 Yeah, Community Matters, troubling sea changes in China, okay, with Marco Polo. Let me change that to Marco Mangelsdorf. And Marco Polo is an actor, parallel though. Marco, welcome to the show. It's always great to talk to you. And this time about China, really great. Well, Ni Hao, what up on you? Hello, my friend. Thank you for having me on, always appreciate it. Well, you and I have been trading articles, you know, for respect to journals and news organizations, and it seems like the pitch is getting higher. China is getting more aggressive. Its rhetoric is more aggressive. It's military demonstrations, expression of power, getting greater. And that includes not only economic power, which is really formidable when you look at Belt Road, but also, you know, geopolitically with Taiwan. And I think we're living in a time where we're ramping up to some horrible crescendo in Asia all around China's ambitions. How do you feel about that? Oh, how do I feel about that? Well, of course, the folks in Beijing, the leadership in Beijing sees things very, very differently than the way you just described and, you know, just as a little bit of background, I've been in China probably between 12 to 15 times over the past 20 years. And I have developed over time a real fondness for and a lot of Aloha for the Chinese people writ large, Chinese history, Chinese culture, Chinese traditions. I have a tremendous amount of respect in Aloha for the Chinese writ large. And I'm trying to find my way through what is being reported by so many Western sources in terms of Chinese behavior in Xinjiang, Chinese behavior in Tibet, Chinese, when I say Chinese behavior, I'm talking about the Communist Party leadership and the state apparatus in Beijing, their behavior in Hong Kong, their behavior towards Taiwan, their behavior in the so-called nine dash line or South China Sea. And I also read pretty much daily the Chinese press. So it's a dissonant messages I'm getting from our press versus the Chinese press. So to circle back to your question, how do I feel about it? I feel a tremendous amount of concern and anxiety more so than I've ever felt in the decades that I've been focusing on international relations and global security issues and matters. So that's my quick answer for you, not so quick actually, but I feel very, very concerned. What particular scenarios give you a concern? I'd say what's going on over the Taiwan Straits, there's this body of water or a passage of water between the island of Taiwan and the Chinese mainland, which is fairly narrow. In other words, there's not a whole lot of geographic distance to separate, separates the People's Republic of China with the de facto Republic of China, which while may not have the jewelry independence, depending on who you talk to, there's really little case that can be made. I mean, it has de facto and has had de facto independence for decades. And the rhetoric on both sides, by both sides, I mean coming from Beijing and coming from Washington and coming from a number of other parts of the world, including Japan, including Australia, including parts of Southeast Asia, including a number of European countries, both Eastern Europe and Western Europe and the UK, that there is a growing chorus of concern over the more, I don't want to necessarily say aggressive, but at least certainly much more active behavior from Beijing in terms of trying to bring Taiwan to heal. What do I mean, bring in Taiwan to heal? I mean, since the revolution to took place in October 1949 with the success of Ma Zedong and the communists on the mainland, the existence of these now 24, almost 24 million people on the island of Taiwan has been one of the most painful thorns in the side of the People's Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party over the decade. And Xi Jinping self-described, self-proclaimed core leader, core leader of China and leader of the Chinese Communist Party has made very clear in his rhetoric over the months that the patients on the part of Beijing, the patients in part of the mainland, the patients in the part of the leadership is wearing thin as far as the Taiwanese coming back into the fold of the motherland. And the rhetoric is just off the charts from Beijing. And one of the pieces I read just in the past week in the admittedly rather nationalist global times, which is an English language, Chinese official Chinese media source essentially describes the Biden administration. And in most harsh terms I've ever seen, I think they were really hoping, really hoping that there would be a positive change after Donald Trump left office in January, as far as American Sino policy, American Sino relations. And I think now that we're a number of months into it, almost the end of 2021, there is the growing conclusion amongst the leadership in Beijing that the Biden administration does not represent much of a positive change. And in fact, according to the rhetoric they're using, represents a further deterioration of American policy in their view, American policy towards the Chinese or China. So I think I'll pause now and catch my breath and allow you to respond. Well, you know, we should talk about why, but let's connect some dots. We got Tibet, Mongolia, got Taiwan, got Hong Kong. You got Belt Road with the debt traps. You got huge investments and development of natural resources in Africa, in Latin America. I guess I could go on, but it surely seems to me that China is on a roll economically and militarily in the past 25 years, it has developed a very powerful military with lots of carriers. And I'm one of the people who remember when they had no carriers at all. Now they have lots of carriers. Two carriers, two carriers, okay, two carriers. I don't know if that qualifies for a lot. Okay, all right, well, you know more. And then now they have these missiles that fly supersonically. Hypersonic. Hypersonically, you can say that's small stuff, but it's not small stuff because those missiles could reach anywhere in the world in 30 minutes. So, I mean, they've been very aggressive. They spent a lot of money on the military and their rhetoric is not only against Taiwan and Hong Kong, because against the US calling the US a failing power, which in some ways, you really can't argue with that. We haven't been able to get our government together since before Trump. And so, I think they're pushing it. And the reason I don't understand, why do they care so much about, for example, Taiwan? Can't they let it go? Why do they care about the islands out there? Can't they let that go? Things are working fine before. What do they need from, you know, Tibet, Mongolia? Can't they let that go? And I think they're making moves economically that are, you know, aggressive, but unnecessary. Did he really have to be president for life? Does he really have to control and suppress dissent? Does he really have to put people in retraining camps and in Xinjiang? Is it really necessary? Does necessary it was form of government? Is necessary it was vision? And yet, this is exactly what's happening. So that, you know, the threat to the United States is only a part of what he has in mind. That's my reaction. Well, you've said a lot there, Jay. And let me kind of give you my take on some of what you said. If you look back to the founding of the People's Republic of China, October, 1949, and from 49 until at least sometime during the 1980s, maybe early 1990s, so much of the Chinese mindset, the Chinese persona, and I'm making a broad generalization here, had an underlying understructure of concern, of anxiety over scarcity. I mean, there were times Stundermal from 49 to 76 where people million by the millions died of starvation. There was the tumult over 10 years from 1966 to 76 of the great proletariat cultural revolution, which was very much an upheaval for so many millions of people. So there's kind of this base insecurity, I would say, within the Chinese spirit, so to speak, within the Chinese mindset, the Chinese persona, there's this base insecurity. And despite the fact that over the past decades, China has made strides that have been historic in the history of humanity in terms of improvements of material benefits, bringing people out of poverty, less people starving, greater material security. I mean, for that, China is truly an exemplar. I mean, it's come at a significant cost, I would argue, especially regarding environmental damage, amongst other things. But I mean, they've come a long way in a very short period of time. But regardless of that, regardless of the fact that the world's second largest economy, regardless of the fact that they are now challenging the United States for, although they would never cop to this, that they're challenging the United States for, in a sense, kind of global supremacy. There's the deep, deep, deep insecurity on the part of the leadership in China. And they see it from their perspective that they're not being aggressive, they're not being expansive, that they are just coming back into their own. And one of the catchphrases in China over the years under Xi has been in the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. And that's their perspective. So, I mean, you want to look at some of the issue areas you spoke about. I mean, Tibet makes up a big portion geographically of the entire people's Republic of China. And they have a history, their history, in quotation marks, their history, allows them to essentially conclude that that part of China now has long been a part of China. So, it's a non-started to them to talk about more freedom in Tibet because in their view, Tibet has long been Chinese. The same with Mongolia. Hong Kong, well, that's kind of a different story. We're seeing, according to a number of legitimate analyses, in my view, what's been happening in Hong Kong over the past two years has been a de facto abrogation of the 1997 agreement between Beijing and between the UK in terms of 50 years, allowing for 50 years from 1997 on of a rather, shall we say, independent nature of the status of Hong Kong. Well, that certainly has changed, right? So, again, I mean, the perspectives are so different here from Beijing compared to Washington or Beijing compared to London. And my two big concerns right now, Jay, are that, and I don't have any insight information about this because the upper levels of the Chinese leadership is incredibly opaque. I mean, we can identify individuals, we can try to come up with bios, both the CIA and the NSA on our side, spend lots of time trying to game out who's really on top there, who has this position or that position. But one of my concerns about any type of government that does not allow for open debate of different positions and I think autocratic governments, let alone dictatorial governments are more prone to not having open and free debate period, right? Nor open and free debate at the top echelons of power. My big concern is that Xi Jinping and his top leadership are not hearing any possible dissenting voices or voices of caution in terms of China's expansionist or China's greater activity in the international sphere. So that's concern number one is that I really wondered to what extent there's any type of open debate, open and honest debate of different positions within the top echelons of the Chinese leadership. And second, I have a very difficult time seeing an off ramp here. I just see this crescendo, this building up of more and more tension between both the United States and our allies and China and its allies, but less so its allies. I mean, it's really kind of the two principle figures in this drama is for the Americans and the Chinese. And I have a difficult time seeing a near-term peaceful off ramp. It just seems to be, it's going in the wrong direction. The tension is ramping up, the threats are ramping up. And Meijing has said repeatedly, they refer to these red lines, red lines, core interests, red lines. And they are saying among us on a daily basis that their red lines are being violated regarding Taiwan. And now with Tsai Ing-wen, who is the duly elected leader of Taiwan, she won reelection not too long ago and is serving her second and last term. I mean, she has been quite active in the media as of late. She penned a peace and foreign affairs that came out several weeks ago. She's been doing interviews with the Western press and Western media. She admitted that there is in fact a number that she did not define, that she did not enumerate a number of Americans, military forces there on the ground in Taiwan who are engaged in training activities with the Taiwanese military. So Meijing is talking about this red line being broached and that red line being broached. We have to take action. Well, I mean, they've already been testing the air ID zone, the security zone essentially to the Southwest of the island of Taiwan, the Chinese military and the PLA have been repeatedly sending up military aircraft, not overflying Taiwan proper because that is the red line in their view that they have yet to cross, but they have been consistently testing the air defense zone around Taiwan with more and more active sorties that is causing of course the Taiwanese military to scramble, putting a greater strain on their resources and so forth and so on. So again, I'm having a hard time seeing it off for ampere J in terms of how are things going to calm down? Well, a couple of thoughts about what you said. Number one is, I certainly agree that there's this kind of flavor of manifest destiny based on historical perceptions or misperceptions of exactly where China was or has been over the past millennia. And I would say that it's making a lot of this up. Xi Jinping is making it up so as to justify his aggressive geopolitical ambitions. Nevertheless, that's what he says and does. The other part of it is that they're showing that their system works better. They don't want transparency. They see transparency in this country and they can rightly conclude that transparency doesn't work and that democracy has some real problems in it, some flaws, one of them is transparency. They feel that if you let the Politburo and the powers, the silent secret powers run the government and support this one man who speaks for everyone, then that works better and you don't get a chance to quiz and interview. You don't get a chance to argue with and advocate for other positions with other people in the government. So I think they probably believe it's better that way. Unfortunately, they don't realize what you're saying is that it is better to have an open government. It is better to know who's saying what, who's doing what, how decisions are being made and have the public who live there being involved in the process. They don't, I don't think they do that or get that at all. But here we are and Obama's pivot has stopped. In fact, it was incomplete at the start and Trump and Joe Biden have really not pursued it and we don't have the pivot to Asia. We're not paying attention to Asia. We've been paying attention to the Middle East and Europe and other places, but not Asia, not China. And I think we're at the wrong end of the stick and Xi Jinping knows that. So he sees this as an opportunity in the islands and for Taiwan in general. And it's interesting how he plays it. On the one hand, he's all over the United Nations trying to insinuate himself into the process and decision-making in the United Nations. On the other hand, he doesn't abide by the international court on whether he has a right to build those islands. So it's like heads I win, tails you lose. So he's manipulating the international process and press. So, the real question here, and I certainly agree that China versus the US, China competing with the US economically, of course, because I think China believes in that first, but also militarily as an adjunct to the economic competition, they're being very aggressive and we are not so engaged. Our government is not so engaged and frankly our military is not so engaged. We have this belief in exceptionalism and that we are okay no matter what, we are the strongest country in the world and we will always be the strongest country in the world economically and militarily. And that simply isn't true anymore. And I think China is moving fast on that and we are moving backward on that. So the problem with the military is they may think that they have the edge on Taiwan, they may think they can stop, deflect, defer, deter and attack on Taiwan. I think a lot of commentators don't agree and that if in two or three or five years of China wants to make a military move on Taiwan, we won't be ready and they will. I think right now, as one commentator put it, I think you've seen this article too, right now it's premature for China to do that. But as time goes by, it'll be less premature and it'll be more likely of success. And that's the big play to take over Asia, take over Asia and get us out. One of those historical rubs has been, why is the United States here? What rights does it have to be all around us? Why don't we just develop a strategy to get rid of them from Taiwan and all around Asia and their friends? And I think they're working in that way and I think they're succeeding in that way. And I think Joe Biden has so much on his plate and the military should not be determining this policy. The president should and nobody is. Well, I'd beg to differ a little bit, my friend in that- You always do, Marko. I forgive you in advance. You expect that of me. Joe Biden has actually been fairly vocal of recent time. I wasn't asked about Taiwan. He did a town hall with Anderson Cooper a week or so ago and he's made clear that Taiwan is important to him at least if you believe the rhetoric. Now the open question is when push comes to shove, what is this, quote, rock solid, close quote, rock solid commitment to the United States has to Taipei because that's the go-to phraseology. There are commitment, a relationship with the Taiwanese, quote, rock solid. What does that mean in the context of the backdrop of the so-called strategic ambiguity, right? But I mean, the president has been vocal about Taiwan. Secretary of State Tony Blinken has been vocal about Taiwan. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley has been vocal about Taiwan and the hypersonic tests that we witnessed in months gone by. So I would beg to differ with you in terms of, I think folks in the State Department, folks in the president and the staff, folks in the Department of Defense are paying very keen attention to what's going on regarding the China use as far as both Taiwan and the South China Sea. And one of the things that Biden has done in contrast to his predecessors, he's been able to bandwagon more of our friends because Mr. Trump didn't really care all that much for a lot of our, shall we say, foreign friends, right? And Biden has refocused, understandably so, and I support this, so focused on making sure that our relationships with Japan, with Australia, with India, with the Europeans, our traditional democratic allies, right? That these relationships are strengthened and they have been strengthening. Well, yeah, but it's very recent, the submarine deal where we took over from France and got into a submarine development agreement with Australia, and of course, the Quad, the Quad Australia, the US, India, and it was one other, I think it's Japan, yeah. So, I mean, all of that is in the becoming. It's not solid yet, it's a good idea and he should do that, but it won't be a formidable arrangement China for a while. And some people have argued that now is the time for China to really feel its oats because the Quad deal has not come together yet and its opportunities are greater now than they will be when the Quad does come together. Well, I mean, ultimately, and the risk of being overly simplistic here, ultimately the top leadership in Beijing is going to be and is constantly assessing risk reward, right? Cost benefit, and they've made clear that they are never, never going to let go of the part of what they feel to be an integral part of their motherland, which is Taiwan. So the question then becomes, well, they've said going from Deng Xiaoping and beyond and from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping that their preference is to do it by peaceful means, right? They've always emphasized that, but they've never ruled out if they so choose to do it by other than peaceful means. So... Well, this rhetoric doesn't sound like peaceful at all. This rhetoric, you know, keeps on talking about a takeover by military force. Now, of course that could be just talk. A lot of what happens could be just talk, but if they were talking about taking over by peaceful means a few years ago, they're not talking about that now. And the question really, their measurement has to be what will the United States do? If they take adventurous moves, what will the United States do? Well, the United States didn't do anything in Hong Kong. The United States didn't do anything with the islands. You know, the United States has seen China grow its territory by leaps and bounds and its economic prowess by leaps and bounds. We haven't matched them. We don't have a belt road. We don't make big loans, you know, to ports and infrastructure. We can't even do our own. So, you know, it's not like we're a real tiger. We're a paper tiger. And the question I put to you, and this is a big central question all of us, is if they took over Taiwan, peaceful would be better, you know, for them too, but if they took over Taiwan by threat or force, what would the United States do? And let me put it this way, even if Joe Biden feels he wants to protect Taiwan, and maybe he does, can he remember what happened in Afghanistan where, you know, the powers in Congress were all yelling at him, you got to get out. Both left and right, you got to get out. Would they encourage, would they allow? Would they enable him? Would they fund him for a military adventure around Taiwan? I really question that. What do you think? Well, let me give you one little factoid data point, which I think is important to note, which is that according to polling, recent polling across Taiwan, somewhere in the mid to high 80s of those polls said in response to the question, well, what do you feel as far as status quo between Taiwan and Beijing, or that we declare formal independence, the jewelry independence, or that we reunify with the mainland, I believe the free choice into the survey question. Well over 80% said status quo, then you had a teeny tiny minority who were saying reunify with the mainland, and you had also a small minority saying declare independence. So I think it's reasonable to observe the very, very large majority of Taiwanese, about 20 million of them, favor the status quo, which is backed out independence, right? And a vibrant democracy, and a fairly transparent one, right? And liberal democratic. So that to me is a core reality, speaking of core things, right? It's the people of Taiwan want things to continue as is, and not be under the umbrella of Beijing. So, you know, as far as what can we do? What can Washington do? What can we do with our allies? What should we do? You know, one core reality, Jay, and the Chinese are fond of bringing this up whenever they feel it's appropriate, is that Taiwan means more to them than it means to us. And I happen to believe that. I think it would be foolish to dispute that notion. Taiwan means more to them than it means to us. Plus it's the hell of a lot closer, and there are for a whole bunch of reasons, right? So granted that fundamental reality and that the strategic ambiguity that we've been practicing since the so-called Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 under Jimmy Carter, in fact, where we formally, we, the United States, switched our recognition from Taiwan to the People's Republic of China. So now we're going on about 50 plus years, no, sorry, 40 plus years, 40 plus years of the strategic ambiguity, right? And a number of people from both the left and the right side of the political spectrum are saying it's time to dump strategic ambiguity. Well, I see a great risk in that because again, I'm looking for an off-ramp here and what can we do? What can we do to try to maintain the status quo? That's really like the Hokey-Pokey, right, Jay? That's what it's all about here. In my view, to maintain the status quo of an independent, de facto independent Republic of Taiwan is how can we, Republic of China, excuse me, ROC, how can we try to do our best in the United States from a policy perspective, from a rhetorical perspective, try to maintain the status quo of an independent, de facto independent Republic of China, the island of Taiwan. And we're threading a needle here. We're threading a needle big time in terms of trying to raise the costs of a possible military move on the part of Beijing against the Taiwanese. We're trying to raise the costs in their estimation of costs and benefits so that they don't pull the trigger on doing overflights of the island directly, which would trigger an anti-aircraft response undoubtedly from the Taiwanese or that they do some massive cyber attack to cripple the command and control of Taiwan. What can we do to try to raise the costs and their cost-benefit analysis? And, you know, it's just Marco and Jay and Jay and Marco talking here. So I don't have the briefing books the President of the United States has. I don't have the intel that the CIA has been developing, but I mean. Well, one of the points in those briefing books are gonna be the secondary effect. If they make aggressive moves against Taiwan and we respond with aggressive moves, shooting their planes down, what have you, then you risk war. And that's another part of the rhetoric that comes from Xi Jinping. And a lot of commentators also feel that within the next five or 10 years, we may well have fisticuffs with China. And, you know, a lot of people have said, well, and you remind me of this, you said, well, it won't necessarily be, you know, with hypersonic missiles. It might be with cyber attacks, which can be devastating, which could be devastating on Taiwan too. And maybe that's, you know, that's what they would do to be more aggressive. But, you know, I keep thinking, and we had a show about this just last hour, about voting rights in the United States, where right now, you know, the Democrats have a thin majority. They can't do too much with that. They can't support Biden's initiatives. I'm sorry. And in 2022, 2024, there is at least a fair chance with all the confusion about voting rights, that the Republicans will argue be in charge. And one of their elements is, right or wrong is isolationism. They don't want to get involved. They don't want to get racist also. They don't want to get involved in Asia. Just let it happen, whatever it is. So maintaining the status quo, when that becomes visible, you know, and in fact, likely maintaining the status quo in the face of a paper tiger military that responds to a paper tiger government, who's isolationist, it doesn't present much of an obstacle to China. I think they will have their way. I'm not sure what their way will be. I think they will have their way. Well, you said a lot there and I prefer not to get too far out there in terms of what's going to happen in 2024, as far as the direction of the United States. We've got a lot of living to do from now until then. A lot of things can happen. And to go kind of on another track here a little bit, day one that I'm very interested in as well, is you look back over the People's Republic of China and the leadership that they've had, after Mao died in 76, there was the common consensus really that having one person in power for as long as Mao in power, really wasn't such a good idea. And Deng Xiaoping was purged and brought back and purged and brought back a number of times, but ultimately late 70s, he became paramount leader, right? Never the leader of the Communist Party, never the leader of the party, but he was the power behind the power. And from Mao to 2012, at least, from out of 2012, there was an agreed upon, at least in principle, there was a consensus that there should be leadership changes at the top of the Chinese Communist Party and therefore the top of the state government as well, because the party and the government were hand in hand. So there was the understanding essentially up until Xi Jinping that the party leader would serve 10 years or two five-year terms and then give way to the next leadership cohort, right? And lo and behold, now we're coming up on the end of Xi Jinping's second five-year term and there's every indication that this precedent or this tradition of leadership changes after 10 years has been tossed by Xi and his group. So it's interesting to note, and even though there's very little discussion in the Chinese press or amongst any Chinese academic circles, as to the wisdom of chucking this 10-year term limit, essentially, I feel very confident saying that there are no shortage of very bright educated Chinese who are concerned. Now they may not tell that to a Western reporter to a Western friend necessarily, because it's kind of risky these days. But there is concern within China and certain circles that Mr. Xi Jinping is going a bit too far in terms of amassing so much power and now pushing himself essentially as the new Mao, as the next Mao, in fact, interestingly, and don't think this is just happenstance when you see these large gatherings in Beijing in front of Tiananmen Square and the heavenly gate there, which is kind of the heart and soul, in a sense, symbolically of China, right? That is you have Xi Jinping with people to the left of him and people to the right of him, the leadership, right? Everybody except Xi is wearing a Western suit, black jacket, white shirt with typically a red tie. The only one who is not conforming is Xi Jinping. You know what he's wearing? He's wearing a so-called Mao suit. And that's very purposeful to set him apart from the other leaders and have him be essentially associated with the great helmsman, right? The founder of the Communist Party, not the founder of the Communist Party, but the original late great leader of the Communist Party, who it used to be back in the day, and I'm not sure what they're saying now, but you would ask, you know, common Chinese person, you know, what do you think about Mao? Their standard response says, well, he was 70% good and 30% not so good. So I'm thinking, you know, they may, that percentage may be higher now in terms of, well, he's 80% good or was 90% good. So my point here is that internally in China, it's clear that Xi Jinping has amassed more power. And who knows when he, the core leader would leave, you know, we'll know certainly by next year when it's official, most likely that he has been approved, voted on for another, who knows how long, but this is a source of concern. You know, for me, for I think a number of Chinese that this is one man who seems to be going further and farther in terms of his accumulation of power and authority that perhaps isn't all that good for China itself. Yeah, well, he's certainly been more and more authoritarian and I know people too who are concerned about that people in China or have been in China, have China connections and they're also concerned about that. And finally, you know, he's also in charge of foreign policy. He has a lot to do with every, because he's so powerful, he has a lot to do with everything that happens. And that is of great concern, you know, absolute power does corrupt absolutely. That's what they say. So you and I have to follow this, Marco, there's more to come. This is, you know, a huge big thing. I wouldn't say it's as big as climate change, but it's really big. Thank you for joining me in this discussion, Marco. Well, thank you so much for having me. We covered some juicy ground today. So may we continue. Thank you so much. Aloha. Bye bye.