 to talk starting with John Wahey. As usual, we have a special, special session for you this afternoon. We have a guest, the Republican Minority Leader Emeritus of the Hawaii State Legislature, Representative Jean Ward. And before I pass the, you know, pass the mic over to him, so to speak. I wanted to tell you a little bit about my good friend, Jean Ward, who is a member of the Legislature, I believe for years, at least a quarter of a century, he'll tell us. But before that, you know, what makes him special is today, I wanted to talk to Jean about international events, about things that affect the United States and Hawaii, which is obviously the most important thing going on right now is probably the situation in the Ukraine. But, you know, it's interesting because I've known Jean for a while and he seems to be very perceptive about global affairs and it may not be just the Ukraine on our mind, but we'll find out when we have this conversation. So a little background to let you know that this is not just some elected person in the Legislature talking about things they don't know about. Jean, first of all, is a member, is the member of the Board of Directors for the East West Center. This is actually his second time on the board. He's also a former fellow at the East West Center, give you a little background. He served in the Peace Corps in Borneo in Indonesia. He worked, actually, he met his wife at the East West Center who was Malaysian. So this is a person who is very cosmopolitan and I thought all of you might find his views very beneficial. So Jean, representative, welcome. Welcome today and tell us a little bit about your background. I mentioned a little bit about it but we'll get started with that and then I want to come right back in to what's happening in Europe right as soon as we get started. First, thank you to Governor Wahey to have the honor to sit and talk story with you. Gov, thank you for inviting me. You've got my favorite topic, international relations and other things. And what people know about me, you kind of gave the high points. Peace Corps, I did from my volunteer time though, get a country directorship in East Timor, which is part, well it used to be part of Indonesia. So that was a great example and I had a presidential appointment in the Bush administration. I was a senior democracy fellow, not fellow, senior democracy advisor in USAID and actually was in Ukraine speaking with the Ukrainians, having a subject called Money in Politics, a book of which I wrote for USAID. And I was jogging around the track in the national stadium in Kyiv quite a number of years ago but I'm so glad you're going to talk about the Ukrainians because... Well, tell us about the situation in Ukraine. I mean, how do you see it? First of all, well, first you want to hear the cerebral, you want to hear the heartache part of it. Hold up. Well, where do we start with the heartache? Everybody has seen the sights of the women, the children, the goodbyes and the shelling of clearly civilian targets. I mean, that just really, really hurts deeply in terms of what I see as a totally unjustified, unprovoked Russian example of what when you have power and you have those who are weaker or below you that you could take advantage of. That being said, I just see that if there was no NATO, I'm sure Poland or Hungary, those that escaped the Soviet power will probably be giving munitions without stop. And now NATO is kind of a barrier to sort of doing that. So I feel very frustrated when I see all the things that the Russians are doing and the spirit of uncompromising bravery that Zelensky and everyone that they've interviewed says, you know, we're never going to surrender. We'll die before we're supposed to surrender. That boldness is just a statement that is even beyond Churchill. Well, we'll fight them on the sea and in the air and on the beaches. It's just a phenomenal thing. So everybody's heart goes out to the Ukrainians. My office started ordering a number of Ukrainian flags, all just about all the offices at the Capitol have the blue and the yellow, the Ukrainian flags as a sign of support, which is which is very touching for the legislation we passed. So you actually know people, met people in the Ukraine, you spend people in the Ukraine. So this is a real personal situation. It makes it personal. He had an intern, he was during COVID, but you had a Ukrainian intern who was going to be a, well, he said he was going to be a member of the parliament after he finished his master's degree. So I take it personal in the same sense that when we in the West feel that freedom, we are the land of the free and the home of the brave, my God, that description fits the Ukrainians more probably than America in some particular quarters. So let me tell you though, Gene, you know, on the cerebral level, on the cerebral level, and this is in a sense, well, first as an American and then as a, I guess as a Republican, you know, it's been our traditional, well, it's been the Republican traditional position to be very strong, take a strong position against Russia. But this doesn't seem, at least to the server, that that is a unified view of the party. I mean, sometimes we get mixed signals whether, you know, we ought to be very standing very strong against this kind of an invasion or what exactly. Remember, Reagan said that the best defense is a strong offense. And obviously that when the Berlin Wall fell in 1990, 1991, all of this legacy. Yeah, the Ukraine really is his legacy. And that was the Ukrainian freedom cry for freedom, because in 1991, Ukrainian independence was declared and they broke off as they did Hungary as to Poland as to Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. And now it's me, the big boot. I'm going to gather back all of my satellites. I want them to obey me because I'm the stronger and quite frankly, because of his partnership with Xi Jinping, I fear that they're trying to make the world safe for authoritarianism rather than safe for democracy, which has been the cry of the West probably for the last 150 years. So I think we've got some monolithic powers that are every time Putin says that, oh, if you do any interruption of what I'm going to do, I'm going to shake my nuclear sword at you, my nuclear weapons. And everybody is kind of backed off thinking, oh my God, he's going to use nuclear weapons. But you know, when there's a bully and the bully shouts and he yells and he screams, if you don't face the bully, you're going to get a continuous behavior that Putin's going to do. So look, I'm not saying Republicans should go on the war path. No, but I'm saying you've got to stand up to bullies. You've got to be able to put fire with fire to the degree that you can show them that you are not the one who's in control. We are equally so in control. I think it was Kim Jong-un who said, look, I got nuclear weapons. And I don't say this to promote it. But Trump said, hey, I got a bigger button than you've got. In other words, don't play the nuclear card, Putin, because there are other things that are as dangerous as what you're playing with when you've scared everybody from NATO away from helping. You think that the country's actually afraid of the nuclear option, which by the way, I believe we all ought to be. Nobody ought to use nuclear weapons. It should be the nuclear destruction, Matt. Or are they more concerned about escalating the war, about actually creating a bigger war in Europe? What do you think ought to be done? I think we've got to keep talking. The saying is when the diplomats stop talking, the bullets start flying. There's got to be more discussions. There's got to be more visits, hopefully by the EU and the Ukrainian and the Russian people. You just heard recently, the biggest oil company in Luke oil, you know what they did? They just told Putin, hey, stop it already. The people in the streets are being arrested. A few thousand of them. And I was just told this morning that there's a new law in Russia that says if you report negatively on the war, you are going to be punished. And I'm thinking, you know. And that's the reason why Western journalists have actually moved out of there because they've been told that if you say anything, you know, you're going to suffer. But I'm worried about in the past, in the past, for example, World War II, everybody talks about World War II, the greatest generation, the rest. And we all know that when America entered the war, it was a very united country. But prior to entering the war, one of the things that one of the conditions that existed even in America at that time was that not everybody was unified on the idea of even fighting Germany at that time. So how important is the unification of America's attitude about all of this in terms of what we can and cannot do? Generally, Gav is a rule of thumb. Political party labels end at the border. It's neither Democrat or Republicans. That's the way it's traditionally been. And I still think it is. I mean, even though Biden has been weaker, he hasn't been as bold as obviously other presidents would probably have been. But I think as Americans, we can see our interests much clearer rather than through the lens of either being a Democrat or Republican. As Americans and the land of the free and the home of the brave and the people who reach out to countries like Ukraine, give as much as they could what they did with the Reagan knocking down of the wall to give them their freedom, open their economy, give them voting rights, give them human rights. Those are things that are universal and that for just being stronger, thinking that Putin can come and take those things away, I think is a great insult to the intelligence of humanity. And for that authoritarian regime to think that they have a right to do that, Gav, I have a very amateur view of wars. And I would put it this way, anybody, any country, any nation, any race who thinks they're superior, that's how wars start. They think that they have the right and the superiority to go and do it. You know, the Japanese wanted to do the great prosperity sphere. We're going to free the Asians. Hitler wanted to do the greater Aryan race in Europe. Putin thinks that the superiority of what he is as the Russian Empire, the great Russian bear, is able to do that without impunity. Xi Jinping with the... How much comfort does he get, though, from the fact that, for example, there's a former president, you know, you know this and I know this who's going around saying that this democracy cheated in an election. So we're not even democratic or the fact that they are members of Congress that attend rallies where they cheer for Putin and it gets blasted all over, you know, all over the media. Whether it's a very infantestinal group or not, it's worldwide. Welcome to the First Amendment. Welcome to freedom of speech. Welcome to intellectual debate. Except that, you know, in the prior wars, you didn't have somebody leading chants saying, hail, all hail, Saddam Hussein. I mean, that just didn't exist. At least not, and I don't know whether it's the case of just the people there or the case of a media that's too anxious to spread, you know, that kind of news. But I wonder how much that type of activity, how much comfort it gives Putin to do what he feels like he ought to do. Well, I think the public in the, at least in the Moscow context and maybe St. Petersburg, they're sending a big statement as they get arrested in the streets and then as they said, Luke Oil is telling them, you know, there's oligarchs who've got billions of dollars more money than actually Putin himself. They've got to be saying, hey, I don't want to use my yachts in the French Riviera and they just claimed it or they just froze it. The news is slowly being put around him economically. But look, if a leader cares for his people, they'll respond. But does Putin care about the Russian people? My wife tells me that, you know, if he cared, this thing could be over very, very quickly, but he doesn't care. I don't think, well, it's one of the traditions actually of totalitarian Russia is that the people suffer. I mean, they literally did not seem to take a view that's beyond that. I mean, look at Stalin. I mean, this is not the first time Russia raped Ukraine. I mean, what Stalin did, and he was Ukrainian, by the way, what Stalin did when he became in power at the twenties and caused the entire famine to take place. Did you say, when was Ukrainian? Oh, Georgia. I'm sorry. He did that in Georgia. I'm sorry. But the idea is that they have a history of not caring about what their people think one way or the other. The collectivization of agriculture and the formation of socialism to communism probably, and this is, I've been a member of the, what is it? It's the communist monument that they're putting in Washington, D.C. They said it's between 125 million to 150 million between the Russian and the Chinese to get in the position they had. They had to kill that many people to get them out of the way. And this is what I fear existentialists, the big threat of America is when we flirt with socialism and know in the end of the product is what these guys are doing in the world because of the authoritarian part of where government takes over everything. That's my biggest fear. Well, I know, I guess the question ultimately is whether or not you think that America is going to all come together to let the world know that we are united against, against this idiot. I mean, I don't know what you call person in Russia. Well, I think we've sent those signals pretty clearly and because they're not NATO, even though Lithuania proposed that, hey, let's vote and bring in Ukraine as a part of NATO. Obviously they didn't go very far, but they're trying to get the planes in from Poland. They're trying to get the EU, as already said, we want you to be part of the Ukraine. Short of sending bombers over, I think we're going to probably do everything they do. And you don't remember, Gav, there's a French foreign legion. We don't know what they may be up to. We don't know what the Colonel, the Colonel Ali North are. Those who've got equipment and not necessarily mercenaries, but people from all over the world saying, hey, I want to help the Ukrainians. Well, people with money and they've got airplanes or they've got helicopters, they may go in there and blast the hell out of that convoy that's sitting there ready to strangle. Well, those of us that hope will even have faith may actually be praying for something like that. But on the other hand, on the other hand, just on the other night, on Fox News, you had an advisor, former security advisor to the President of the United States saying that Putin's not wrong. The crazy person in all of this is the head of the Ukraine, Ukrainian government. So how much of that does that undercut anything that we do? Again, that's the First Amendment. That's freedom of information. But that is really outside of the whole world mainstream of opinion. It's almost laughable that they would say, well, it's really Zelensky. Anybody who, look, Gav, you've been a governor. You've led smaller than Ukraine, 40 million. But Zelensky, when you see him, you understand. Oh, he's fantastic. And I've met with the Ukrainian people. I've spoken with them. I know them. And this is not phony stuff. So it's kind of like a talking point for the Russians that these guys are really the Nazis. Well, look, he's Jewish. These are really the guys that are doing all the bad stuff. It's not civilian targets that we're hitting. It's because of the missiles that are doing stuff on the ground with the Ukrainians. I mean, it's total poppycock, the way that they've twisted the Well, I think that we, as a country, need to come together. I mean, the only way, the best thing that we can do for the Ukrainians is get unified that what's happening to them is the best. So, Gav, I don't think they're disunited. You know, the Congress was like almost 400 members when the Senate and the House had a phone call, Zoom call with Zelensky. I'd say we're more united than we're not united, quite frankly. What more could we be doing if we were united? Well, that's why we're going to take a short break, but that's why we're going to come back in because of the real question I have for you is assuming that what we believe is correct, then what role does China play in all of this? Because you and I both know that China is the, well, China is the unknown car in the game. So we're going to take a short break and we'll come right back and we're going to talk about China's role in this particular situation. On April 1, at 10 a.m. Hawaii time, ThinkTech will be presenting a 90-minute webinar panel program called Burning Global Issues. This will be an examination of seven continents by thought and community leaders living in or expert in those continents, discussing burning issues for each, how they relate to the prospects for functioning democracy. The moderator for the program is Pamela Spratlin, a 30-year foreign service veteran who has served as U.S. ambassador and consular official in a number of overseas posts. Our panel is comprised of Carl Baker, senior advisor of Pacific Forum on China and Asia, Rupmati Khandekar, director of Global Relations Forum on India, Elsa Jhark Hadean, a consultant with Project Expedite Justice on the Middle East and North Africa, Gilbert Ngu Agira, an economist in Kampala, Uganda on Central Africa, Carl Ackerman of the Social Studies faculty at Punahou School on Eastern Europe and Wantello, a business attorney in Bogota, Colombia on Latin America. The program is sponsored by Project Expedite Justice. We hope you will attend. Please go to our website, ThinkTechHawaii.com and register. Mahalo. Welcome back to Talk Story with John Wahe and our fascinating guest representative, Jean Ward, Minority Leader Emeritus for the Hawaii State Legislature. Jean, we were talking about the tragic situation, just the crazy situation going on in Europe with Russia and the Ukraine and the rest of it, but a little closer to home. What I'm noticing is a little closer to home brings us into the view of China. China seems to be becoming active in a very interesting way in all of this conflict. First of all, she's declared the fact that the country declared the fact that they're allies of Russia. Now, they fought in a little bit in the past and argue and everything, but when it comes right down to a two-tallotarian essentially communist machines are now lining up together, along, by the way, with North Korea and I understand Syria. The four of them are sort of becoming an axis of so-so. You mean Iran? Well, Iran now, yeah, but Syria actually made it formal. So, what's happening? What's up with China? And why should we be concerned about it? In the last anniversary of the Communist Party, Xi Jinping renewed his promise that there will be one nation and that any runaway province will not be allowed to continue. He didn't say he's going to attack Taiwan, but he said he's going to attack Taiwan and it's always been a part of his plan to keep the Great Middle Kingdom together and the gesture on the day, I think, that the attack began in Ukraine was when he flew again his planes into the airspace or in the economic sphere of Taiwan. He has put his reputation on fulfilling that promise. The whole thing with Hong Kong, with one system, two systems, one country, I mean, you saw where that went. Hong Kong is under the iron grip, the iron curtain and now with Taiwan, they feel they have a manifest right to do that. And I think Xi Jinping is licking his chops to see what Putin is doing in Ukraine. And he's going to be queuing off of that to see, well, how much are they going to get away before the West wakes up or that the EU or there's something in NATO that stops them. Now, we have a strategic ambiguity agreement with Taiwan. What does it sound like to you? Strategic ambiguity. It sounds like, well, an axiomoron, a silent screen. I mean, contradictory, strategic, but it's ambiguous. Well, I think the way that we see Putin going, he's almost made it where if Taiwan is attacked, the probability that Japan, the U.S. and other Pacific nations like Australia will probably come to Taiwan, Taiwan's aid. So Xi Jinping has got a different ballgame when he plays around with Taiwan. But God, as you said, it really brings it close to home. If this happens in the Pacific, we're really going to be in big trouble at what already is going on in the Pacific. I would classify and see if you agree with me that if the China attacked Taiwan, that it would be the equivalent of Pearl Harbor. I mean, that would bring the United States, whether we like it or not, into a world war. Now, is that there's some equivocation? I mean, it's not 100% ironclad, but the security agreement, the Japan relations agreement says that, but it doesn't say that. That's where the strategic ambiguity is because we don't want to upset Mother China. And we've kind of gone in that way. But I think when push comes to shove, definitely the U.S. would come to do that. So Xi Jinping has got to look at a wholly different ballgame than what Putin has got going. Which brings us to the second part of this. What I know is that what China is doing is it's using its propaganda machine very effectively actually to present a picture that's entirely different from our earlier discussion in the session. If you were the Foreign Minister of any of these Pacific Islanders, I would be sending you to Beijing. I think regular meetings, all the foreign ministers of the Pacific Island nations are being flown into Beijing to propagandize them. That is something that otherwise our brothers and sisters in the Pacific, we were part of that whole as part of the East West Center. That was the Pacific Island brothers and sisters that we are. And now that they're going in and they're building airports and giving harbors and infrastructure. They're buying everybody out with debt diplomacy. And God, that's a hard one to fight with. But that's one of the things that we're up against in the Pacific. Yeah. And China seems to be using that very effectively. And if you think about it, what they're also buying in some respects are our allies in the United Nations. So while we're fighting with Putin in Europe, it seems like China not only has a veto in the Security Council, but she is doing everything that they can do to gain their support in the United Nations. How does that affect, in your opinion, affect what we cannot do or what it should? God, I think Putin is overplaying his hand. I don't think he's winning any friends or influencing people other than this crowd of thugs that you said with North Korea, with China, and then Syria, or with Iran. Other people in the civilized world saying, these can't come and do that stuff. You can't shelf civilian hospitals and schools and kindergarten and stuff like that. I think he's overplaying his hand. And Xi Jinping, I think he's very smart. The Chinese are very, very adept at being very practical. I always say, if you scratch an American too deep, you're going to get some Chinese. And you scratch a Chinese deep and you get Americans. And why is that? Because of the pragmatism. If something doesn't work, Americans change and they fix it. If something doesn't work in China like communism and capitalism, God, how can you explain how you get capitalism working side by side with communism? My God, that was anathema to Marx and Engels. But they're doing it and they're making money and they've got the strongest, one of the greatest economies in the quickest time and military power than any other country in the world. So the Chinese are very practical. They are not a militant people. And when push comes to shove, I think if you look at the way Americans never want to get into a war, we were reluctant in the First World War, the Second World War. But when we got in, we kicked the hell out of a lot of people. So that's my fear that if he goes into Taiwan and he starts that and we get involved, it's going to be really bad for the Pacific nations. But I think ultimately he's too smart to do that. He's not as stupid as Putin is. That maybe is the bottom line. Well, I think that, I think that you're, oh, well, how about if we do it this way? So why don't you sum up what you think is happening really quickly? Why don't you sum up where you think all of this is at international Russia, China, and also the perspective from your point of view. And I hate to bring this back, but I've had, you get the Democratic point of view. I'm very interested in what the Hawaii Republicans point of view is. And that's why I'm hoping that too. It seems to me, Gene, that you are actually pretty much where most people, most Americans are, as opposed to where parties may be. I don't know. That's why I said mostly political party labels end at the border. And look, I was raised on, don't ask what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. I mean, he today would be a Republican, quite frankly, and given how the idea lies. You know, but here's the thing, half the Republican party would might have been Democrats too. We're Democrats before. So you inherited the party. Until Reagan, I was a Democrat. I was born and raised in the Democrat family and had Peace Corps and all that. And then when Reagan spoke, the practical and the values and the attitude that he had got was just to me transforming. And remember this, most of the state legislatures in the US are Republican. So Hawaii is kind of out of the mainstream, if you will, in terms of who's running America. I know at the White House and the other higher levels are Democrat, but we're generally a balanced people. We are either right or center right. We're kind of then left and center of left. But generally the American people want good for everybody in all these countries. So to sum it up, we don't want authoritarian China or authoritarian Putin to run the world. They think that we're running the world. We're just trying to keep the rest of the world from being run over by these kinds of people. And if that was not the case, we would have owned land in Japan. We'd own land in Korea and in Europe and Germany. We own part of that. We were really in the same mindset that they got that we want to keep control over these people. The point is freedom beats strong in the rest of the Americans in the Ukrainians. And if we have a similar ideological bonding with organizations like the UN and others that allow this to be implemented peacefully, we got a world that says, okay, let's go back and forget to put these weapons down and be a little bit sober about what's really important in life. And that's not fighting and taking out of the people's territory. And that's why I'm hoping Putin hopefully he can find a way to save face. I don't know how he can pull out and save face. And I'm not talking about the Lindsey Graham, kind of the CIA, if you know what he says, look, it's the Russian people who got to get rid of him. I don't think we got that much time to wait for that to happen. But it's got to be where the Russian people see where they're going. And they're going to say enough already, just like Luke oil, that's a great signal that it's been sent. The biggest oil company says, hey, cool it. I think that's down to the lower levels also. Oh, thank you. Thank you very much, Representative. Our time is up. But you know, I just wanted your perspective. And as usual, you've come through with filing colors. If you know what we all are, instead, we all are on the side of making the world a better place for everybody. Labels don't really matter when the chips are down. So I appreciate your coming on the show. In honor to come on to the show, guys, I'm glad that you still have political shelf life. Life is not running for governor, I understand. Wow, there are people persuading her, but I am definitely against it. I said, one mistake in this family is enough. You've served the people well. We used to Hawaiian homes. That's the only issue that is up. Yeah. And congratulations for all the work you've done in that area. And someday we'll have a show about that. But in the meantime, aloha, everybody, and we'll see you all in two weeks with another interesting guest. Thank you.