Latest / UK Column Radio / Trump Tacoed on Iran – But the Dirty War Is Just Getting Started

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Trump Tacoed on Iran – But the Dirty War Is Just Getting Started · UK Column Radio

0:01
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Silk and
0:04
Speaker 1: Steal podcast. I'm your host Carlota. Today I welcome back
0:08
Speaker 1: our returning guests, doctor Warwick Paul from Australia. UH with
0:14
Speaker 1: Warwick is a expert on international geopolitics, in particular pertaining
0:23
Speaker 1: to China and we live. So first of all, welcome
0:28
Speaker 1: back to the show, Warwick.
0:29
Speaker 2: Good with you.
0:31
Speaker 1: We are we live in interesting times, Warwick. You know, it
0:37
Speaker 1: hasn't been a dull moment since this year started. And
0:41
Speaker 1: we're only halfway through, all right, So we have the
0:48
Speaker 1: straighter Homos is still closed and and uh Trump is
0:55
Speaker 1: not tackling unfortunately, and that that's having huge ramification is
1:00
Speaker 1: on the global economy. China is still powering through. And
1:07
Speaker 1: last time we talked was in the aftermath of Trump's
1:11
Speaker 1: visit to China. How does everything look look right now
1:18
Speaker 1: to you, Warrick.
1:20
Speaker 3: Well, sometimes the more things change, the more they seem
1:23
Speaker 3: to say the same, don't they. The situation in the
1:26
Speaker 3: hor moves in some respects. Of course, Trump has tarcoed
1:30
Speaker 3: in that he has been distinctly unwilling to re engage
1:36
Speaker 3: in the level of kinetic conflict that the United States
1:40
Speaker 3: was Party two and in fact instigated on the twenty
1:43
Speaker 3: eighth of February. In fact, I think it's fair to
1:47
Speaker 3: say that Donald Trump has persistently looked for ways to
1:54
Speaker 3: not seriously re engage at a military level, and I
1:58
Speaker 3: think he intuitively understands that doing so would be would
2:06
Speaker 3: be piling on disaster upon disaster. Of course, keeping the
2:11
Speaker 3: American Navy at the mouth of the Strait of Hall
2:16
Speaker 3: Moves is a way of firstly preserving some reputation, and
2:23
Speaker 3: no doubt it does have some effects in terms of
2:27
Speaker 3: being able to intercede some ships to try to sneak
2:31
Speaker 3: on through. But I think that there are plenty of
2:34
Speaker 3: reports which shows that there are tankers and other kinds
2:41
Speaker 3: of vessels making their way through, firstly having secured safe
2:48
Speaker 3: passage from the Iranian authorities, and then eventually being able
2:52
Speaker 3: to navigate their way through the American blockade. And some
2:57
Speaker 3: of that it will be oil, of course, and some
2:59
Speaker 3: of that is things like fertilizers. It looks like that
3:03
Speaker 3: there are some fertilizers getting through, but none of that
3:05
Speaker 3: is of a volume that is going to somehow arrest
3:13
Speaker 3: the shrinking stocks of energy and fertilizers that are available
3:21
Speaker 3: in the global economy at the moment, and as reserves
3:24
Speaker 3: around the world continue to be consumed, we are still
3:30
Speaker 3: on track for, I think, a pretty serious reckoning with
3:35
Speaker 3: molecular reality. It's one thing for paper markets to be
3:40
Speaker 3: manipulated and jawboned, but it's a different thing when at
3:45
Speaker 3: some point people turn on the tap and there simply
3:49
Speaker 3: isn't the flows that they expected. So in that sense,
3:53
Speaker 3: I think we are on track for some very very
3:56
Speaker 3: tough times and some hard landings which will be uneven across.
3:59
Speaker 2: The world world.
4:01
Speaker 3: The other thing that we've had, Kyl I think is
4:04
Speaker 3: something that's new but in many ways again you know,
4:07
Speaker 3: you know, more things change, the more they stay the
4:10
Speaker 3: same is the Shangri La Security Dialogue that recently concluded
4:16
Speaker 3: in Singapore, and Pete Hegseth gave a speech, the keynote speech,
4:24
Speaker 3: and that attracted all sorts of attention for quite interesting
4:28
Speaker 3: and different reasons, didn't it. The you know, one topic
4:34
Speaker 3: was actually what he didn't say or what he didn't mention,
4:37
Speaker 3: and he didn't once mention Taiwan at all, which of
4:42
Speaker 3: course drew quite a lot of attention from the usual
4:47
Speaker 3: hawks in Washington. Of course, but also from certain sections
4:52
Speaker 3: of the political establishment on the island itself, where there
4:59
Speaker 3: are clearly growing concerns that the United States is in
5:06
Speaker 3: the medium term, not tomorrow, but really the path has
5:11
Speaker 3: been said, is really not a reliable defense or security partner,
5:18
Speaker 3: and that a new reality is beginning to emerge in Asia.
5:27
Speaker 3: And that's a very discomforting experience for those who became
5:33
Speaker 3: very comfortable with old realities, whether they're in Taipei, or
5:36
Speaker 3: whether they're in Manila, or in fact, whether they are
5:39
Speaker 3: in soul or Tokyo or Australia for that matter. Speaking
5:43
Speaker 3: of Australia, I just mentioned one more thing and then
5:45
Speaker 3: I'll throw it back to you to sort of see
5:48
Speaker 3: where you want to take this conversation. As we all know,
5:53
Speaker 3: Australia and the United States in the UK have been
5:56
Speaker 3: part of an agreement called Orcus, the centerpiece of which
6:01
Speaker 3: is the acquisition of a number of American nuclear submarines.
6:09
Speaker 3: One of the other things that came out of the
6:10
Speaker 3: Shangri La dialogue in Singapore was an announcement by the
6:14
Speaker 3: Australian Defense Minister and Pete Hegseth that the previous terms
6:19
Speaker 3: of engagement on those submarines is going to be changed
6:23
Speaker 3: to a point where Australia will now receive possibly three
6:29
Speaker 3: they call them in service vessels, also known as second
6:34
Speaker 3: hand vehicles vessels, and that has set off quite a
6:41
Speaker 3: lively reaction in Australia about not just the submarines per se,
6:47
Speaker 3: but actually the entire framework upon which that submarine's decision
6:53
Speaker 3: was originally made four or five years ago. And I
6:58
Speaker 3: think we are going to an intensified public debate and
7:04
Speaker 3: potentially reckoning with this decision and what it actually means.
7:09
Speaker 2: Now.
7:10
Speaker 3: As part of all of that, a former Labor federal minister,
7:15
Speaker 3: Peter Garrett, who was also the lead singer of the
7:18
Speaker 3: rock band Midnight Oil, announced the formation of what I
7:26
Speaker 3: call a People's Commission or a citizens Commission of Inquiry
7:31
Speaker 3: into UCUS. Now, this is a very interesting development because
7:36
Speaker 3: I can't think in my own living memory of a
7:41
Speaker 3: precedent of something like this a civil society, citizen initiated
7:47
Speaker 3: commission of inquiry in lieu of parliamentary investigations and oversight.
7:55
Speaker 3: And there is every likelihood that this Commission of inquiry
8:00
Speaker 3: will become a major focal point of not only critical
8:06
Speaker 3: reflection on the submarine's decision, but actually on the much
8:11
Speaker 3: wider set of questions concerning Australian defense posture and the
8:18
Speaker 3: rationale or the framework of the ways in which Australia
8:22
Speaker 3: has in recent times, say the last couple of decades
8:26
Speaker 3: in particular, arrived that its national security and defense priorities
8:30
Speaker 3: and decision making. So there's a little bit going on
8:34
Speaker 3: in our neck of the woods.
8:40
Speaker 1: I have a question about that deal. Why do you
8:43
Speaker 1: think they did that? I mean, original deal was for
8:47
Speaker 1: Australia to receive a new, brand new nuclear submarine sometime
8:52
Speaker 1: down the road, maybe ten years, maybe twenty years, who knows,
8:56
Speaker 1: It depends on the production capability of US military, US
9:00
Speaker 1: your complex. Why did they do this such announcement which
9:06
Speaker 1: they must know would cost public scrutiny inside Australia.
9:11
Speaker 2: But why did they do that?
9:14
Speaker 3: Because I don't think the Americans have either the capacity
9:17
Speaker 3: or the willingness to provide new submarines. In any case,
9:22
Speaker 3: for the Americans to meet their own targeted numbers, they
9:26
Speaker 3: would need to be able to manufacture two point three
9:31
Speaker 3: new Virginia class submarines per year. Right now, the annual
9:35
Speaker 3: average production rate is around one point two one point three.
9:39
Speaker 3: So they are well short, almost half of the capacity
9:42
Speaker 3: that the Americans themselves need to be for their own needs.
9:46
Speaker 3: So the chances that the Americans were ever going to
9:49
Speaker 3: provide submarines out of their own allocations to a third
9:54
Speaker 3: party was next to well next to improbable right. In fact,
10:00
Speaker 3: one of the conditions of the original agreement was that
10:05
Speaker 3: the provision of these submarines was always going to be
10:07
Speaker 3: subject to the decision of the President at the time
10:12
Speaker 3: that the submarines being provided to Australia did not compromise
10:15
Speaker 3: America's own requirements. So there's always been this possibility or risk,
10:23
Speaker 3: depending on what perspective you have on this, that the
10:26
Speaker 3: submarines were never ever going to be made available to
10:29
Speaker 3: Australia in any case, and that of course has been
10:32
Speaker 3: one of the principal criticisms of the entire arrangement. At
10:37
Speaker 3: an operational level, at least put aside the strategic questions
10:40
Speaker 3: of whether, in fact the submarines contribute meaningfully to Australian
10:44
Speaker 3: defense or to peace and security in the region. Just
10:47
Speaker 3: put that strategic question aside for half a moment. The
10:51
Speaker 3: idea that you would commit a national defense strategy to
10:54
Speaker 3: something that has an operational delivery risk as big as
10:58
Speaker 3: this seems be a little bit fool hardy, and that
11:02
Speaker 3: was one of the early and sustained criticisms of the
11:05
Speaker 3: entire arrangement itself. Of course, Australia has been paying the
11:09
Speaker 3: invoices to assist the Americans in boosting their submarine production capabilities,
11:17
Speaker 3: not to much effect, i might add, at this stage,
11:19
Speaker 3: and Australia has been financing the development of facilities in
11:24
Speaker 3: Australia to accommodate submarines in future and also to accommodate
11:30
Speaker 3: literally American troops that will be based in Australia. So
11:33
Speaker 3: the Australian Commonwealth Government is financing the construction of housing
11:41
Speaker 3: for American military personnel when they're stationed in Australia, much
11:45
Speaker 3: to the chagrin of many Australians, I might add, who
11:48
Speaker 3: are currently staring at a growing housing affordability crisis. So
11:54
Speaker 3: we have big questions around priorities. We have big questions
11:59
Speaker 3: around prudence and good judgment, both in an operational and
12:04
Speaker 3: a procurement sense, as well as in a strategic sense.
12:08
Speaker 3: Over the last forty eight hours, there's been some Senate
12:12
Speaker 3: Estimates Committee hearings in Australia where representatives of the defense
12:19
Speaker 3: bureaucracy and the military force itself have been subject to
12:23
Speaker 3: some intense questioning by senators.
12:27
Speaker 2: And for those of.
12:29
Speaker 3: Your viewers who be interested in a little chuckle, they
12:34
Speaker 3: might want to have a look on social media for
12:36
Speaker 3: some of the footage from Senator Schubridge, who has been
12:41
Speaker 3: leading the questioning of many of these personnel.
12:44
Speaker 2: Because what it shows is that.
12:48
Speaker 3: Justifying this backtrack to secondhand one hundred percent secondhand vessels
12:56
Speaker 3: has proven to be a very difficult justification. I mean,
12:59
Speaker 3: we had comments like it represents what was the turn
13:04
Speaker 3: of phrase, something like constrained optimization. Right, So three years
13:11
Speaker 3: ago the first arrangement was described as the optimal path. Now,
13:16
Speaker 3: because we've changed it to this second pathway, the obvious
13:21
Speaker 3: question is, well, if the first path was the optimal one,
13:24
Speaker 3: what does it say about this one? And the rationale
13:27
Speaker 3: now is that, oh, well, you know, well it's still optimal,
13:30
Speaker 3: but it's constrained optimality. So we're starting to get this
13:34
Speaker 3: sort of Allwellian bureaucrates trying to weasele its way through
13:40
Speaker 3: this little little logic.
13:44
Speaker 2: Problem that they've created for themselves.
13:46
Speaker 3: We've also got exposure that in fact, the maintenance of
13:50
Speaker 3: these secondhand vessels, should they ever arrive, will be a
13:54
Speaker 3: quote sovereign responsibility of Australia, And a senator remarked that, well,
13:59
Speaker 3: you know what this basically means is that Australia is
14:02
Speaker 3: picking up some vessels that are in the tail end
14:05
Speaker 3: of their life, because you've got to remember that don't
14:07
Speaker 3: get refueled. They know when when the reactors expire, they expire,
14:12
Speaker 3: and you've got to deal with the waste thereafter. But
14:14
Speaker 3: in the meantime there is not even a warranty from
14:17
Speaker 3: the manufacturer. So so Australia is literally going to pick up,
14:24
Speaker 3: if these boats ever arrived, pick up responsibility for the
14:30
Speaker 3: nuclear submarines in the in the latter half of their lives,
14:34
Speaker 3: together with the responsibility for the disposal of waste, and
14:40
Speaker 3: and the real questions I think that are starting to
14:43
Speaker 3: emerge go to ultimately, how is it that this decision,
14:48
Speaker 3: it's a big decision, you know, four hundred billion dollars
14:52
Speaker 3: decision was made in the first place, and what sort
14:58
Speaker 3: of thinking went behind it, what sort of analysis went
15:01
Speaker 3: behind it? And it was based on the responses that
15:06
Speaker 3: we're seeing and the obfuscation and all of that.
15:10
Speaker 2: I think it's fair to say.
15:11
Speaker 3: That at the moment, many people, many thinking people, are
15:15
Speaker 3: starting to say to themselves, I don't think there was
15:18
Speaker 3: much thought put into this at all. And if that's
15:22
Speaker 3: the case, then I would suggest that people would be
15:26
Speaker 3: right to wonder whether, in fact, Australia's national security is
15:32
Speaker 3: mostly being compromised by those charged with the responsibility of
15:36
Speaker 3: maintaining it.
15:39
Speaker 2: Yeah.
15:39
Speaker 1: Well, I mean it's a great deal for United States.
15:42
Speaker 1: I mean US essentially got a friends free in nuclear
15:45
Speaker 1: submarine base at the courtesy of Australian taxpayers, and they
15:51
Speaker 1: get to pass off some of their old military stock
15:55
Speaker 1: maybe maybe Australia up front, right, I mean, like the
16:02
Speaker 1: money has been has been provided, so it's all good.
16:07
Speaker 1: It's up to Americans, when at their own pleasure, at
16:12
Speaker 1: their own time schedule, to to give what they deem appropriate.
16:20
Speaker 2: So it's a great deal.
16:21
Speaker 3: It's a great deal for Washington because they're getting paid anyway,
16:25
Speaker 3: that's the first one. Secondly, they're getting bases to operate from. Thirdly,
16:32
Speaker 3: they're getting the accommodation for their personnel paid for. They
16:37
Speaker 3: get to decide whether or not, and under what conditions
16:40
Speaker 3: the boats will even be provided, and in the end
16:44
Speaker 3: they will be in charge of how these boats get
16:47
Speaker 3: used regardless. So it is a fantastic deal from Washington's
16:51
Speaker 3: point of view, which of course leads you to wonder.
16:54
Speaker 3: You know, you know, it's not that it's a dud
16:57
Speaker 3: deal for Australia, because it is a dud deal. The
17:01
Speaker 3: question is, firstly is how big is this dud deal?
17:05
Speaker 3: How much national security risk is actually created as a
17:09
Speaker 3: result of this, because these are opportunity cost questions too, right.
17:12
Speaker 3: You've got to remember, by going down one path, you
17:15
Speaker 3: don't pursue other options, and those other options may actually
17:20
Speaker 3: have been far more sensible options from the point of
17:23
Speaker 3: view of being able to defend this large, remote continent
17:28
Speaker 3: from very remote potential threats. But if you don't go
17:35
Speaker 3: down those paths and you go down this particular orchest path,
17:38
Speaker 3: then and you don't get any of this provisioning, and
17:43
Speaker 3: in fact the provisioning strategically arguably is not even the
17:47
Speaker 3: right kind of architecture for the defense of Australia anyway,
17:52
Speaker 3: then Australia's actually at greater risk as a result of
17:56
Speaker 3: this national security decision. Than it was before. We've reached
18:01
Speaker 3: a point where the technocrats are starting to worry that
18:08
Speaker 3: there's going to be a capabilities constraint for or a
18:11
Speaker 3: capabilities gap for a period of time, which is between
18:14
Speaker 3: when the current submarines, the Colins class submarines basically need
18:21
Speaker 3: to get put out the pasture and when these supposedly
18:24
Speaker 3: new secondhand submarines arrive to fill their space. Now they
18:28
Speaker 3: perform very different functions. The Colon class submarines are really
18:31
Speaker 3: designed for protecting the shallow waters around Australia as opposed
18:36
Speaker 3: to these.
18:39
Speaker 2: Nuclear vessels.
18:40
Speaker 3: But the worry now is that there's going to be
18:43
Speaker 3: a time gap where there won't be any submarines at all.
18:47
Speaker 3: And so there's a program now to try to extend
18:52
Speaker 3: the life of these old Colon class submarines for another
18:57
Speaker 3: five years at great expense, and we're talking billions of
19:00
Speaker 3: dollars hopefully to keep them on the road. It's like
19:03
Speaker 3: having a worn out car that you know should go
19:09
Speaker 3: to the scrap heap and you are expecting another car
19:12
Speaker 3: to get delivered and it's not right, and so you
19:15
Speaker 3: just band aiding up the old car, hoping that it
19:19
Speaker 3: will get you through that's really where we've gotten to.
19:22
Speaker 3: Now there's a hope and a prayer that these decisions
19:26
Speaker 3: that were made in the last five years doesn't leave
19:29
Speaker 3: Australian national security compromised. I think it will, and that
19:35
Speaker 3: in fact, if these boats never arrive, then Australia has
19:41
Speaker 3: literally not only blown a bunch of financial resource, but
19:47
Speaker 3: it's blown ten to fifteen years of time to be
19:52
Speaker 3: able to do the things that needs to do to
19:56
Speaker 3: deliver secure and safe country for the peace people who
20:00
Speaker 3: live here, you know, And that is the greatest abrogation
20:04
Speaker 3: of national governmental responsibility that I think anybody will have
20:09
Speaker 3: ever seen.
20:10
Speaker 2: If that in fact is what pans out.
20:13
Speaker 1: There seems to be a shift in the US strategy.
20:17
Speaker 1: You know, post World War Two, there was a time when,
20:22
Speaker 1: you know, as part of being a US vassal or
20:25
Speaker 1: client state, you get to partake in that kind of
20:29
Speaker 1: the prosperity provided by the United States. But now US
20:35
Speaker 1: seems to shift more of a distraction extraction mode, extracting
20:42
Speaker 1: a pound of flesh from all its so called allies
20:46
Speaker 1: or is that is that what you see happening?
20:49
Speaker 3: Absolutely the United States for the best part of four
20:54
Speaker 3: or five decades essentially provided a security umbrella and a
21:00
Speaker 3: prosperity well from which its allies were able to draw from,
21:06
Speaker 3: whether it was Japan and Australia and others, they had
21:10
Speaker 3: access to the American market, American capital would invest in
21:14
Speaker 3: their countries and build industries.
21:17
Speaker 2: Et cetera, et cetera.
21:18
Speaker 3: In fact, the majority of Australia's largest publicly listed companies
21:23
Speaker 3: are actually majority owned by foreign shareholders, most of whom
21:27
Speaker 3: by the White or Americans institutional investors in Australian publicly
21:32
Speaker 3: listed companies. So America already has, of course, our American
21:37
Speaker 3: capital has its fingers deeply enmeshed in the Australian economic system.
21:43
Speaker 3: But over the course of the last well a few
21:47
Speaker 3: years in particular, particularly since President Trump came back into office,
21:53
Speaker 3: the American political machinery has turned very much to an
21:56
Speaker 3: extractive mode, very desperately extractive. And I think it has
22:02
Speaker 3: two dimensions. One is the extraction of you know, financial
22:07
Speaker 3: personnel and other resources from the assorted allies client states,
22:15
Speaker 3: former colonies, sub imperial allies, which Australia I think sees
22:19
Speaker 3: itself as. And it also is beginning to display an
22:23
Speaker 3: increasing amount of and I mean the Americans increasingly is
22:30
Speaker 3: much more candid and open about the extent to which
22:34
Speaker 3: it essentially lies to others. You know, the idea that
22:40
Speaker 3: the United States today is agreement incapable, that you can't
22:45
Speaker 3: trust the word that comes out of the of the
22:47
Speaker 3: mouths of any American politician anymore. You know, many years
22:51
Speaker 3: ago John Miersheimer wrote, I think it was a paper,
22:56
Speaker 3: It might have been a book now, I can't remember
22:59
Speaker 3: where he talked about or he asked the question, you know,
23:02
Speaker 3: why is it that political leaders, and you're speaking in
23:06
Speaker 3: particular about those in the West, why is it that
23:09
Speaker 3: they don't lie on the international stage but they lie
23:13
Speaker 3: consistently domestically, right, And the argument in part was something like,
23:18
Speaker 3: they don't lie internationally because the gravity of the issues
23:22
Speaker 3: involved means that international relations have to be able to
23:27
Speaker 3: be conducted in a way where the leaders can at
23:31
Speaker 3: least depend upon what is being said and what the
23:33
Speaker 3: word is. They will, of course understand that it's not
23:36
Speaker 3: always the complete truth, but they're not straight up lies, whereas,
23:41
Speaker 3: of course, in a domestic political contest, the idea that
23:44
Speaker 3: political leaders lie each and every day, you know, it's
23:47
Speaker 3: just part and parcel of how the game works. I
23:50
Speaker 3: don't think that particular set of propositions holds anymore right. So,
23:55
Speaker 3: you know, I think if John came back and revisited
23:58
Speaker 3: that question would now be asking why is it that
24:01
Speaker 3: some Western political leaders not only lie to their domestic populations,
24:06
Speaker 3: but insist online to everyone else as well? And so
24:12
Speaker 3: I think the American character of twenty twenty six is
24:18
Speaker 3: a combination of extraction and perfidy. It basically engages in
24:25
Speaker 3: in mistruths and misleading conduct visa the other nations, whilst
24:30
Speaker 3: at the same time seeking to extract its pound of
24:34
Speaker 3: flesh or its gallon of blood from its allies.
24:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's let's revisit Shangrila Forum for a second. It's
24:49
Speaker 1: interesting is the speech was given by by the Japanese
24:57
Speaker 1: Defense Minister Koizumi. He is a particularly aggressive I mean
25:02
Speaker 1: more so than Americans, uh in kind of shifting the
25:07
Speaker 1: blane on China for supposedly stirring up the tensions in
25:12
Speaker 1: the region. And you know he's trying to also, Japan
25:16
Speaker 1: is trying to They're working with Philippines on drawing marine
25:21
Speaker 1: time boundaries, which is news to me. I did not
25:25
Speaker 1: know Japan borders the Philippines because there's a whole island
25:29
Speaker 1: of Taiwan that sits in between, you know, the Okinawa
25:34
Speaker 1: Island chain and the Philippine Islands. So this is obviously
25:39
Speaker 1: was was rigorously objected by China and and and in response,
25:45
Speaker 1: I think there's the Filipino UH Defense minister made up
25:50
Speaker 1: made a speech about how Japan has been unfairly vilified
25:57
Speaker 1: and blane and saying Japan is actually a model you know,
26:02
Speaker 1: has been a model world citizen. We shouldn't uh place
26:07
Speaker 1: an unwarranted blame on Japan, you know, for its past,
26:13
Speaker 1: you know history. Let buy guns by by guns uh
26:16
Speaker 1: and and and and you know, look at Japan today.
26:19
Speaker 1: Japan is behaving perfectly. Again. This is like a barb
26:25
Speaker 1: aim at China, of course, you know, because China always
26:28
Speaker 1: raised a specter that Japan is trying to remlitarize. What
26:34
Speaker 1: what what what do you make of that? What do
26:36
Speaker 1: you make out of that?
26:38
Speaker 2: Well?
26:40
Speaker 3: And I let let's see if I can cover all
26:44
Speaker 3: of those points In terms of the Philippines Defense Minister's
26:51
Speaker 3: sort of broad remarks. I think the first thing to
26:54
Speaker 3: note is that it's widely understood by those in the
26:58
Speaker 3: Philippines and also those who Filipino politics closely that he
27:02
Speaker 3: is basically Washington's man Minila. Okay, So that's the first
27:07
Speaker 3: thing to remember. The second thing that I would suggest
27:11
Speaker 3: is that next time he contemplates letting the Japanese off
27:15
Speaker 3: the hook for their historical atrocities, that he also makes
27:19
Speaker 3: his way to find the descendants of one hundred thousand
27:22
Speaker 3: or so Filipinos that were killed by the Japanese during
27:26
Speaker 3: the course of the Second World War and explain to
27:28
Speaker 3: them why it is that it's time for the Philippines
27:32
Speaker 3: to be as forgiving of the Japanese as he suggests
27:36
Speaker 3: that they should be. And perhaps if he did that,
27:39
Speaker 3: he may re establish some meaningful connection with the sense
27:47
Speaker 3: of not any loss, but also the sense of anger
27:51
Speaker 3: that some people will no doubt a harbor towards the Japanese,
27:56
Speaker 3: particularly given that the Japanese have never actually, in any
27:59
Speaker 3: substate and meaningful sense, atoned for the atrocities that they
28:04
Speaker 3: committed during the Second World War and in the decades prior.
28:08
Speaker 2: So that's the Philippines question.
28:11
Speaker 3: The Philippines in Japan Ocean issue. Well, there's there's a
28:20
Speaker 3: couple of things I think that are worth just noting
28:24
Speaker 3: clearly it's an orchestrated attempt to provoke China, and they're
28:31
Speaker 3: doing that for a range of reasons.
28:33
Speaker 2: I suspect one.
28:35
Speaker 3: Is to prove their their fealty to the American Empire
28:45
Speaker 3: and all the things that the American Empire has always
28:47
Speaker 3: stood for, which is to hold China back and contain China.
28:53
Speaker 3: And both the Philippines or both the political elite and
28:57
Speaker 3: Manila and the government in Japan, and of course are
29:01
Speaker 3: confronting a changing Asian landscape that I think deeply worries them.
29:07
Speaker 3: For many decades, the Japanese and the Philippines have been
29:14
Speaker 3: part of the American security network. They've provided territory upon
29:20
Speaker 3: which the Americans have operated bases under extra territorial provisions,
29:28
Speaker 3: and where American infrastructure and offensive capabilities, missiles and the
29:36
Speaker 3: like have been established, and where American vessels and aeroplanes
29:43
Speaker 3: in the region can be serviced and supported in the
29:46
Speaker 3: event of conflict. So both Japan and the Philippines have
29:52
Speaker 3: been intertwined with this particular security architecture. The problem that
29:58
Speaker 3: they now confront is that this particular security architecture is
30:03
Speaker 3: demonstrably unviable. It's demonstrably unviable, not for theoretical reasons, but
30:10
Speaker 3: for practical reasons that we've observed in the Middle East,
30:13
Speaker 3: where American bases have been systematically attacked, critically damaged, and
30:20
Speaker 3: some destroyed to a point where the Americans have had
30:23
Speaker 3: to withdraw their troops and their equipment from these bases.
30:29
Speaker 3: This experience, the Iranian attacks on these bases and the
30:33
Speaker 3: destruction of them, tells us a lot about the ways
30:38
Speaker 3: in which the security architecture premised on this network of
30:43
Speaker 3: forward bases is not viable. The Americans simply can't defend them.
30:48
Speaker 3: The idea in the past was that, of course they
30:50
Speaker 3: were defendable, and therefore they would be able to fulfill
30:53
Speaker 3: the functions assigned to them logistics, etc.
30:56
Speaker 2: Etc.
30:58
Speaker 3: Recent mathematical modeling based on known or American estimated Chinese
31:04
Speaker 3: missile inventories, known information about the twenty odd bases through
31:10
Speaker 3: Japan into the Philippines, the number of American airframes that
31:16
Speaker 3: are their, data on the number of hard shells and
31:20
Speaker 3: hangars that are there, and how many planes are left
31:23
Speaker 3: out in the open.
31:26
Speaker 2: All point to.
31:29
Speaker 3: An outcome where the United States would suffer within the
31:33
Speaker 3: first week of any intensive missile based air conflict with
31:38
Speaker 3: the People's Republic of China, a level of loss of
31:42
Speaker 3: their basing infrastructure and their aeroplanes that make it unviable
31:48
Speaker 3: for the United States to sustain a kinetic engagement in
31:53
Speaker 3: the Western Pacific. And I think the Filipinos and the
32:00
Speaker 3: Japanese actually understand this. Now, if your entire security mindset
32:06
Speaker 3: was premised on the idea that these bases were defendable,
32:10
Speaker 3: and you realize that they're not, then a certain degree
32:13
Speaker 3: of alarm and panic sets in and they're desperate to
32:17
Speaker 3: hold the Americans in to the region, a bit like
32:21
Speaker 3: the Ukrainians have been and the Europeans have been desperate
32:24
Speaker 3: to keep the Americans entangled in the war in Ukraine
32:28
Speaker 3: as well. They're concerned about being left on their own.
32:34
Speaker 3: At the same time, of course, the Americans are saying,
32:37
Speaker 3: you folk need to step up, you need to take
32:40
Speaker 3: on more responsibility.
32:41
Speaker 2: There are going to be no freeloaders.
32:43
Speaker 3: And what the Americans message is, we're still here, We're
32:47
Speaker 3: in the backdrop. You don't worry about that. Americans can't
32:50
Speaker 3: quite walk away, but you can take on greater resourcing responsibility,
32:57
Speaker 3: and of course you can take on greater frontline risks
33:00
Speaker 3: as well. And you know, if you're sitting there in
33:06
Speaker 3: the defense establishment and security establishment and take you on
33:09
Speaker 3: the Philippines, none of this would give you any comfort whatsoever.
33:14
Speaker 3: So they're trying to, i think, demonstrate some level of
33:19
Speaker 3: failty to the American Empire and to all the things
33:22
Speaker 3: that they sort of all committed themselves to and invested
33:25
Speaker 3: in over the many decades. China, of course, is not
33:29
Speaker 3: going to let this attempt to draw some lines on
33:33
Speaker 3: the ocean map go without comment because these lines obviously
33:40
Speaker 3: define territories in ocean, territories that overlap exclusive economic zone
33:49
Speaker 3: territories that would extend from the east and southeast coast
33:53
Speaker 3: of the island of Taiwan or the province of Taiwan,
33:57
Speaker 3: And of course there may also be implications on China's
34:01
Speaker 3: sovereign territory as well.
34:03
Speaker 2: So what have we already seen.
34:06
Speaker 3: Obviously some strong diplomatic words, Carl, but the real material
34:11
Speaker 3: response so far is an intensification of Chinese patrols, not
34:17
Speaker 3: naval patrols. You know, the naval ships have been working
34:22
Speaker 3: there or doing their business in and around the island
34:25
Speaker 3: now for a long time. But we're going to start
34:28
Speaker 3: to see coast guard patrols intensify. Now, these are serious
34:32
Speaker 3: coast guard ships. You know, these aren't the sort of
34:36
Speaker 3: you know, forty footers that we might see in other context.
34:39
Speaker 3: I mean, these are substantial ocean faring vessels. And unsurprisingly,
34:46
Speaker 3: China's response is going to be to dispatch its coast
34:50
Speaker 3: guard to protect its own sovereign territory. And it's going
34:55
Speaker 3: to do the same, by the way, and it's already
34:57
Speaker 3: been doing some of this in and around the Dalu violence,
35:01
Speaker 3: which are also disputed, and so a new normal, this
35:06
Speaker 3: is the legacy of the Pelosi effect, right, a new
35:09
Speaker 3: normal is going to be put into place with intensified
35:15
Speaker 3: People's Republic of China coastguard patrols of these areas that
35:20
Speaker 3: simply wasn't the case five years ago. This reminds me,
35:25
Speaker 3: in a defense military context, of the blowback that happened
35:31
Speaker 3: when the Americans implemented the Chips restrictions and the technology restrictions.
35:38
Speaker 2: Right.
35:38
Speaker 3: You know, here was the plan, We're going to do X,
35:41
Speaker 3: and why should happen? Well they did X, and something
35:46
Speaker 3: else happened, but it certainly wasn't why.
35:49
Speaker 2: And the same thing's happening here.
35:52
Speaker 3: They will end up with a future, a near future,
35:55
Speaker 3: with greater Chinese activity and patrol of its vessel presence
36:02
Speaker 3: in these waters than ever before. And in some regards,
36:06
Speaker 3: sitting in Beijing, you do have to wonder whether or not,
36:10
Speaker 3: you know, these people are almost rolling out the red
36:13
Speaker 3: carpet every time they try to provoke China into something,
36:18
Speaker 3: you know, it's fool hardy. The last thing I'll say
36:21
Speaker 3: on this, just very very quick that the Japanese defensive minister.
36:25
Speaker 3: You know that I think you need to say much
36:27
Speaker 3: about you know, the Japanese. They still haven't atone for
36:33
Speaker 3: the atrocities that they committed, and I'll just leave it
36:37
Speaker 3: at that. The The broader issue though about the Philippines
36:44
Speaker 3: and Japan is whether or not, in the context of
36:49
Speaker 3: this changing environment, they can figure out a way of
36:52
Speaker 3: behaving in a way that contributes the regional stability and peace,
36:56
Speaker 3: rather than trying to reinstigate the kind of block politics
37:01
Speaker 3: that you know was part and parcel of the Cold
37:05
Speaker 3: War era. I mean, that's the choice that they've actually
37:07
Speaker 3: got to make. You know, are they going to step
37:09
Speaker 3: up as adults in a changing world, or are they
37:13
Speaker 3: going to run around pretending somehow that they can, you know,
37:19
Speaker 3: shirt front Beijing. You know, let's not forget that China
37:24
Speaker 3: is the only industrial superpower in the world. Right, Nobody
37:30
Speaker 3: has the industrial depth that China has. And if these
37:35
Speaker 3: countries think that somehow they're going to be a military
37:39
Speaker 3: match to China, they've got another thing coming. I think
37:43
Speaker 3: they understand that, right. So a lot of this is
37:45
Speaker 3: about theater as well. But you know, a little bit
37:49
Speaker 3: of reality wouldn't go Australia amongst these folks. Speaking of reality,
37:52
Speaker 3: one last thing, the middle of March oil crisis, of course,
37:57
Speaker 3: what does President Marcos do is out of Beijing and says, oh,
38:01
Speaker 3: maybe we should re engage a little bit around joint
38:03
Speaker 3: exploration of some of the oil reserves in the South
38:06
Speaker 3: China Sea. Well, you know, I think some lessons are
38:11
Speaker 3: going to get learned as time goes by, and that
38:14
Speaker 3: is that you don't get to have your cake and
38:18
Speaker 3: to and and to keep it as well. So you know,
38:23
Speaker 3: that's the Philippines in Japan.
38:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm really actually surprised at the
38:31
Speaker 1: time when United States looks like it's withdrawing from East
38:36
Speaker 1: Asia at least a tactical pivot away. Japan is really
38:42
Speaker 1: cranking up the rhetoric against China, you know, starting with
38:47
Speaker 1: I mean this this Japan has been playing that well
38:50
Speaker 1: for a while, but it's really cranked up recently under
38:54
Speaker 1: a new administration of Sinai.
38:56
Speaker 3: Takichi doesn't here, right, Carl, Look, I think, Look, when
39:03
Speaker 3: I speak to colleagues and friends in Japan, they tell
39:06
Speaker 3: me that amongst certain sections of the Japanese security establishment,
39:12
Speaker 3: there is a genuine, deep down fear that China might
39:15
Speaker 3: one day do to Japan what Japan did to China. Okay,
39:20
Speaker 3: so you know they're motivated by this, not any guilt,
39:24
Speaker 3: but fear.
39:25
Speaker 2: But the other thing is that the.
39:29
Speaker 3: You know that there's there's a militarization there that suits
39:32
Speaker 3: a domestic agenda. And whilst in some ways, of course,
39:37
Speaker 3: whilst Japan remains an occupied country, let's not forget you know,
39:40
Speaker 3: there's sixty thousand American troops in Japan, you know, so
39:44
Speaker 3: that's an occupied country that the Japanese are trying to
39:48
Speaker 3: find a way where they can assert themselves as well.
39:51
Speaker 2: So there's many layers to all of this.
39:53
Speaker 3: One is to try to keep the Americans committed because
39:56
Speaker 3: they're worried that without the Americans, you know, their fear
39:59
Speaker 3: of China will become real. But secondly, at the same time,
40:02
Speaker 3: they do also see this as a window of opportunity
40:05
Speaker 3: because if the Americans in a sense say to the
40:07
Speaker 3: Japanese you need to step up, the Japanese will willingly
40:10
Speaker 3: step up. The balancing act for the Americans in the
40:15
Speaker 3: end is if their allies step up too much, then
40:18
Speaker 3: their allies will need them a lot less, and that's
40:21
Speaker 3: certainly not really what the Americans want. So the Americans
40:25
Speaker 3: are striking a balance here at the moment, you know,
40:27
Speaker 3: leading from the rear, as I often say, engaging in
40:33
Speaker 3: you know what you called a sort of a tactical retrenchment.
40:36
Speaker 3: But I think that they're cutting their operational cloth to
40:40
Speaker 3: suit without abandoning their strategic objectives. Right, So the means
40:44
Speaker 3: en calculus is changing. The ends haven't changed China containment,
40:49
Speaker 3: but the means by which they pursue these objectives is
40:52
Speaker 3: being modified. And they're trying to get their networks of
40:55
Speaker 3: allies in and around the region to do a lot
40:58
Speaker 3: more heavy lifting. And of course in the end, they
41:02
Speaker 3: want their allies to throw the bodies on the line
41:04
Speaker 3: as well. The last thing I think anyone would expect
41:08
Speaker 3: is that is that Washington will willingly send young American
41:12
Speaker 3: men and women into war nine thousand miles away from
41:18
Speaker 3: the mainland of America. And especially when you've got the
41:23
Speaker 3: bodies of others in the region to go and die
41:26
Speaker 3: on your behalf. It's hard to blame Washington for having
41:31
Speaker 3: that mindset, right. What's remarkable is that there is a
41:36
Speaker 3: political elite in these countries that somehow is willing to
41:40
Speaker 3: play along with this and throw the lives of their
41:43
Speaker 3: own young men and women on the line for what
41:47
Speaker 3: is actually America's priority is not theirs.
41:51
Speaker 1: Well, I mean it's not that different from what the
41:54
Speaker 1: United States is doing in the Persian Gulf. I mean
41:58
Speaker 1: that the whole war against Iraq, really it's to satisfy
42:02
Speaker 1: the strategic objective of Israel, not so.
42:05
Speaker 2: Much of the United States.
42:08
Speaker 1: And you know, so so so there, there's there's a
42:12
Speaker 1: different level of this kind of relationship. But you know, yeah, yeah,
42:18
Speaker 1: US is expecting this this country to be their meat
42:22
Speaker 1: shield and cannon fathers. Well guess what Israel expect America
42:26
Speaker 1: to play the same role for them, And and the
42:30
Speaker 1: American leadership is wowly nearly you know, very willingly playing
42:35
Speaker 1: that role. And and and unfortunately, you know, everybody else
42:41
Speaker 1: in the world, including American average Americans, are paying the price.
42:46
Speaker 2: Yeah.
42:47
Speaker 3: Look, the other thing that I think is going to
42:49
Speaker 3: happen over time and and is people often think of
42:54
Speaker 3: these wars as events right with the beginning and an end.
42:58
Speaker 3: And we know that the wars that have you know,
43:02
Speaker 3: that are currently active. You know, it didn't just have
43:07
Speaker 3: a simple starting point. You know, they've got long histories.
43:11
Speaker 3: They've been previous episodes, and they've been sustained resource mobilization, preparations, agitations,
43:20
Speaker 3: destabilizations and whatnot. But and because of that, there's also
43:25
Speaker 3: no sort of endpoint either. It's not like it's not
43:29
Speaker 3: like the unconditional surrender moments that you know, we often
43:34
Speaker 3: have in our mind, whether white flag goes up and
43:37
Speaker 3: documents assigned and all that sort of stuff, and people
43:39
Speaker 3: will meekly go away, especially when it's the Empire that's
43:43
Speaker 3: on the wrong end of the stick here. And there's
43:48
Speaker 3: every likelihood I think that these wars will transition to
43:54
Speaker 3: a qualitatively different phase where the United States will engage
44:00
Speaker 3: in a lot more. I guess what you'd call dirty
44:04
Speaker 3: warring as well as.
44:06
Speaker 2: Their allies, of course.
44:08
Speaker 3: And the one thing I'll always say to people is
44:10
Speaker 3: whilst conventional military constraints are clearly holding the United.
44:16
Speaker 2: States back these days.
44:18
Speaker 3: You know, we've seen all the data on all the
44:20
Speaker 3: missiles they've used up and the problems are replenishing them
44:23
Speaker 3: and all of that. All of that's true, right, And
44:28
Speaker 3: when you're sitting there in the Pentagon, or you're sitting
44:30
Speaker 3: there in the State Department or in the White House,
44:32
Speaker 3: and you're confronted with these realities, well, you don't change
44:39
Speaker 3: your ends. That's something that empires find very difficult to
44:43
Speaker 3: do because that destroys the identity of the empire. But
44:47
Speaker 3: you will change your means, and you look at the
44:50
Speaker 3: resources that you do have at your disposal. And the
44:53
Speaker 3: one great resource that the United States has ah more
44:58
Speaker 3: extensive than any other country in the world. Word is
45:00
Speaker 3: it's intelligence network across the world, the three lettered agencies
45:07
Speaker 3: and their so called civil society collaborators you know, n
45:12
Speaker 3: g OS and and the rest right across the world.
45:16
Speaker 3: It's extensive, and they are past masters that orchestrating all
45:24
Speaker 3: sorts of you know, not quite war war wars, this.
45:31
Speaker 2: Is what they do.
45:33
Speaker 3: So I have a really bad suspicion that over the
45:39
Speaker 3: next two to three years, as the situation in Ukraine
45:43
Speaker 3: really becomes quite evident, that the that the war on
45:48
Speaker 3: the ground, the official war, if you will, is literally
45:53
Speaker 3: heading up that Coulder Sack, the Primrose path that John
45:56
Speaker 3: Mirshima talked about, and then the Americans and the Europeans
46:00
Speaker 3: will shift qualitatively to a dirty war.
46:05
Speaker 1: Mate.
46:05
Speaker 3: We're already seeing some of that now, you know, whether
46:07
Speaker 3: it's piracy, you attack on civilian buildings, a bit of terror,
46:13
Speaker 3: you know, nothing like nothing like terror, you know what
46:18
Speaker 3: I mean, assassinations.
46:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know. So we're in for a long haul.
46:28
Speaker 3: I think of a very destabilized world, even if on
46:35
Speaker 3: the surface of things they go back to our original
46:38
Speaker 3: discussion about the taco question.
46:41
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, there's there's sort of that. There's there's a
46:44
Speaker 2: bit of.
46:44
Speaker 3: A taco on the on the conventional kinetic warfare, but
46:49
Speaker 3: there's certainly no taco on the unconventional quasi kinetic, non
46:54
Speaker 3: kinetic warfare.
46:59
Speaker 1: Okay, I like to switch the topic to China for
47:03
Speaker 1: a second. You know, so far, it seems like China
47:06
Speaker 1: has been holding up pretty well. Three months into the
47:10
Speaker 1: closure of the Strato Homus, China still have the world's
47:14
Speaker 1: largest strategic oil reserve. I think one reason of you know,
47:20
Speaker 1: the the panic hasn't been as much widespread yet in
47:25
Speaker 1: the world. Is there a There has been a drawdown
47:29
Speaker 1: of the strategic petroleum reserve are around the world that
47:33
Speaker 1: has kind of cushioned the blow. But interestingly, China had
47:38
Speaker 1: barely drawled down its own oil inventory. It's still set
47:42
Speaker 1: run like one point four billion barrels of oil and
47:46
Speaker 1: it's larger than US, Japan, and Europe combined. Now, I
47:52
Speaker 1: actually saw somebody trying to spin this. I saw a
47:55
Speaker 1: Chinese dissident posting, x uh should a video of the
48:01
Speaker 1: Chinese uh stay media covering the Chinese Premier Le Chung
48:06
Speaker 1: visiting Bimbo to inspect the local U grain reserve and
48:11
Speaker 1: the oil reserve. Uh, it's just a standard news except
48:15
Speaker 1: the Chinese dissident they're saying, oh, during the special surprising
48:20
Speaker 1: inspection tour, it was revealed that you know, China actually
48:23
Speaker 1: didn't have those oil reserve It's all filled with water.
48:27
Speaker 1: I mean, this is the same story they try to say,
48:30
Speaker 1: you know, Chinese myth ballistic missile is all fuel with
48:33
Speaker 1: water instead of feel uh. And then that story I
48:37
Speaker 1: saw it got picked up by some other anti China
48:40
Speaker 1: channels as a talking point and like there's literally no
48:44
Speaker 1: source for the claim. You know, they have a video
48:48
Speaker 1: which is all in Chinese, so people don't know what
48:51
Speaker 1: they're talking about. Like the video just saying the Chinese
48:53
Speaker 1: Premier Lea Chun visited local grain reserve to inspect local
48:59
Speaker 1: grainserve to reserve being mean bought in the local oil reserve.
49:02
Speaker 1: But the claim that originated with the Chinese descend network
49:06
Speaker 1: is being picked up by all these other Chinese other
49:09
Speaker 1: uh anti China talk shops and saying, oh see China,
49:13
Speaker 1: they every the other data is fake. They actually don't
49:15
Speaker 1: have the oil reserve they claim they do. I think
49:20
Speaker 1: the reason for that is it's again, it's spin. It's
49:25
Speaker 1: copiing just to make people think of China have it
49:28
Speaker 1: as bad as us. That's the only utility I could
49:34
Speaker 1: think of, because right now.
49:37
Speaker 3: It makes them feel good. There's you know, three generations
49:42
Speaker 3: of dissidents who have been you know, in one way
49:47
Speaker 3: or another, predicting the demise of the people Republic of China.
49:52
Speaker 3: They've cultivated a cohort of you know cold war warriors
49:56
Speaker 3: around them from the West, who of course are champion
49:59
Speaker 3: at the bit for the for the for the fall
50:02
Speaker 3: of the last communist Domino, and and none of it's
50:06
Speaker 3: come true, but they've got to sustain this. It makes
50:09
Speaker 3: them feel good. It gives them comfort. And you know,
50:12
Speaker 3: there was a time I think where I perhaps would have,
50:16
Speaker 3: you know, reeled at the prospects that these people make
50:20
Speaker 3: so much nonsense up. But I'm actually far more comfortable
50:23
Speaker 3: with the fact that, you know, them making up this
50:26
Speaker 3: nonsense just helps them get out of bed each day
50:28
Speaker 3: and helps them get by each day. And if that
50:31
Speaker 3: is helpful for them as a form of therapy, group
50:34
Speaker 3: therapy and individual therapy, then you know, I'm modestly supportive
50:39
Speaker 3: of it. Because reality just moves on anyway. And the
50:44
Speaker 3: reality is that, as you say, China, based on available
50:50
Speaker 3: and known data, has barely touched its known reserves. Perhaps
50:55
Speaker 3: it's got other reserves that it has been touching well,
50:58
Speaker 3: and if it does, then they were known by the
51:00
Speaker 3: West anyway. Point number one. But secondly, and I think
51:04
Speaker 3: we've gone through this in some detail previously, but essentially
51:08
Speaker 3: China's economic structure has enabled it to substitute where it can.
51:15
Speaker 3: So the coal to liquid projects, of course, have cracked up.
51:19
Speaker 3: You know, when prices hit about seventy US dollars a barrel,
51:24
Speaker 3: those coal to liquid projects became became viable. And that's
51:31
Speaker 3: information that I've gotten from talking with colleagues of money
51:34
Speaker 3: in China who are in the coals to liquid's game.
51:38
Speaker 3: You know, they basically said to me, look, you know,
51:40
Speaker 3: once it's hit seventy dollars and it's stayed there for
51:43
Speaker 3: a couple of weeks, we were ready to go.
51:45
Speaker 2: So that's the first thing.
51:47
Speaker 3: The second thing is is that Russia has been able
51:51
Speaker 3: to offset substantially the decline in the oil.
51:57
Speaker 2: Flows out of the Middle East. So that's the second thing.
52:00
Speaker 3: And we know that this has been happening, by the way,
52:03
Speaker 3: because data shows now that for the first five months
52:06
Speaker 3: of this year, Russian oil exports compared to the same
52:11
Speaker 3: period last year have been greater in volume and financial terms.
52:15
Speaker 3: So Russia's export capacity has actually increased in twenty twenty
52:21
Speaker 3: six compared to twenty twenty five. And that's despite the
52:24
Speaker 3: fact that they've been you know, some well publicized drone
52:28
Speaker 3: attacks on Russian refineries and oil storage facilities, et cetera.
52:33
Speaker 3: It's basically had no it's basically had negligible effect on
52:37
Speaker 3: overall oil exports.
52:40
Speaker 2: So that's the second thing.
52:42
Speaker 3: And thirdly, of course, at a macro level, the Chinese
52:47
Speaker 3: economic structure is far less oil dependent than it once was,
52:52
Speaker 3: and people just need to remember that. You know, it's
52:56
Speaker 3: you know, if this problem emerged thirty years ago, you
52:59
Speaker 3: know there'd be some real strife. But twenty twenty six
53:04
Speaker 3: isn't nineteen ninety six. So so China, you know, I think,
53:10
Speaker 3: for many different reasons, has been very, very well prepared,
53:14
Speaker 3: and maybe the dissidents just don't like that. They just
53:18
Speaker 3: hate the idea that China got well prepared despite all
53:21
Speaker 3: of their own prejudices and prognostications. It does look China
53:27
Speaker 3: in an odd kind of way indirectly being so well
53:29
Speaker 3: prepared has contributed to oil prices not going through the
53:36
Speaker 3: roof at this point in time. Put aside the manipulation
53:40
Speaker 3: that happens every Friday and every Monday, the fact that
53:44
Speaker 3: China has been buying less from the global market anyway
53:48
Speaker 3: has taken some pressure out of the market, and China
53:53
Speaker 3: is actually sufficiently confident in its liquid fuels situation that
54:00
Speaker 3: has reinstigated exports of jet fuel and diesel and things
54:07
Speaker 3: to other countries, including incidentally, I might add the Philippines,
54:11
Speaker 3: you know, when the Philippines. The Philippines, by the way,
54:15
Speaker 3: has experienced fifty sixty percent increase in the cost of
54:20
Speaker 3: these fuels in the course of the last three months.
54:25
Speaker 3: It's ninety eight percent dependent on imported fuels. From memory,
54:29
Speaker 3: you know, give or take. Maybe maybe my memory is
54:31
Speaker 3: a little bit off, but it basically relies entirely on
54:37
Speaker 3: imported refined patrolling products, and China helped out. The other
54:42
Speaker 3: one that that's probably worth noting is, aside from oil
54:47
Speaker 3: and energy, is the fertilizer stuff and fertilizers. China is
54:52
Speaker 3: actually a net exporter of fertilizers. It makes most of
54:56
Speaker 3: its fertilizers using coal, not gas, and in fact, between
55:01
Speaker 3: China and Russia, these two countries manufacture over fifty percent
55:06
Speaker 3: of the world's fertilizers. So you know, China's ak on
55:10
Speaker 3: fertilizer front. Many other countries aren't. Petrochemicals, China's buy and
55:18
Speaker 3: large okay as well. I mean, if there's a country
55:21
Speaker 3: in the region that's really under the pump when it
55:24
Speaker 3: comes to petrochemicals, it's Japan, right, heavily dependent on naptha.
55:30
Speaker 3: It's already having to buy naptha from Chinese suppliers to
55:38
Speaker 3: compensate for the napa that's not getting elsewhere. So yeah,
55:43
Speaker 3: look for the time being, you know, China is reasonably
55:48
Speaker 3: well positioned relative to other places. The other last thing
55:53
Speaker 3: to note on all of this, by the way, and
55:54
Speaker 3: I think you've probably seen quite a bit of this
55:56
Speaker 3: as well. You know, a lot of mainstream Western commentary
55:59
Speaker 3: will say that, you know, China's got a desperate need
56:01
Speaker 3: to have the straight up humans reopened because the downward
56:05
Speaker 3: pressure on the global economy will reduce global demand for
56:08
Speaker 3: Chinese exports, right, And you hear this from from commentaries
56:12
Speaker 3: from the Asia Society and through to through through to
56:17
Speaker 3: the who's who of Western mainstream commentary. Well, if that
56:21
Speaker 3: was the case, it would be impossible to explain the
56:25
Speaker 3: growth in Chinese exports between January and April. So so
56:31
Speaker 3: the evidence does not support the mainstream theoretical construct.
56:38
Speaker 1: And so you know, Chinese Chinese TV export is skyrocketing
56:44
Speaker 1: right now the world.
56:47
Speaker 3: Not just evs, right, I mean industrial machinery, solar pvs,
56:54
Speaker 3: of course, you know, wind turbines, you name it, anything,
56:59
Speaker 3: high tech, Chinese, microprocessors, electronics. They've all been going gangbusters,
57:07
Speaker 3: and you know, in part because countries are actually wanting
57:11
Speaker 3: this stuff so as not to have these kinds of
57:15
Speaker 3: risks in the future.
57:17
Speaker 1: Yes, well, uh, is there anything else you'd like to come?
57:24
Speaker 2: Well? Look, I mean it's funny, isn't it.
57:27
Speaker 3: You know, we catch up every couple of weeks thinking
57:29
Speaker 3: that maybe we'll have a quiet fortnite and we can
57:32
Speaker 3: talk about surfing or fishing or something. Right, But the
57:36
Speaker 3: world conspires continually to to to you know, to be.
57:45
Speaker 2: Disruptive.
57:47
Speaker 3: And I mean the only thing that I I guess
57:52
Speaker 3: say to people at the moment is that we've got
57:57
Speaker 3: to be mindful as the sort of dominant architecture and
58:01
Speaker 3: the strength of the United States continues to erode. That
58:08
Speaker 3: it doesn't necessarily mean that somehow we pop out the
58:11
Speaker 3: other end at a utopia.
58:15
Speaker 2: We don't.
58:16
Speaker 3: In fact, in some ways, a multipolar world is a
58:20
Speaker 3: more difficult world, a more fluid world. But it's a
58:24
Speaker 3: world in which countries and communities and people are willing
58:30
Speaker 3: to embrace even though it is more challenging and it's
58:36
Speaker 3: easy when you've got the big hegemon dictating how the
58:40
Speaker 3: show goes right. It's much harder when you've got to
58:43
Speaker 3: put the time and effort into negotiating with others, into
58:47
Speaker 3: trying to find compromises, when you've got interwoven interests.
58:51
Speaker 2: That's hard work.
58:54
Speaker 3: And I think when we think about a multipolar world unfolding,
58:59
Speaker 3: we always have to be mindful that that world will
59:02
Speaker 3: actually be a world that involves much more hard work,
59:07
Speaker 3: much more state craft, actually a lot more tensions that
59:11
Speaker 3: need to be addressed than a world in which there
59:14
Speaker 3: is a dominant hegemon. And against all of that, of course,
59:18
Speaker 3: is the dominant hegemon intensifying it's dirty wars.
59:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, well said, thank you again, doctor Pile for making
59:32
Speaker 1: your time to speak to us. If people want to
59:34
Speaker 1: follow your work, where would they go.
59:38
Speaker 3: The little advertising moment at the back end, Yeah, look
59:43
Speaker 3: warrickpal dot subseat dot com. And people are always, of
59:48
Speaker 3: course encouraged to check out my books, them my Economics
59:51
Speaker 3: in a Time of Monsters, which is available on Amazon