:49
Speaker 2: After the situation in Georgia after Russia annexed Crime year,
32:55
Speaker 2: after the first round of sanctions. As a result of that,
32:58
Speaker 2: Russia began to turn back towards the east. You've got
33:01
Speaker 2: to remember how big Russia is. Russia is a Pacific
33:04
Speaker 2: power as much as it is a European power. And
33:09
Speaker 2: one of the longstanding issues in sort of Russian political
33:13
Speaker 2: cultures whether or not Russia is a European nation or
33:16
Speaker 2: a Eurasian nation. And I think increasingly there is a
33:21
Speaker 2: sense that its future is in Eurasia as opposed to
33:25
Speaker 2: being oriented to Western Europe. And we're going to see
33:29
Speaker 2: a lot of agreements consecrated on this trip because both
33:35
Speaker 2: sides have been putting in a lot of work. Unlike
33:37
Speaker 2: the President Trump visit where very little preparation was done,
33:44
Speaker 2: the Russia Chinese dynamic clearly involves sustained and ongoing work
33:50
Speaker 2: at a bureaucratic level to take on what was agreed
33:55
Speaker 2: at the previous meeting or meetings, to bring things to
33:58
Speaker 2: the table that enable the consummation of whatever was discussed previously,
34:03
Speaker 2: to then lay the groundwork for the next level. So
34:06
Speaker 2: we'll see agreements on transportation. We'll see agreements on I
34:10
Speaker 2: think gas, there will be progress on the Power of
34:15
Speaker 2: Siberia TiO project, there will be agreements concerning the Arctic
34:22
Speaker 2: development and the Northern transport route. These things are going
34:26
Speaker 2: to become more prominent in terms of how the Eurasian
34:31
Speaker 2: continent will consolidate. You add this onto what was agreed
34:35
Speaker 2: at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting back in end of
34:40
Speaker 2: September early October last year in Tianjin, which saw multiple
34:47
Speaker 2: agreements arrive that for development of energy infrastructure, so energy,
34:55
Speaker 2: transport trade. So this is over and transport. We've got
35:01
Speaker 2: maritime transport, further infrastructure development in Siberia, eastern Far Eastern Russia,
35:08
Speaker 2: northeastern China. And you know, and this this really in
35:15
Speaker 2: a sense is the anchor of you know, global multipolarity,
35:21
Speaker 2: because from this anchor delivers the economic heft and the
35:26
Speaker 2: political stability from which other things can then emerge.
35:30
Speaker 3: It's not to say that.
35:31
Speaker 2: Multipolarity is a walk in the park, or if I
35:35
Speaker 2: could Fray paraphrase someone else. You know, multipolarity is not
35:38
Speaker 2: a dinner party, and clearly it's not at the moment.
35:45
Speaker 2: You know, it's a very messy process. So but but
35:51
Speaker 2: you know, this is why I think this visit is
35:53
Speaker 2: actually quite significant, is that regardless of President Trump's visit,
35:58
Speaker 2: this visit will have none of the less enabled consolidate
36:04
Speaker 2: further consolidation of the Eurasian economic land mass project, and
36:13
Speaker 2: that will then feed into the two bookends. Right, So
36:16
Speaker 2: you've got the Western European bookend. Obviously, Russia's got its
36:20
Speaker 2: own challenges there in Ukraine, We've got the the sort
36:25
Speaker 2: of Southwestern peace, which is the Middle Eastern or West
36:30
Speaker 2: Asia component. Obviously there's a war going on there. But
36:36
Speaker 2: notwithstanding that war, you know, the there are deepening economic
36:41
Speaker 2: connections between Iran, for example, and and China and Russia
36:47
Speaker 2: and Pakistan, et cetera, et cetera. So and then of
36:50
Speaker 2: course on on you know, in our neck of the
36:52
Speaker 2: woods car the I would expect that this resit would
36:57
Speaker 2: contribute to the further deepening of the connective tissue, particularly
37:03
Speaker 2: in a security level, into Southeast Asia. You know, Russia
37:09
Speaker 2: has already got a strategic relationship with Vietnam. It's an
37:12
Speaker 2: easier one in a sense for Vietnam to have than
37:15
Speaker 2: Vietnam China. Right, Sometimes it's much easier to not be
37:21
Speaker 2: the neighbor to be able to have these kinds of relationships.
37:25
Speaker 3: Ditto DPRK.
37:27
Speaker 2: And you know, the Russian and Chinese relationships into other
37:32
Speaker 2: parts of Southeast Asia are quite complementary into Indonesia, you know,
37:39
Speaker 2: from a defense collaboration perspective, amongst other things. So, yeah,
37:46
Speaker 2: I think it's a it's unlike American visits. This one's
37:53
Speaker 2: a little bit more workmanlike.
37:56
Speaker 3: You.
37:56
Speaker 1: Since you brought up the American visit again, I wanted
38:00
Speaker 1: and I kind of wanted to cut contrast that too,
38:03
Speaker 1: because during the Trump visit, he brought who is who
38:07
Speaker 1: among the American oligarchs to visit China. You got allp
38:12
Speaker 1: c CEO of the other top companies in the United States.
38:16
Speaker 3: What what.
38:19
Speaker 1: Does that? Did that signal anything? Does that mean anything?
38:22
Speaker 1: I mean like, did they achieve anything?
38:26
Speaker 2: Look again, I think because there was so little preparation,
38:29
Speaker 2: there was not much to be achieved on the two days.
38:33
Speaker 2: If if anything was progressed, and if I was to
38:38
Speaker 2: again give a sort of a constructive interpretation of the
38:41
Speaker 2: two days, at the very least, that provided these oligarchs
38:45
Speaker 2: from the tech industry, finance industry, and other sectors an
38:49
Speaker 2: opportunity to meet directly and sometimes for the first time
38:53
Speaker 2: but not always with important counterparts on the Chinese side,
38:57
Speaker 2: to advance mutual understanding of each other's positions, priorities, expectations, ambitions,
39:03
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera. If things will emerge from that,
39:07
Speaker 2: we're likely to see them emerge in time for Shijin
39:11
Speaker 2: Pin's visit to Washington at the end of September. There
39:15
Speaker 2: may be some more commercial agreements. We've already seen a
39:18
Speaker 2: few announced, you know, the agricultural ones, for example, is
39:21
Speaker 2: one Boeing. I think is now confirmed that the Chinese
39:25
Speaker 2: side is putting together a group to progress that in
39:30
Speaker 2: terms of finalizing purchase arrangements and requirements, et cetera, et cetera,
39:36
Speaker 2: And I think that there are other problems clearly, you know, technology,
39:41
Speaker 2: it's not a very simple set of issues to deal with.
39:45
Speaker 2: And in fact, given the nature of American politics at
39:48
Speaker 2: the moment visit of EA, China and technology, it's highly
39:51
Speaker 2: improbable that there will be much movement there.
39:55
Speaker 3: Now.
39:55
Speaker 2: President Trump really doesn't have much room to move, particularly
39:58
Speaker 2: in the lead up to in term elections, where anything
40:02
Speaker 2: that appears to be a little bit soft on China
40:05
Speaker 2: would leave Republicans open to criticisms from the House Democrats.
40:10
Speaker 2: So it's a very difficult and narrow path at the
40:13
Speaker 2: moment for the Republicans and for the president. Even if
40:17
Speaker 2: you did want to do something wrong, the finance stuff
40:20
Speaker 2: is going to be I think one worth watching. China's
40:22
Speaker 2: capital markets is maturing, they're opening up. The institutional frameworks
40:29
Speaker 2: are i think, are becoming more sophisticated as it better
40:32
Speaker 2: understands the nature of finance capital outside of the production
40:38
Speaker 2: processes themselves, you know, whether it's a stock market, markets
40:41
Speaker 2: for derivatives, as well as the wealth management industry and
40:47
Speaker 2: all of those American financial firms that tagged along on
40:50
Speaker 2: this trip. Of course, would love a slice of the action.
40:53
Speaker 2: Whether or not they will come to the China market
40:56
Speaker 2: willing to engage to China market in a way that
41:01
Speaker 2: requires compliance with Chinese law will be an interesting question, right,
41:04
Speaker 2: I mean, this is not going to be the kind
41:07
Speaker 2: of engagement that they get when they participate in capital
41:10
Speaker 2: market opportunities in the United States or even in Europe.
41:14
Speaker 3: It's a very different.
41:15
Speaker 2: Operating environment that ties the hands of finance capital a
41:20
Speaker 2: lot tighter than they would be used to, and it
41:23
Speaker 2: will be interesting to see whether or not they ultimately
41:25
Speaker 2: can develop meaningful business there. There are sensible things that
41:29
Speaker 2: you know, so Visa went along, for example, on the visit,
41:32
Speaker 2: and I think you and I both know that Visa is,
41:37
Speaker 2: you know, outside of the big cities, is a difficult.
41:40
Speaker 3: Platform to use.
41:42
Speaker 2: And you know, whether or not you can ultimately move
41:46
Speaker 2: forward with integrations of Visa's credit capabilities with Chinese domestic
41:51
Speaker 2: payment systems I think will be another interesting one too.
41:54
Speaker 3: Right.
41:55
Speaker 2: You can certainly link bank accounts and cards too some
42:00
Speaker 2: of these, but I think from Visa's point of view,
42:02
Speaker 2: they would love a much smoother process.
42:05
Speaker 3: Is that going to happen? Well, you know, I don't know.
42:09
Speaker 2: You know, it's an area obviously that I do a
42:10
Speaker 2: lot of research in, but I don't at this dage
42:14
Speaker 2: anticipate in China falling over itself on this one. You know,
42:18
Speaker 2: it's got its own rules about how money works, and
42:22
Speaker 2: it's not going to really bend those just to satisfy
42:24
Speaker 2: you know, a couple of big American card providers, no
42:29
Speaker 2: doubt some of them would like to see some movement
42:31
Speaker 2: on things like a stable coins. Well, you know, if
42:36
Speaker 2: they went to Beijing looking for joy on that front,
42:38
Speaker 2: I don't think they would have gotten any They would
42:40
Speaker 2: have been better off going to Hong Kong. And so yeah,
42:45
Speaker 2: so look that that was the sort of you know,
42:47
Speaker 2: the commercial dimensions. Will anything happen, Well, let's see what
42:50
Speaker 2: happens in September. Maybe as a result of these people
42:55
Speaker 2: getting together, they might actually have constructive things that they
42:59
Speaker 2: can do, maybe, you know, or maybe.
43:02
Speaker 1: Not so Probably no Chinese TV in the United States
43:07
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty six, maybe.
43:10
Speaker 3: Probably not, but but they are.
43:12
Speaker 2: But they are landing in Canada, yes, yes, Mexico and Mexico.
43:19
Speaker 2: And you know you do here of course out of
43:22
Speaker 2: out of Washington that cars Chinese cars, should you know,
43:27
Speaker 2: from Canada and Mexico shouldn't even be allowed into North America,
43:31
Speaker 2: into the United States of America. You know, well, let's
43:34
Speaker 2: see what happens. It'll be interesting for people to buy
43:38
Speaker 2: or lease cars evs in Canada and then and then
43:42
Speaker 2: come into the United States and you know, nationally visiting.
43:46
Speaker 2: So it'll be a difficult one to police. I'm sure
43:49
Speaker 2: they'll work very hard at trying to police it. I
43:52
Speaker 2: also saw reports that Nissan is looking to export cars
43:56
Speaker 2: also into the So this is the Japanese brand into
44:01
Speaker 2: the Canadian market through its joint venture with the Chinese manufacturer.
44:05
Speaker 3: Right.
44:05
Speaker 2: So, I think it's increasingly obvious that Chinese EV makers
44:13
Speaker 2: have reached a point in market leadership that there is
44:19
Speaker 2: no catching them in this generation. And the only way,
44:25
Speaker 2: in a sense to hang on is to find ways
44:32
Speaker 2: of collaborating on technology, and that's going to happen more
44:40
Speaker 2: and more. You know, we see German firms doubling down
44:43
Speaker 2: actually on their investments in China. We see more companies
44:48
Speaker 2: around the world trying to find ways of collaborating with
44:51
Speaker 2: Chinese battery manufacturers.
44:53
Speaker 3: I mean, let's face it.
44:54
Speaker 2: You know, an EV is really just you know, a
44:57
Speaker 2: battery with serious compute, and so you know, you need
45:04
Speaker 2: the batteries, and and that is that is a sector,
45:10
Speaker 2: and that's a bunch of technologies that China is by
45:14
Speaker 2: far and away the leader in the world. And and
45:18
Speaker 2: that's just the reality that I think European, American and
45:21
Speaker 2: Japanese carmakers are, you know, slowly but surely coming to
45:26
Speaker 2: understand and readjust their own strategic posture. On the contrast, Carl,
45:32
Speaker 2: the Russian delegation is very very large and heavily dominated
45:38
Speaker 2: by policymakers and regulators and legislators, so very significant government
45:46
Speaker 2: to government interactions, which obviously was not the case.
45:49
Speaker 3: With the American delegation. Now, the American delegation is very light.
45:54
Speaker 2: President Trump, the Treasury, Secretary, Secretary of State, Secretary of War,
46:05
Speaker 2: a couple of family members basically, and then the CEO
46:11
Speaker 2: is what you know, thirty large firms.
46:13
Speaker 3: That was it. It was a very very light on.
46:18
Speaker 2: Delegation as far as matters of state are concerned, as
46:22
Speaker 2: far as matters of commerce a concern, of course, it
46:25
Speaker 2: was American big capital at work.
46:29
Speaker 1: Yeah. Putin said something before he embark on his trip
46:34
Speaker 1: to Beijing. He said, Russia and China will work together
46:39
Speaker 1: to ensure peace and stability and uphold international law and
46:44
Speaker 1: you and charge now, and he talked about great deal
46:48
Speaker 1: about multiplarity. How do you think they will realistically be
46:52
Speaker 1: able to do that?
46:55
Speaker 2: Well, there won't be much progress in the short term
46:59
Speaker 2: other than and not letting the UN fragment and descend
47:08
Speaker 2: into totally irrelevance. Because the problem you've got is that
47:13
Speaker 2: building international multipolar institutions or multilateral politusians from scratch is very,
47:20
Speaker 2: very hard. And I think the practical reality is that
47:25
Speaker 2: both Russia and China and a whole bunch of other
47:27
Speaker 2: countries actually understand that as imperfect as the UN is,
47:31
Speaker 2: and it's a long way short of perfect, letting it
47:36
Speaker 2: go runs a greater risk because if you've still got
47:42
Speaker 2: the semblance of an institution like that, you can at
47:47
Speaker 2: least reform it in time and rebuild new operating procedures
47:54
Speaker 2: and an operating culture. But if it disappeared altogether and
47:57
Speaker 2: you tried to, well, you know, if you try to
48:00
Speaker 2: piece humpty dumpty back together again, it's really too much
48:05
Speaker 2: effort with limited likelihood of success. So when I think
48:09
Speaker 2: they say that they will continue to support the UN,
48:12
Speaker 2: and international law. The idea really is just to try
48:16
Speaker 2: and hold things together whilst all of this fluidity and
48:19
Speaker 2: turmoil takes place, so that you know, as things hopefully
48:24
Speaker 2: settle down over the next decade or so, the sort
48:30
Speaker 2: of cornerstone pieces of an institutional architecture or the next
48:35
Speaker 2: phase of global governance will be there and they can
48:38
Speaker 2: leverage that, you know, to launch I guess, you know,
48:45
Speaker 2: global governance two point zero on the back of the
48:48
Speaker 2: UN and on the back of the legacy and the
48:51
Speaker 2: institutions of international law. We have also discussed before, Kyl.
48:55
Speaker 2: I think that notwithstanding America essentially flagrantly disregarding most of
49:04
Speaker 2: all of this stuff, most other countries actually continue to
49:08
Speaker 2: operate within the parameters of international law, which means that
49:14
Speaker 2: you know, a good one hundred and eighty or so
49:17
Speaker 2: countries are doing their best to operate within that system. Anyway,
49:23
Speaker 2: it is debatable whether Western European countries do. I think
49:28
Speaker 2: by and large they do, except when it comes to
49:31
Speaker 2: the question of Ukraine or Israel, right, But on many
49:38
Speaker 2: other things they continue to operate broadly speaking, within that
49:45
Speaker 2: operating environment. Look, the greatest failure of the UN really
49:49
Speaker 2: comes to the inability of the Security Council to ultimately
49:56
Speaker 2: sustain order and minimize the risk of war, being able
50:00
Speaker 2: to bring conflicts, you know.
50:03
Speaker 3: To heal.
50:05
Speaker 2: And the problem, of course, is that the conflicts involve
50:10
Speaker 2: members of the Security Council.
50:14
Speaker 3: You know.
50:14
Speaker 2: When when the conflicts involve non members of the Security Council,
50:18
Speaker 2: whether it's proxies or what have you, it's much easier
50:22
Speaker 2: for the Security Council to sort of sit there detached
50:26
Speaker 2: and aloof dispensing power and authority. But when the conflicts
50:30
Speaker 2: involve well, actually every member of the Security Council directly
50:36
Speaker 2: or indirectly, it's it's impossible for it to do anything
50:40
Speaker 2: other than what it does at the moment, which is
50:42
Speaker 2: of course conductance conduct itself at a performative level. But ultimately,
50:49
Speaker 2: in practical terms, it's paralyzed.
50:53
Speaker 3: That's where it's at.
50:55
Speaker 2: And there's other problems too, right, But I think that
50:57
Speaker 2: that's you know, your sort of core challenge.
51:01
Speaker 1: Well, I hear, you know a lot of criticism from
51:04
Speaker 1: people who otherwisely sympathetic to uh, you know, like an
51:08
Speaker 1: anti hegemonic alliance against us. They say, countries like Russia
51:13
Speaker 1: and China they pay lip service to the idea of multipolarity,
51:17
Speaker 1: but they don't do anything to kind of actively stop
51:22
Speaker 1: United States from from breaking the bang, from from from
51:26
Speaker 1: waging these reckless wars are around the world, you know,
51:30
Speaker 1: for example, what's going on in straight or homos right now?
51:34
Speaker 3: So what what what?
51:35
Speaker 1: What's the point of multipolarity? Then, what is the point
51:38
Speaker 1: of bricks? What do you say to that?
51:42
Speaker 2: Well, how do you stop the United States at this
51:45
Speaker 2: current moment in time from sailing and chips around the
51:48
Speaker 2: world and launching missiles anyway, unless you want to instigate
51:56
Speaker 2: what could very easily escalate into nuclear war. Okay, so
52:01
Speaker 2: that is always a bit of a constraint.
52:06
Speaker 3: That's the first thing.
52:06
Speaker 2: The second thing is is and here's probably the upside
52:09
Speaker 2: of all of this, is that as the United States
52:11
Speaker 2: has gone around the world doing all of this, it's
52:14
Speaker 2: also exhausting its arsenal and revealing to the world the
52:18
Speaker 2: limitations of its military power. It's a powerful country, it
52:24
Speaker 2: has a lot of military heft available to it, but
52:29
Speaker 2: it's also exhausting it and as it does that, then
52:34
Speaker 2: the balance of power changes again. And so it isn't
52:38
Speaker 2: always possible, you know, to block the bully in every
52:44
Speaker 2: corner the world, in part because the bully is in
52:47
Speaker 2: more corners of the world than anyone else's and it
52:51
Speaker 2: is impossible to you know, for instance, the situation in
52:55
Speaker 2: Cuba or Venezuela. You know, when the United States seeks
52:59
Speaker 2: to directly intervene in countries that it is physically close to,
53:05
Speaker 2: and physical proximity is important because that's how supply chains
53:10
Speaker 2: can function, because you've got to sustain this effort. And
53:15
Speaker 2: you know, so, look, I think people would be well
53:18
Speaker 2: advised to be very realistic about the composition of power,
53:25
Speaker 2: if you will, and the composition and distribution of hard power,
53:30
Speaker 2: and what it is that individual countries or even groups
53:33
Speaker 2: of countries can do. Bricks is not a military alliance.
53:37
Speaker 2: To expect bricks to somehow, you know, emerge as a
53:42
Speaker 2: military alternative or as a NATO is actually antithetical to
53:48
Speaker 2: the ethos of bricks itself.
53:51
Speaker 3: You know.
53:52
Speaker 2: You know, the idea that countries that have been passionate
53:55
Speaker 2: advocates of neutrality or non alignment suddenly begin to form
54:00
Speaker 2: blocks is it is to in a sense, advocate a
54:05
Speaker 2: pathway that is antithetical to the things that these countries,
54:11
Speaker 2: you know, have believed in for a long time.
54:14
Speaker 3: So you know, if we simply wanted a world where.
54:22
Speaker 2: Where these countries that are being bullied simply respond in
54:28
Speaker 2: a like for like way, you do nothing more than
54:33
Speaker 2: affirm the affirm that world. And yes you do need
54:39
Speaker 2: to push back at times, and pushing back needs to
54:43
Speaker 2: be done in a way that doesn't lead you down
54:46
Speaker 2: that'slipp pretty slope. But the aim in the end is
54:51
Speaker 2: to try and transcend this. Now, whether they can or
54:53
Speaker 2: not is a different question, right, But you notice how
54:59
Speaker 2: you know, Russia, for instance, has been I think more
55:04
Speaker 2: patient than many Russians even wanted to be in terms
55:10
Speaker 2: of the situation in Ukraine, because I think that there
55:13
Speaker 2: is an understanding that whether the war was right or wrong,
55:19
Speaker 2: if you just look at the prosecution, that the escalation
55:24
Speaker 2: question must be handled very very carefully, because you can
55:27
Speaker 2: see how easily it is and how quickly escalation happens,
55:31
Speaker 2: and before you know what, a whole bunch of people
55:33
Speaker 2: get dragged in and you're no longer barring drones at
55:39
Speaker 2: each other with fifty kilograms of explosives. But people start
55:44
Speaker 2: talking about tactical nuclear weapons, et cetera, et cetera. So
55:49
Speaker 2: I think these big countries actually have understand that they
55:55
Speaker 2: have a responsibility, and I'm sure deep down at a
56:00
Speaker 2: certain level, given their drothers, they would dearly love to
56:08
Speaker 2: go and respond in a like the like manner, but
56:11
Speaker 2: they don't for very calculated reasons. And it means that
56:18
Speaker 2: we are in an extended period of instability as a
56:25
Speaker 2: consequence of that, because the United States and its Transatlantic
56:30
Speaker 2: partners are clearly more willing to to disrupt the world,
56:38
Speaker 2: particularly certain parts of the world in certain countries as
56:42
Speaker 2: part of their own efforts to secure their positions or
56:46
Speaker 2: to hold back the tide of change. So I can
56:49
Speaker 2: understand the frustrations that people have. You know that bricks
56:53
Speaker 2: doesn't suddenly become a military power, or that the Shanghai
56:57
Speaker 2: Cooperation Organization doesn't evolve from a Security Coordination Group two
57:04
Speaker 2: being a NATO like alliance. But but you know, these
57:10
Speaker 2: these countries actually don't want a world of blocks and
57:14
Speaker 2: these kinds of alliances that are targeted the third parties.
57:19
Speaker 2: And because they don't want that, and because they don't
57:21
Speaker 2: want to, because they understand the dangers of that, in
57:25
Speaker 2: a sense, I have to walk the walk as well.
57:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this is why there is a lot
57:29
Speaker 1: of misinterpretations, particularly among the Western press. When President Pin
57:34
Speaker 1: spoke about Susides's trap, what President Xi Jimpin was talking
57:38
Speaker 1: about is to avoid folly into the trap of superpower competition.
57:45
Speaker 1: But somehow this when this was explained to Trump, you
57:49
Speaker 1: know what Trump got out of it is that Hi
57:52
Speaker 1: Jimpin cole, United States are declining power. And then he
57:57
Speaker 1: immediately sees about that. You know, I'm sure if he
58:01
Speaker 1: didn't bring it up, nobody would have noticed. And my ship,
58:05
Speaker 1: But in order to make himself look good, Trump have
58:08
Speaker 1: to bring that up and spin it as, oh, it's
58:11
Speaker 1: because of sleepy Joe. It's because of sleepy Jo. But
58:14
Speaker 1: thanks to me, the United States is now back in
58:17
Speaker 1: the respectable limelight where she holds the honor guard for
58:22
Speaker 1: me at the square. Because yeah, because he's bigger than
58:27
Speaker 1: America it is.
58:28
Speaker 2: And look it's domestic politics too, right, So you know,
58:32
Speaker 2: I mean, his entire political story has been built on
58:36
Speaker 2: this idea of that America is declining. This is why
58:39
Speaker 2: he says it is to make America great again. Now,
58:42
Speaker 2: if America was already great, you can't do the again bit.
58:46
Speaker 2: So Trump's entire political positioning has always been that the
58:50
Speaker 2: United States today is a fallen country compared to what
58:56
Speaker 2: it once was, and it needs somebody like Donald Trump. Well,
59:01
Speaker 2: and actually, no, it doesn't need somebody like Donald Trump.
59:03
Speaker 2: It needs Donald Trump to bring it back to.
59:07
Speaker 3: Its former greatness.
59:09
Speaker 2: So you know, the idea that it's a that's a
59:12
Speaker 2: declining power, of course suits that particular view.
59:16
Speaker 3: But he did misunderstand that.
59:17
Speaker 2: If you know that that entire framing it wasn't about
59:21
Speaker 2: whether China was rising or America was declining. It was
59:24
Speaker 2: actually to say, this is a pretty dumb way of
59:26
Speaker 2: thinking about the world, and and there's actually a much
59:29
Speaker 2: better way of thinking about the world and how these
59:32
Speaker 2: two big countries interact with each other. If your ambition
59:36
Speaker 2: of making America great again is to become real, and
59:41
Speaker 2: the best way for America to become real is actually
59:44
Speaker 2: to stop running around the world fighting wars and causing trouble,
59:47
Speaker 2: you know, for others and yourself, but as to discover
59:51
Speaker 2: ways in which you work and coordinate with other countries.
59:53
Speaker 2: And if you did that, then you know there's nothing
59:57
Speaker 2: inherent in the world that would stop America from becoming
1:00:01
Speaker 2: a great country. I might add that not only did
1:00:05
Speaker 2: I think Sidgeon Pin say that I think that there's
1:00:08
Speaker 2: another opportunity here. I don't necessarily think the American political
1:00:15
Speaker 2: system and its political culture, or its current political leadership
1:00:18
Speaker 2: will necessary grasp this. But America is two hundred and
1:00:21
Speaker 2: fifty years old this year, and the opportunity is not
1:00:26
Speaker 2: only to be rejuvenated as a great power. The real
1:00:31
Speaker 2: opportunity is to lay the first foundation stone of America
1:00:35
Speaker 2: being a genuine civilization, because it currently isn't one. And
1:00:42
Speaker 2: if it actually transcended this idea that the world is
1:00:48
Speaker 2: zero sum and that the only way that America can
1:00:51
Speaker 2: get ahead is by keeping others down, then it actually
1:00:55
Speaker 2: has a chance of becoming a civilization because civilization is
1:00:59
Speaker 2: actually understand their responsibility to others, and that comes from
1:01:04
Speaker 2: actually being able to transcend the pettiness of you know, uh,
1:01:10
Speaker 2: peer rivalry.
1:01:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, Western civilization would would be a good idea. And
1:01:20
Speaker 1: thank you on that note. Thank you very much, doctor
1:01:23
Speaker 1: Pal for making your time to speak to us. If
1:01:26
Speaker 1: people want to follow your work, where will they.
1:01:29
Speaker 2: Go Warick Pearl dot substack dot com And uh yeah,
1:01:35
Speaker 2: that's probably the.
1:01:36
Speaker 3: Best place, just go there. Thank you.
1:01:39
Speaker 1: Thanks everyone for tuning in. Make sure you follow doctor
1:01:43
Speaker 1: Powell on substack and uh, what about your books? What
1:01:49
Speaker 1: about your books? Your your your.
1:01:51
Speaker 3: Hopeless salesman an't I? Yes?
1:01:54
Speaker 2: Book Thermoeconomics in a Time of Monsters available on Ammazon
1:02:00
Speaker 2: on check it out.
1:02:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, check out doctor Polo's books. Thanks everyone for listening.
1:02:06
Speaker 1: Until next time, Bye bye