On this episode, Anita speaks with Bonnie Glaser, who is the managing director of the German Marshall Fund's Indo-Pacific program. Our conversation is all about China as we discuss spy balloons, Taiwan, and the conditions that might spark China to risk war with the United States.
We begin the show with the latest updates on the Russia-Ukraine war. Ryan explains the conspiracy theory that posits that the US critically damaged the Nord Stream pipeline that brought gas from Russia into Germany.
The current head of the World Bank unexpectedly resigned this week. We explain why he is leaving and why it matters. We also discuss the mission of the World Bank and why many want to have it have a larger role in addressing the issue of climate change in developing countries.
Topics Discussed in this Episode
Articles and Resources Mentioned in Episode
Russia-Ukraine Update: Russian Offensive and Nord Stream Allegations
World Bank: Politics and Climate Change
Interview with Bonnie Glaser
Follow Us
On this episode, Anita speaks with Bonnie Glaser, who is the managing director of the German Marshall Fund's Indo-Pacific program. Our conversation is all about China as we discuss spy balloons, Taiwan, and the conditions that might spark China to risk war with the United States.
We begin the show with the latest updates on the Russia-Ukraine war. Ryan explains the conspiracy theory that posits that the US critically damaged the Nord Stream pipeline that brought gas from Russia into Germany.
The current head of the World Bank unexpectedly resigned this week. We explain why he is leaving and why it matters. We also discuss the mission of the World Bank and why many want to have it have a larger role in addressing the issue of climate change in developing countries.
Topics Discussed in this Episode
Articles and Resources Mentioned in Episode
Russia-Ukraine Update: Russian Offensive and Nord Stream Allegations
World Bank: Politics and Climate Change
Interview with Bonnie Glaser
Follow Us
Anita Kellogg: [00:00:00] Welcome to Kellogg's Global Politics, a podcast on current events in US foreign Policy and international affairs. My name is Dr. Anita Kellogg, an international relation scholar specializing in the relationship between economics and national security. I'm here with my co-host, Ryan Kellogg, an expert in energy investment and policy.
Ryan Kellogg: Thanks and glad to be back. So this is episode 29 and we're recording this on February 19th, 2023.
Anita Kellogg: On this episode, I speak with Bonnie Glaser who heads the Indo-Pacific Program at the German Marshall Fund. Our conversation is all about China, as we discussed spy balloons, Taiwan, and the conditions that might spark China to risk war with the United States.
We begin the show with the latest updates on the Russia, Ukraine War with Ryan explaining the conspiracy theory that deposits that the US critically damaged the Nord Stream pipeline that brought gas from Russia into Germany. The current [00:01:00] head of the World Bank unexpectedly resigned this week. We explain why he's leaving and why it matters.
We also discussed the mission of the World Bank and why many wanted to have a larger role in addressing the issue of climate change in developing countries. So, as always, I ask you what's been going on in our lives?
Ryan Kellogg: So much pressure. Yeah. Well, I figured I've had a very long hiatus of playing any video games, even though I, I'm an avid listener of video game podcasts,
That's so strange. Strange. Which I live, I live vicariously through. But I did pick up because you've been begging me. I picked up the Nintendo Switch, kind of our game platform of choice and started playing Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. So Pokemon Scarlet. And yeah, I've, I've been enjoying it. I'm probably only, I don't know, six hours in at this point, but it's been fun.
I mean, a lot of what people have complained about, like the graphics [00:02:00] don't seem to have advanced in 20 years with Pokemon Games, so it's a bit of a mystery on how that passes. But you know, they're able to sell these for $60 a pop. So I guess, you know, there's not much incentive for improvement there, but I've been enjoying it.
And, you know, this is part of our, we're very into people that know us. We're very into Pokemon, at least, between kind of Pokemon ghosts and the mobile app that kind of peaked in 2016 and the,
Anita Kellogg: it started in 2016. How
could it peak?
Ryan Kellogg: No, it totally peaked. Then that's when they had the most users and that's when it hit popular consciousness with Hillary's cringeworthy hook on, go to the polls.
thought about that in the famed 2016 train wreck election. But yeah. Yeah. So I've, I've been enjoying it. You've been giving me a little pointers, but it's, yeah, it's been a lot of fun.
Anita Kellogg: Yeah. And I needed you to play it so we could trade because you can't get all the Pokemon unless [00:03:00] you trade.
Ryan Kellogg: Right. But I think I'm probably need what, another at least 20 or 30 hours in the game.
Yeah. To have Pokemon worthy of trade . So sweet. That is penciled in for the upcoming India trip that we have coming up. Hopefully I'll be able to get in a little bit between all the flights and driving that we'll be doing, get a little, little bit more Pokemon plane time in. Yeah.
Anita Kellogg: So we've also been working on the final details for that.
I've done a lot of last minute shopping for our trip. Lot of shopping. Yeah.
Ryan Kellogg: I mean we have to, I mean it's, yeah, it's just a lot of, yeah, our daughter needed clothes. We obviously needed, we, I think we talked about previously the three day wedding festivities require quite a bit in terms of elaborate dress, so we had to get that nailed away.
And then it's basically like going from a very mild winter here to essentially what's more or less the average temperature here [00:04:00] in DC in the summer, in July. Yeah. So flying right into that, which I'm thankful for, because at least we're missing the 110 degree temperatures that are more endemic, I think by May, June in India.
So we're missing that fortunately, but still going to be in the upper eighties. So a little bit, little bit. .
Anita Kellogg: Yeah, this sounds too hot, but, but I'm sure it'll be a great trip. And so yeah, so just doing, it's just been a whirlwind of doing the last minute activities and now that we had our outfits, we had to get jewelry and there's a lot that goes into these Indian weddings,
So very elaborate. There's a lot of lot of things, but it's going to be exciting. I mean, I've always loved to look at Indian weddings, so I'm glad that we get to be part of one, even if it's been kind of complex.
Ryan Kellogg: It's a little complex. We still haven't done a whole lot of practicing for our Bollywood stop dance , so we're really going to have to crack down on that these next two weeks.
Anita Kellogg: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Yep. Okay. So on with the main part [00:05:00] of our show. And so we begin with our Russia, Ukraine war update and you, Ryan had some details you planned to talk about, about the latest going on in the, the actual fighting and the war. Before we get onto your beautiful conspiracy, very discussion,
Ryan Kellogg: oh, we have a conspiracy.
Mm-hmm. , before we get into that, we need to eat our vegetables and give a brief update. , just a brief update on the Russian offensive. So I think one of the big questions that has been portrayed in the media is like, Okay. We've talked about this Russian offensive, what's exactly the, the nature of it? Is this what we're seeing since the late January?
Is that it, or is there something bigger pending? And, you know, we're going to talk about a couple different articles. So the first one is just the, the New York Times, which had a piece this week reporting on the battle for V Lair, which is strategically probably more important [00:06:00] than BA Moot, which we've discussed previously because it intersects the.
Donetsk, which is one of the provinces in the Donbas region, and then the Zaporizhian region to the south, which of course is the, the lifeline to Crimea and Russia's efforts there. And frankly, this whole battle, which occurred I think two weeks ago at this point, has been real disaster. But it's seen as one of the front where the first push is by the Russian military.
So according to the British Defense Intelligence Agency, the outcome from this two day battle is that two Russian brigades are an absolute tatters. So about a thousand troops are dead, 130 armored vehicles lost, including 36 tanks. And it just seems like the Russian military is continuing to make similar mistakes that it, it did in the past.
I mean, one, they announced this ahead. on social media. I think an attempt [00:07:00] to demoralize Ukrainian forces, which seems like a odd choice. I mean, it seems like standard of the playbook, but not taking into account, you know, what they've encountered in the very high morale of the Ukraine forces. And then it also basically sent in, again, fodder style forces largely.
Untrained poorly led at this point into a anti-tank minefield without clearing it. So huge losses on their front. Obviously there's a lot of fog of war, but a lot of this information is coming from Russian military bloggers and social media posts by the Wagner mercenaries. So again, they've been very highly critical, specifically of this push in V Lair that it's turned out so badly and based on the forces, the Russian soldiers that have been captured, it's obvious that these are very recently mobilized troops and includes, you know, [00:08:00] prisoners as well that were recruited by, by the Wagner.
So at this point, UK and the US think that between 80 and 97% of Russia combat forces are committed to this. And I won't go into detail on this, the second item, but we'll have notes to the, the podcast, but Michael Kaufman and Nick Danforth and their podcast for War on the Rocks kind of detailed out the nature of the offensive, the fact that what we're seeing today, that's it, that's what Russia has the capacity for.
The additional a hundred thousand in reserve that they have is basically just to, as they see losses on the front, these are just troops to replace that, but they don't have the capacity to wage offensive in the South, for instance. Mm-hmm. , so. in a lot of ways, the, the way that that Kaman kind of interprets it is that it could be a blessing that Russian forces kind of wear themselves out on this eastern [00:09:00] offensive, which is largely carried out for political purposes.
And that gives Ukraine then the advantage in terms of being able to launch one most likely in the south and the latter part of spring or summer. And Russia won't have those, those reserves essentially to actually have two offenses. They would have to have a mobilization equal to what they've done already, so they would have to bring in another 300,000 troops.
And there's, there's no sign of that. That would be essentially kind of a full mobilization, full societal mobilization, and you just haven't, haven't seen that yet. So I think the, the other thing. We wanted to point out for this week, again, going back on the endgame, how does this war look? When is it going to end?
What are the terms it's going to end in? And there's a very interesting piece that came out. It was an interview with a World War II historian, Stephen Kotkin, [00:10:00] and we'll provide links to the article. But the point that I wanted to, to point out, and these are, are some of the quotes, but the idea at this point of the way that the war is, is shaping out, is it's going to be a, a war of attrition.
So Stephen, in this interview says, in order to win a war of attrition, you have to outproduce and you have to crush your enemy's production. And he points out. And this is something Anita, I think, you know, obviously you're very deeply vested in and as part of your, your role at the National Defense University, but there hasn't been that ramp up of industrial production.
And he provides a case example where Ukrainians essentially are expending upwards of 90,000 artillery shells a month. But us monthly production of those shells is only 15,000. Then the rest of NATO is another 15,000. So you have this deficit of, of 60,000 [00:11:00] shells. And then on the Russian side we talked about in our last episode, the sanctions haven't necessarily been that effective.
Uh, definitely not from a overall Russian economic performance and maybe not from even a military side. When we talk about core things like production, cruise missiles or production of artillery shells. So the crux of cottons. point is that how do you fight a war of attrition when you have your left hand tied behind your back?
So essentially you're not ramping up your own production or rather, Ukraine Depends on the West as a whole. Mm-hmm. and their production. And then if you can't damage Russia's production either through economic sanctions, which don't seem to be working or by bombing these facilities, which Ukraine doesn't have the, the weapons or capacity to be able to do.
And where, where does that leave you?
Anita Kellogg: Yeah. Well, bombing their own capabilities would [00:12:00] too much the possibility of leading to a wider war. So that's obviously not an option that you can pursue. And in that sense, I think your hand will continue to be tied behind your back. But the part of ramping up production is definitely something that we could be doing and probably should be doing.
This is pure speculation from a military standpoint. Is that not expecting the conflict to go. as long and as intense as it is making. If it was, if we had resolved the war, they wouldn't have needed to have ramped up production. There is a huge problem though within the industrial base of limited production of these, of many of our military equipment, and we talked a lot about in my classes, about, well, what if we were to engage in a war with China?
What about attrition then and how inadequately we're prepared for it? It also takes a long time to ramp up production, so you wouldn't really even see a difference for six months to a year if you began today. [00:13:00] A couple issues with it are going to be money. You're going to have to get money from Congress to be able to expand the industrial base.
You can't just tell these companies, well, you need to be producing more munitions. You're not, you're going to have to pay for it, but you might also. Have to provide loans for building new factories. I mean, part of the problem is the consolidation of the defense industry where they're running factories at capacity as it is so,
Either you get new companies involved or you figure ways to help current companies to expand, but it's not something that you can just turn the switch on and be able to do immediately. The discrepancy between what Ukraine is spending every month, the 90,000 shells, and only being able to produce 15,000 a month in the United States is worrisome, right?
Because you obviously, you're drawing down your stockpiles, and it's not like we had huge stockpiles to begin with. And finally, there's the issue of China, right? [00:14:00] These are all stockpiles that were meant to. be there in case of a war with China and attrition is likely to be a huge issue with that. And the one positive side, if you were able to ramp up your industrial base now, you would have that built in capacity then.
But that's, this is pretty big decision making on how likely you think that war is. Although it seems to me in the military, there is a growing consensus that will least need to be prepared for that possibility because it seems very real.
Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you would think something, you know, given the focus on China, given the situation you're seeing around production capacity with Ukraine, you'd be able to get bipartisan support you thing for something that's going to bring additional jobs.
I mean, you're talking about building additional factories and things within the heartland for weapons manufacturing in order to build up that capacity. So you think there would be. , you'd be able to get consensus, but I haven't seen [00:15:00] anything actively. I mean, is there a bill in Congress that's focused on that?
No. Okay. Not that I know of.
Anita Kellogg: Yeah. The one thing we don't talk enough about is how to do these things politically. So we talk about what the military needs, what's insufficient at what it is sufficient at. We talked a lot about where the industrial base is now and how long it takes to ramp up production.
Like in World War ii, we had one or two years where we were building up our mobilization capacity before we entered the war, which made a huge difference because we contrasted War I where we had to rely on European weapons because we couldn't build enough of our own fast enough. So there's a lot of complex issues at a strategic level, and then how to carry those out at a policy level.
We really don't talk about that, and so I'm not even really sure where you begin, but it is something the military needs to be. thinking more about, because I think the big puzzle is how do you [00:16:00] expand the industrial base without direct war? All right, so I, it's an easy to read article. Historians have a way with words, and so I encourage everyone to maybe check that out if you're interested at all.
Yep. All right. So for dessert, I guess if you called the first part vegetables.
Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. They, this is following up on our little Hunter Biden escapade from a couple episodes ago. . Yeah.
Anita Kellogg: One of the difference in our personalities is Ryan gets very invested in learning about conspiracy theories, .
Ryan Kellogg: Well, yeah, and I think that's the thing, especially I think in the, the new media landscape, the fact that you have such a.
Of where people get their news from. It's really the golden age of, of conspiracy theories. I think that's why we wanted to highlight this one, because honestly it hasn't, hasn't been covered in what would be seen as the mainstream legacy media. , [00:17:00] which is primarily what, you know, when we provide show notes, when we talk about things, that's, that's that.
I mean, and of course that's dismissed by both fringes of the US political system as unreliable news, but we think because it obeys and still sticks with journalistic standards, which what we'll talk about a little bit in this allegations of the Nord Stream bombing. So that's why I think it's important to highlight.
Cause whatever you believe and. So let's start off with a little bit of background.
Anita Kellogg: I just want to say something real fast and say that this particular story is something I've never come across. You told me about it, I haven't read it anywhere. And it is a little bit different than other conspiracy theories because we do hear about what the other side is saying about Hunter Biden and such.
Ryan Kellogg: Well, we do. We do after months and months. But I think what's unique about this story is this is the birth of a conspiracy theory for sure. And this is going to likely linger for a while in certain circles, because I mean, hunter [00:18:00] Biden, that took months and years. That's been going on since at least 2017 as a conspiracy theory.
But to this day, many millions, millions of Americans think that the sole reason that the US is involved, invested in the Russia, Ukraine War is ordered to cover up the dirty dealings. That Hunter Biden did on behalf of the big guy Joe Biden. That's real. Millions of people believe that, and that's the thing with these conspiracy theories.
So let's take a step back. So the one that we're talking specifically about is a investigative journalist Si Hirsch, who is famed for his work during the Vietnam War. He was the one when he was working for the New York Times and the New Yorker uncovered the Myla Massacre that US troops carried out a Vietnam village.[00:19:00]
He also broke the Abu Gharib torture story in Iraq. So both of these were cases where this journalist has a legacies, won a Pulitzer Prize. That being said, What he's done recently, both in reporting in Syria and then around in Laden in the raid to that US troops carried out on Bin Laden have been basically just, just fabrications, poorly sourced, completely off.
So you have this unique situation where people that ha maybe have an agenda. For this to be true can point to the guy's reputation in the past and has an excellent reputation in the far past. But the last 15 years has been getting deeper and deeper, more into kind of this conspiracy theory. So what Sy Hurst did he published on ck, which I've been noticing has become more, mm-hmm.
more of a legitimate forum for journalists to, [00:20:00] or maybe not legitimate, but more common forum that you see,
Anita Kellogg: especially with Twitter, the degradation of how people feel like they can use Twitter and the quality of Twitter. You've seen a lot of them now, we'll just link to their CK articles where before that might have been like a tweet chain or something like that.
Ryan Kellogg: Right. So yeah, it's, it's interesting seeing CK kind of used at this. So he, he publishes this article. Essentially it alleges a conspiracy between the US government and Norway to carry out the bombing. Of North Stream one and North Stream two pipeline, which we, we talked about when it occurred last September.
Now to this day, in terms of the official outcome from the investigation, there hasn't been a lot of detail. I think Sweden and Denmark, which we were carrying it out since they occurred in their territorial waters, they concluded that wasn't an accident, that was a act of sabotage. But there haven't been any additional details beyond that.
And [00:21:00] that's kind of one of the key themes of, of what allows a conspiracy theory is the lack of communication for a long time. Because this was in, I think they came out with this announcement in November or December and essentially it's been radio silence since then. So the Cy Hirsch article hits and what's interesting about it is, you know, one, it provides a lot.
Detail. So it provides kind of a Tom Clancy novel level of detail, you know, very well written from that aspect, very engaging. And it talks about the military operation, specifically the fact that it was Navy divers trained in Panama City and that the bombing was carried out under the guise of a NATO exercise that in order to plant the bomb months ahead of time and then was triggered by remote device.
Now all of this sounds really compelling, but you know, there's, there's several things. Will provide a link, several people, and again, in this sort of informal media system, it hasn't been touched frankly, by the mainstream [00:22:00] media, which I think is. One of the dangers and disservices and it, and that was raised, that entire point, was raised by an ex BBC correspondent by the name of Natalia and Tova, and she really talks about the danger of her colleagues, basically dismissing it as bad journalism, which it is.
It's a single source, a single anonymous source. Mm-hmm. . It obviously failed to meet any sort of editorial review. That's why, why it's in ck. Mm-hmm. instead of the New York Times or the Washington Post. Right. But when you leave it and there is a radio science, there's already this great distrust of the media, especially within American society.
If you look at approval ratings, you have like Congress probably on the bottom, and then the US media maybe slightly above that. So there's a complete lack of trust. So when you have. Ignoring what they view as a conspiracy theory, which is, is fine. It allows for other outlets. [00:23:00] And because those other outlets have grown in size and influenced so much, it spreads like wildfires.
So she notes in her article that you know, not only is it being spread by Russian propagandists, you have this coalition of Far American leftists and conservatives. In fact, it was featured of course, on Tucker Carlson, who again, he's the biggest. Biggest audience on mainstream media. He said there's so many details in here that it's not possible, that it's not true.
It's true. . So you get that. You have Indian and Chinese outlets that have been readily spreading this as, as the truth. Edward Snowden, of course. And then you have seen within Europe, some of the mainstream media, which essentially it doesn't cover it from a, okay, we tried to, to validate these sources or validate this story.
It's just a reaction to these articles. So people see this over and over and it's just millions and millions of people You see, you look up this hashtag on Twitter, [00:24:00] hundreds and hundreds of thousands of retweets, all from these far left and far
Anita Kellogg: right, but. Okay. Let's say for a minute that the mainstream media did cover the story, didn't mention it, those same people are not going to believe the mainstream media.
You already said. Not at
Ryan Kellogg: this point because they ignored the original story. Oh,
Anita Kellogg: because you think that they would've trusted it so much if they had Well,
Ryan Kellogg: I think at least it would be challenged in the Google searches, because that's the other point that she raises, is because there's such a volume now being created around this conspiracy theory and the fact that they can point to this guy's previous historical legitimacy.
It just continues to grow and metastasize and whatnot. Now what I think is probably happening, because this has gotten enough traction, you are going to have a serious. Piece I, I would imagine there are several media outlets that are working on something that essentially discredits all of this, and that's what happened with his previous article.
So his previous one, he alleged that during the Syrian war [00:25:00] he was actually very close. Hirsch was very close with Bashar Assad. So many strikes
Anita Kellogg: against
Ryan Kellogg: so many. I know. I know. But he essentially alleged during that time where there's chemical weapon usage by Syrian forces, he said that it was, instead it was the rebel forces that were backed.
Mm-hmm. by the US And then for Bin Laden, it was this very elaborate conspiracy theory that he alleged between the US and Pakistani government where. , essentially Pakistan had them all the time, knew about it and kind of handed it over to, to US forces that wasn't part of, already wasn't part of that. But you had media outlets that came out, you know, maybe a month or two later and essentially went line by line and discredited it.
And I think that's what you need to see happen here. But it's just been interesting seeing this and the fact that it's got traction amongst these people who are very distrustful, that hate the US government, that believe the US government is a [00:26:00] force of evil running with it, the far right running with it, because it embarrasses Biden and U.
This is the anti Ukraine, pro-Russia side of the American right as well. So it's just been interesting to see that in real time over the last month turn into what's going to be I, I think a long lasting conspiracy theory.
Anita Kellogg: I don't know. I mean, my mind goes both ways to the points you made. One of the more interesting things I think, that you said was the Google searches, but then I think of so many things where misinformation has spread and it just hasn't mattered, that are just as equally susceptible on Google searches and really hasn't mattered at all with the mainstream media say so I'm just, I don't know.
I think
Ryan Kellogg: it's when you don't, when you go so long without addressing it or without countering it in a,
Anita Kellogg: in a serious way like Covid, I mean, those conspiracy theories about the vaccine, about a hundred things, about Covid [00:27:00] were spread and there was never any silence on the part of the mainstream media.
Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, I mean, that's true.
I mean, there's certain things that are that big and that long lasting. This is more of your traditional Cold War sort of conspiracy, JFK assassination, like it's a singular event as opposed to a global pandemic that's having immaterial impact immediately on people's lives. So that, that's just going to always be a, a long lasting ent sort of conspiracy theories, sorry for the pun, but ,
Anita Kellogg: I mean, it seems to me the only people who are going to be interested in are the people who already are like watched Tucker Carlson to hear bad things about the government.
And so the fact that, you know, the majority of people have not come across the story. Well, the other thing, they would be interested in it even if they did
Ryan Kellogg: come across it. The other thing is, and this is important to note, we still don't know who did it. And it's not like the US completely lacks motivation.
Now, I, we tweeted out. Because I got, you know, I [00:28:00] just wanted to, to put together my thoughts on it, but just from a pure strategic, motivational issue, the risk of carrying out such an operation is completely disproportionate to what the US could gain. But that being said, we don't know what is going to be the outcome of this investigation or whether it's revealed at all.
And if it's never revealed, then for sure, this conspiracy theory just becomes one of those things maybe 30 years from now when it's the freedom of Information Act and it's redacted. So I, I don't know what the status of, but this, this is the reason it's, it's growing is because you supposedly had this period where Sweden and Denmark are investigating, but there's been this radio silence for so.
Anita Kellogg: No. I mean, possibly one of the reasons the media hasn't given it more attention is that there aren't any facts about who did not. Yeah.
Ryan Kellogg: But look, the surveillance balloon, God , I mean, we just had this past week where you had three other balloons that shot [00:29:00] down. It's essentially the US government is now hinting that these were commercial, were academic person, which is what
Anita Kellogg: I said from the beginning, but it was still covered.
Told me
Ryan Kellogg: that's impossible. Well, some of these are shot over a Canadian airspace, but my understanding is that you have to register anything that ends up in a commercial airspace or above that you have to register the flight path with FAA
Anita Kellogg: I told you they'd be commercial or research oriented. Yeah. And apparently that's quite possible.
Ryan Kellogg: But yeah, I don't see why that, I mean, that was a sort of a hysteria, right? Exactly. This on the surface of it is much more because you're bombing infrastructure. That was a critical energy resource more before the war for a NATO ally and conducting, I mean, you're being alleged of conducting a conspiracies theory or conspiracy between two NATO governments against the interest of another NATO government.
Anita Kellogg: I mean, so isn't the audience though, it [00:30:00] doesn't seem very impactful if it's Americans who believe this, like what is that going to change? There's a fringe people who believe in Jewish.
Ryan Kellogg: No, I think it's more the conversations had in Europe, right?
Anita Kellogg: So American mainstream media is not going to be targeting a European audience.
Ryan Kellogg: No, but so you need outlets like the New York Times and the Washington Post have a global reach. And I think the fact that like the Times of London covered it in such a nonchalant reaction way as opposed to, I don't know, a lot of global papers beyond the Washington Post, New York Times have the investigative capacity in order to debunk something.
That's the thing about the, the shallowing out. Of the media in generals, they no longer, there's only a limited number of global outlets that have the capacity and resources to carry out a hard-hitting piece that's needed in order to take this apart. Because right now it's being left up to amateurs. I mean, the people that you know will provide show notes to one guy is, I mean, he has a good reputation from the Yuk Ukraine war, but these are all open source that use open source [00:31:00] data in order to make conclusions and things.
And you can track, you know, military boats and equipment and certain things and, and kind of debunk a lot of things. But the fact that it's being left up to amateurs and not huge outlets with huge reaches is concerning.
Anita Kellogg: I mean, yeah, that is a plausible argument. You're saying like, oh, you need an authoritative voice to counter it.
At the same time you're saying there are no authoritative
Ryan Kellogg: voices? Well, I mean, I think just from like the Google search New York Times, you know, you have enough articles like that that's going to crowd out. Any sort of searches around Nord Stream, that doesn't mean the people that you know inherently believe it, but this is more for, so there's been a lot of speeches within Parliament around Europe, again, from either the far right or the far left that are demanding their governments to investigate these things based on Hershey's report.
So that's a material impact that could over time lead to a fracturing of the NATO alliance because you are seeing resonance within these [00:32:00] governments and people pushing for it. You haven't seen that much here. You've only seen Mike Lee, who's a Trump nutball talk about, well, if this is true and I haven't heard anything, you know, within my Senate committees to counter this, if it is true, then Biden should be impeached.
But you see much more chatter in the various parliaments within Europe about it and about the deafening silence within the mainstream.
Anita Kellogg: All right. Well, less entertaining, but important was that this week, the Head of the World Bank, David Malas resigned following months of controversy when he denied the link between fossil fuels and climate change, or more accurately to say that he's not.
He said he wasn't a scientist, so he couldn't say if he believed that link or not. The controversy though was several months ago, and so it was definitely still a surprise. The timing was a surprise and no one quite understands it. [00:33:00] It's important to probably note here that he was appointed the head of the world banked by the Trump administration.
That's probably why you have somebody who doesn't believe in the link between fossil fuels and climate change. So he was also criticized for moving to slowly to finance developing countries, shift toward low carbon energy sources, and so. This is thought to have been triggered by a greater push at this meeting and later at the c O P 27 meeting in Cairo by developing countries for both greater amounts available climate financing and reparations for damages resulting from carbon emissions coming mostly from rich countries.
So I had this latter point kind of interesting cause I found it in some other articles about the facts that, you know, you have 79% of the deaths from climate change are probably in Africa while they represent five to 15% of all carbon emissions. So one of the reasons why I was [00:34:00] interested in this story was because I think the World Bank is something that gets mentioned, but a lot of.
I know from just talking to them don't really understand what the World Bank is. And this is important in the context of when we're always talking about Chinese investment and Chinese investment vehicles to understand sort of what the standard vehicles have been. So it's one of the largest public development institutions in the world with funding commitments totaling 59.5 billion in 2019.
And in its own words, the main purpose of the bank is to assist in the reconstruction and development of territories of members by facilitating the investment of capital for productive purposes. So the main purpose of the bank is basically is to lift communities out of poverty. And historically, it was an institution that played a very major role in rebuilding Europe after War ii, and it's gone on to target developing countries.
Unlike I M F, this, the role of [00:35:00] finance here is more lower interest and again, more targeted specifically towards poverty. The World Bank also produces an amazing array of statistics on developing countries, while undeveloped countries on just array of information, you would need to understand their economies, their capacity of their states, their electricity consumption, things of that nature.
So the members, as you would expect with the financial greatest financial contributions, have the greatest say, and the United States is the one who makes the largest contribution. So it gets to choose the president, which is traditionally a US citizen. And obviously then, as we've seen with Trump, I hadn't really associated it with particular political personalities before.
But then of course, the presidential administration can make a difference. And most people think that there will be an emphasis on climate change from the Biden administration in who they choose. To be president. So why even talk about [00:36:00] climate change when it comes to poverty? Why is this important to developing countries?
And there's several, several reasons why it is, it bears heaviest toll from climate change in terms of both deaths, uh, where extreme climate happens, where why you see so many droughts. Other concerns, the military names it as a top national security concern because when you have such poverty or you have weather destroying whole communities, such as through floods or other major storm damage or fires, then this leads to greater incidents of localized violence that can spill over into larger conflicts.
It's estimated that in the last two decades, the cost to these countries has been in the range of 75 billion to a hundred billion a year. Which is really substantial, especially when you are talking about countries that are trying to lift themselves out of poverty. So there's a lot of frustrations now about how the [00:37:00] World Bank goes about climate financing.
It's been criticized for being unwilling to invest in renewable energy sources and projects. It's also been accused of being hypocritical, whereas the U has decided that gas investments are sustainable for a transitional period. Where in Africa, the same sort of logic projects are being blacklisted. And so countries want the World Bank to offer more in gas finance, and then of course in other projects that are less carbon intensive.
Ryan Kellogg: Yes. I think that's where the conflict is, is you have a lot of developing countries who are rightfully, you know, looking to move up the economic ladder, bring electricity and energy to people that often, you know, a lot of regions don't have it at all and they're frustrated by the fact that, you know, Europe we talked about, you [00:38:00] know, has pursued a very aggressive policy.
Even the point of bringing on coal plants in order to deal with the lack of Russian gas from its markets, but has bid up. And pursued number of natural gas projects, which I think it rightfully sees as a transition fuel and certainly much better than coal driven development. So it seems like the World Bank really needs to figure out, it's like, yeah, it is.
It should focus more on climate financing. But I think it should align with EU standards and determinants that natural gas is an acceptable form of transition fuel, certainly much preferable to coal and that these projects should be included within that portfolio of, of energy projects that they consider.
Yeah, I
Anita Kellogg: didn't fully understand the part where, , those were banned from investments.
Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. I mean, essentially what they're criticizing is that no fossil fuel projects should be financed by the World Bank going [00:39:00] forward. That was the push by climate activists in terms of some of these reforms that are being carried out.
And it's not like it's, I don't think it's a huge portion of the world Bank's energy projects and budget. I mean, they spent 6 billion over three year period from 2018 to 2020. It's almost nothing. And they haven't financed any coal driven plants for quite a time. I maybe up to 10 years at this point.
So they're certainly out of that side of the business. But I think when you look at what's realistic for these countries that have a high level of poverty that want to bring better lives and amenities to their people, that. , you shouldn't take natural gas off of the table, especially in a place like Africa where they have huge oil resources and gas in a place like Nigeria that had been vented for the longest time.
So horrible methane emissions, but the fact that you can capture and develop more of that gas and have the [00:40:00] financing in order to build the gas generators as opposed to not taking advantage of those, those resources.
Anita Kellogg: I completely agree with you, of course. Something that people don't think about. Oh, why like care about this climate change is not only in the cost of US national security potentially, but that as these societies are growing, as they are trying to lift themselves from abject poverty, they need more energy to do that, right?
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, this is the problem, so you're not financing energy projects at all, and mostly they have no choice but to turn to China, which has been more heavily investing in both the carbon side of energy projects as well as the greener side as well. They need to have these energy projects.
And as I said, sort of when I was talking about the World Bank, I mean one of the major indicators that we use of poverty is how much electricity do people have access
Ryan Kellogg: to? Yeah. So I think it's, it's finding that right balance and part of it is they, [00:41:00] uh, most estimates for kind of climate adaptation, it's not in the billions, it's in the trillions.
So I know the Biden administration has pushed for additional funding of, I think, you know, again, a fairly small amount, 11 billion a year, but that requires congressional approval and the likelihood of getting that. But when we talk about what are the institutions and, and ways to counter China, this is definitely one of the core ones.
And I always forget that, you know, China's a member too. Mm-hmm. And their contribution percentage. Mm-hmm. . But in terms of a vehicle, Can still advance these sort of interests. I mean you have to, to be willing to put up the money. Mm-hmm. for that financing too. And the other period of reform that they looked at is kind of that mix.
Because when we talk about financing, the World Bank provides two different programs. I mean one for those that are not part of middle income countries. Mm-hmm , those are actually grants.
Anita Kellogg: Yes, exactly. So that's different than [00:42:00] IMF which which is just loans.
Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Because World Bank has kind of both programs and more for the middle income countries, where I think most will probably benefit more from the push around climate adaptation as, you know, places like India or you know mm-hmm that maybe need that additional incentive to, instead of building an additional coal plants to switch over to gas power plant.
But again, you need that institutional flexibility so, Cave in towards stuff that I don't think is necessarily fact driven around energy projects, but except the already established EU definition of energy, that natural gas is a transition fuel and it's vastly preferable to additional coal plants being installed.
Um, and
Anita Kellogg: encouraging still, you know, other
Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, yeah.
Anita Kellogg: Absolutely. Yeah. One thing that kind of struck me, because you had an article in our notes that talking about Chinese investment into energy projects in Africa and elsewhere, and they've been [00:43:00] very interested and this also includes Latin America in countries that wanted to develop.
Clean energy, allowing them to be able to sell their solar panels, the windmills. Right, right. And one of the reasons, you know, one of the things that we complain about in not having that manufacturing capacity is not having the market to sell to. I mean, obviously also because China's making them cheaper.
But it seems to me that that's also a way with all these subsidies that Biden is giving to some of these companies, that might be another way to grow that manufacturing base. I believe people are motivated for selfish reasons, , so I guess that was a selfish reason. The US might be also thinking about that more.
Ryan Kellogg: And I don't know the complexities of getting something like that when China is a significant member within the World Bank, but putting provisions in where, yeah, he's like, okay, we'll finance this project. We'll provide a grant for this project, but essentially you have to do US or European made [00:44:00] equipment for this project.
Are those terms typically kind of laid out within a project? No, and
Anita Kellogg: I don't think that's what I was
Ryan Kellogg: like's that you maybe would be more likely. He is like, okay, well this is going to create so many thousand additional US jobs if we approve this financing for, but
Anita Kellogg: you know, the 11 billion that you were talking about Biden, right.
Giving out, you could have those terms.
Ryan Kellogg: Well, I mean, again, it's that it go into a big pool where then it's judged by whatever the institution's internal rules are. I don't think you carve out what your specific contribution is. Well,
Anita Kellogg: the US has its own development. .
Ryan Kellogg: Right. So maybe for those sort of projects.
Yeah. You
Anita Kellogg: got those but's Just talking through this, I'm not sure that's the best idea, but I still think maybe you could help the manufacturing of Americans owned industry.
Ryan Kellogg: And sell it internally. Yeah. Instead of being framed as they give away to foreign nations
Anita Kellogg:. Yeah. The sell it internally. I mean, one of the parts that, that we see that we [00:45:00] need to be cost competitive and so you'd be competitive with Chinese costs because of the subsidies, and then hopefully you gain the economies of scale.
Although I think it's actually difficult to make them profitable without subsidies. But if you are going to build that industry, encouraging those projects, you're at least competing for them. . Yep. Yeah. And as I said, I think people respond to selfish reasons, so that's not the best reason to do this, but if you can find a reason to do it at all, it's better than nothing.
And a lot of that would come Also, as I said, particularly in Latin America, China's pursuing that and why there are a lot of truly poor countries in Latin America. It also probably isn't targeting, I mean, I always think that the World Bank targeting the very least developed countries, I guess I always think of it more in terms of their, their loans plan.
And there's just a lot of discussion having taken a lot of political economy classes, whether that approach is effective or not. And it's just [00:46:00] really, really hard to look people out of poverty. But it's becoming even harder with climate change. And is one of the reasons why I think certainly you don't stop other programs that are necessary for poverty, but you're probably spending a lot of money.
You're helping them spend a lot of money. I mean, if you're spending. Up to a hundred billion a year together to adapt to climate change. maybe only like spending 16 billion on specific energy projects, then maybe that's not the most effective way to be using your money.
Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. So it'd be interesting to see who they Biden administration ends up appointing within this position.
And then what reform measures, cause I know that's certainly been an ongoing necessity for the World Bank to reform some of its institutional practices and standards. And Yeah, hopefully we can, can push it in that direction of renewing these institutions to better offer different options [00:47:00] to developing nations to counter China.
Anita Kellogg: Yeah, I mean, counter poverty,
Ryan Kellogg: and alleviate poverty. Of course, .
Anita Kellogg: I mean, it's always dangerous to say these things to counter China, but again, if we're thinking about selfish reasons, if that makes, makes too better.
Ryan Kellogg: I'm always, I know you said this thing internally because one side's going to frame this as the United States is 30 trillion in debt because we give all our money away to foreign countries.
when it's like point, 0.1% or what?
Anita Kellogg: Yes. It's less than 1% of our budget goes to any form of aid to other countries.
Ryan Kellogg: You would, you would think it's, it's trillion . Did you watch Fox News? I know which millions do as we covered . I
Anita Kellogg: understand. And those people don't read the New York Times. Well Monte are very last part of the show, which is my interview with Bonnie Glazer at the German Marshall Fund, and I found it to be really interesting and informative interview about [00:48:00] many different aspects.
US and China relations. And so we talked about the, our recent news of the Chinese SP balloons talked about more generally about US China tensions and the relationship there, particularly those tensions over Taiwan and what the situation in the Taiwan trade is. And then what conditions could China actually be motivated to risk war with the United States.
And I find that interesting because I like to keep pointing out to people that it just doesn't make sense that China would jeopardize its economic system for a war with the United States over Taiwan or some other issue because that's so core to legitimacy of the Chinese party. But I think she made some points about possibly if Taiwan announcements, independence or such that that could make this party, um, worry about its continued regime survival.
My name is Dr. Anita Kellogg and I'm here with Bonnie Glazer, who is the managing [00:49:00] director of the German Marshall Funds Indo-Pacific Program, and has worked at the intersection of Asia-Pacific Geopolitics and US policy for more than three decades. She's also the host of the China Global Podcast that covers China's foreign policy.
I found the episodes to be very interesting and informative, and I recommend that you check it out. There will be a link in the show notes. Hello, Bonnie. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me on. It was so great to have you. So to get straight into it, the biggest news lately has been the Chinese SP balloon and many, including myself, are just baffled by the discovery of this balloon flying over the continental United States last week since it completely contradicts the diplomatic overtures from China over the past few months.
In fact, it disrupted the prospect of diplomatic progress on issues, a mutual concern to the United States and China with the Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken postponing his scheduled trip to China without a firm commitment to be rescheduled. What is the possibility that President Xi did not [00:50:00] know about the balloon and that it is instead the result of the internal dynamics of the Chinese government, such as the conflict between different interest groups or bureaucracies within the C ccp?
What do you think is the most likely explanation for the balloons appearance as such a sensitive time in US-China relations? Well, I think that's a
Bonnie Glaser: really important question. And we need to understand China's intention behind the sending of balloons over the United States and the timing of this particular incident.
So China's decision making process is very different from the United States. There isn't a lot of interagency coordination. Sometimes the left hand just doesn't know what the right hand is doing. The Chinese military keeps a lot of information closely. And is not compelled to share it with the foreign ministry.
So when US officials contacted the Chinese embassy in Washington, and this was I believe, right when the balloon [00:51:00] was cited over Alaska, I think the Chinese embassy officials had no idea what the US was talking about. They had to go back and check with the foreign ministry who probably also didn't know , what the US was talking about, and then had to get information from the Chinese military.
Now the question of whether sii J Ping knew about the balloon is also an important one. My guess, just based on my understanding of decision making in China is that the balloon program, which was launched it looks like at least three years ago, was likely approved by the Central Military Commission and Si, Jing is the chair.
So he probably knew and approved the program, but that doesn't mean that he approved of or knew about every single launch that took place. And as far as we know, these balloons have now been flying over at least 40 countries, and as I said, has been going on for several years. So Xi Jinping may not have known that [00:52:00] this particular balloon was going over the United States at this moment in time.
I don't think that the Chinese had any interest in trying to sabotage the planned trip by Secretary of State Blinken to China because our two presidents, Biden, of course, and, and Xi Jang had met last. November on the margins of the G 20 in Bali, and they agreed to instruct their senior officials to meet and talk about how to stabilize the relationship and how to identify and pursue some areas of cooperation.
The United States has been seeking to put a floor under the relationship, and I think that the Chinese also have an interest in stabilizing the relationship. Xi Jinping has a lot of domestic challenges and there are signs that he would like to have a more stable international environment and is certainly a more predictable US China relationship.
So I don't think this came [00:53:00] at a time that was really beneficial for
Anita Kellogg: China. Yeah, I completely agree, and that's sort of been some of my feelings on the issue too. What do you make of the Chinese response? The balloon to a shooting down the balloon. Do you think it has any way been productive toward what they want?
Or do you think that this too has been a little bit misguided? Well,
Bonnie Glaser: China's initial reaction was that this was a weather balloon run by civilians, and that really had no military capabilities. We have since determined that that was false, and the US government flew a U2 around the balloon before they shot it down.
They got very good pictures. One of the descriptions was that underneath this incredibly large balloon, Was a package of electronics that is about three coach buses long. So there's a lot in there, [00:54:00] including the ability to conduct eavesdropping, what we call signals intelligence, to listen in on conversations and to take various kinds of pictures.
There was radar. So yes, it certainly had military implications and I'm not surprised that the Chinese said that, but the fact that they were not truthful, I think introduced greater difficulties and how this could be managed. And then when the US chatted down, yes, the Chinese were irritated and they have demanded that the United States give back whatever they cover.
From the balloon, and that's unlikely to happen. But the Chinese probably made that request or demand because they recall that in 2001 when a Chinese fighter jet collided with a US surveillance plane that was then forced to land and did land successfully on Hainan Island in [00:55:00] China, the United States demanded the return of the pieces of, uh, the return of the plane, which the Chinese then caught into pieces, put into boxes and shipped back to the United States.
But in this case, no, I don't think that the US is going to do that. So the explanations for trying to take. Positions, I think are largely because they don't want to admit that they were spying. They probably thought that they could continue to get away with this, which was not a good calculation. But let's remember, they've been flying these balloons now around the world, including over the United States, Hawaii, and Guam, two parts of the US that have been cited as places where the balloon has flown over in the past and nobody has responded.
The US government or you know, frankly any other country, no one has complained to the Chinese. So they probably did think that they could get away with this. But they were caught with their hand in the cookie jar. So now the Chinese are speaking, of course, [00:56:00] not only to the United States and the world, but let's remember that they are talking about this to their own domestic audience.
And I don't think Xi J Pink can look weak on any issue that pertains to protecting China's national security. Its sovereignty, interest. And Xi Jinping does not want to look weak in the face of US pressure. So this is going to be a, a difficult incident to resolve. I think it will be resolved, but it will take time.
So this plan visit by Secretary of State, blinking to China, I think is not going to be rescheduled very soon, but I think will happen before the end
Anita Kellogg: of the. Right. So that kind of anticipated the next question that I was going to ask about how temporary the status may be. Also, you were talking about President Sheik cannot look weak.
President Biden has some of the same issues. There's been a lot of bipartisan outrage and it seems to kind of constrained President Biden's to negotiate on [00:57:00] issues like climate change. You mentioned that you thought like by the end of the year sometime they would resume some negotiations. So you believe there is this possibility of creating the floor and finding some cooperation between the US and China.
Well, I do
Bonnie Glaser: think that the presidents, as I said, both agreed when they met last year, they would try to stabilize this relationship and they specifically agreed to instruct their officials to discuss principles to guide the relationship. And, and in fact, just a few months ago, I believe it was, it was in December, we did have some officials meet her assistant Secretary of State for East Asia, Dan Crit and senior director for China and Taiwan at, uh, the National Security Council, Laura Rosenberger, went to China and met with, uh, vice Foreign Minister cf Fun and his team.
And, and they did have a lengthy discussion about the bilateral relationship and [00:58:00] possible ways forward, including. Potential to agree on, on principles. I don't think they made a lot of progress. But of course the next opportunity to continue that conversation was Tony Blinken visit to Beijing later this year, November, the United States is hosting what we call the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation or apec, and that will be in San Francisco, probably in in November.
And c Jinping is likely to come. And I think in the runup to that visit, that there is an incentive and a desire on both sides to try and make some progress. And then our two presidents can meet and they can continue to advance the ball a bit. Nobody should. Huge progress. We're not going to see leaps, but we could see some baby steps.
And one of the things that the Biden administration has been pushing since the very beginning is a discussion with [00:59:00] China on what's been referred to as guardrails to prevent the relationship from veering into conflict. The US wants to manage the competition that we inevitably are going to have with China in the coming years.
That competition is intensifying, but it doesn't serve the interest of either country to have a war. So talking about ways that we can prevent accidents, we can reduce risk between our two militaries. And find areas to cooperate on that might help to build some habits of working together that can help to ease some of this mistrust in the relationship.
And some of these issues that we should cooperate on, of course, are global. They're not just bilateral. You mentioned climate change. There's also global health. I think everybody would like to avoid another pandemic. There's issues that relate to counter narcotics trafficking. [01:00:00] The US believes that the Fentanyl crisis in the United States is in part due to some of the activity of the Fentanyl production in China.
Or some of the chemicals that China is then sending to Mexico. So that's just some of the issues. And then there's North Korea and I Iraq that I know we're on Secretary of State Lincoln's agenda to talk about and managing our differences over Taiwan and preventing more. There is a really crucial discussion that we need to have.
Anita Kellogg: Yeah. So I wanted to move on to Taiwan. So that was a, a perfect transition. As you probably know recently, a four star US general predicted a war with China in 2025. But he is also certainly not alone in the military in thinking that the US will go to war with China over Taiwan within the next five years.
So what is your assessment of these feelings that have been expressed? And also can you share your thoughts on the current situation in the Taiwan? ,
Bonnie Glaser: [01:01:00] that's a big topic, , so I'll try to cover it briefly. First. I would say that the US has apparently sufficient information to have concluded, and, you know, I, uh, don't have access to this information, so I do accept it at face value, although I wish I, I knew more.
But they claim that Xi Jinping has instructed the Chinese military to be ready cap. Of seizing and controlling Taiwan by 2027. There is no evidence, I've been told that c j Ping has made a decision he will use force or that that is a, any kind of a hard deadline. In other words, reunification for Beijing is and has always been a historical mission for the Chinese Communist Party.
If you read what Xi Jin Pena said, he says, reunification is inevitable. It must take place. He has [01:02:00] also said that it is a requirement. For national rejuvenation. Xi Jinping is labeled this goal of national rejuvenation, the Chinese Dream, and he has attached a target date to it, but not 2027. It's the middle of the century.
That's the the hundredth anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China in 2049. And some people don't even accept that that's really a deadline. But by the way, SII j Ping will be 95 that year, and it's highly unlikely, at least according to actuarial tables, that he will be empowered that year.
So people debate whether or not there's urgency for Sii J Jing to achieve unification while he's in power, maybe even during this five-year term. And that five-year term just started at the end of last year. So we have until 2027. But I think that Xi Jinping has a lot of [01:03:00] other issues on his plate. Many of them are domestic.
It's the economy, the demographic challenges that China faces. And I don't think that China wants a war with the United States. And, and by the way, the P L A I think is fairly certain that if they attack Taiwan, that the United States will be involved in a conflict. We will likely come to Taiwan's defense.
So the Chinese have not abandoned using other means to achieve unification. And I think there is an enough attention paid to those. The Chinese talk about peaceful reunification, but their definition of peaceful includes what we would call non peaceful means. It's a lot of coercion, it's diplomatic pressure that Chinese have seized.
I believe it's eight of Taiwan's diplomatic allies or the countries that recognize what is, they formally call themselves the Republic of China. Uh, [01:04:00] since Presidents High came to power, that's Taiwan's president in 2016, and they are left with only 15 countries that do recognize the Republic of China as an independent sovereign state.
So that's a diplomatic pressure. And then there's military pressure and we. The House speaker Nancy Pelosi, prior house speaker visited Taiwan last August, and there was quite a display of military force around Taiwan, including a demonstration of the ability to implement a blockade around Taiwan and prevent ships and aircraft from going in and out.
So in addition to that, we have economic pressure. The Chinese are now banning some products that they used to import from Taiwan, and then you have disinformation and cyber attacks going along with all of this. So there's a lot of, I would call it a very expansive toolbox that China has to pressure Taiwan to instill a sense of despair that [01:05:00] they can never achieve independence, that the best path for them is integration with the people's Republic of China.
So China hopes they'll surrender, and I don't think they've given up on that part of their strategy at the end of the day, however, If they do abandon that strategy, if, if they believe it's no longer feasible, if they think Taiwan is pursuing independence and they see signs of that, or if they think that the United States is emboldened in Taiwan to pursue independence and is ready to recognize Taiwan is an independent sovereign state.
And just last week we had a resolution tabled by 18 Republicans who think we should recognize Taiwan as an independent sovereign state. So I suppose you could say that's not completely out of the realm of the possible if all of those happened. Yes, I think, I think China would invade even if it was not ready, if it didn't have confidence that it had the capabilities to do so.
But my bottom line is that [01:06:00] this, this is an interactive dynamic. It's what the actions. Taiwan takes matters. If Taiwan is provocative, it could cause a war. If US policy returns to having something like a mutual defense treaty with Taiwan, which by the way, we abrogated, we had one from 1954 to 1979, we abrogated that treaty as part of the understanding when we normalize relations with China in 1979.
So we're looking like we're returning to that certainly could provoke a Chinese attack on Taiwan so we could manage this issue or we could sleep walk into a war.
Anita Kellogg: That's very informative. One of the things that has always puzzled me in this discussion, would China really be willing to hurt its economy so much that a war would involve, because of course the economies are intertwined.
China's very integrated into the world system, so it's always been sort of a puzzle to [01:07:00] me that they would make that decision and that. They would undermine some of one of their strongest claims to power, which is providing these economic goods and prosperity to the Chinese people in exchange for them having any political freedom.
Bonnie Glaser: I agree with you that China does not want to invade Taiwan unless they have to because it would have enormous negative consequences for China in terms of many things. It's economy, it's relationship with many countries around the world that would, there are countries now that are trying to manage the US China competition and don't want to choose sides that probably would choose sides with the United States if China actually used force.
China has not used force in any major way since 1979 when it went to war with Vietnam. So it has been a long time, and I think there's countries around China's periphery that are [01:08:00] fearful that China might actually. Return to using, uh, force and do so in a way that would be far more consequential because its military is far more capable than it was half a century ago.
But that said, the important factor here I think to understand is that Taiwan is a legitimacy issue for the Chinese Communist Party. So if Taiwan actually separates from China, and if that separation is supported by the United States, the threat to the legitimacy of Chinese Communist party rule is fairly significant.
And that might cause a risk to Sii Jin himself and weaken his position and might even threaten the ability of the Chinese Communist Party to continue to be in power. So if the Chinese were to think that there [01:09:00] is this. Independence prospect for Taiwan that they cannot prevent except by going to war, then they will put their economy and their other interests at risk in order to prevent
Anita Kellogg: that from happening.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me, in a sense that if they felt like their. Para was in jeopardy, then they would be willing to risk all these negative consequences. Another way of thinking about the potential for conflict is an argument gaining traction in Washington known as Peak China, which is an idea asserted by hell brands and Michael Beckley that says China's facing demographic and economic challenges that will halt a scent in the next few years without it being able to replace or challenge the US as a global or even regional superpower.
They argue that this makes China particularly dangerous right now as it may engage in conflicts that it has a low chance of winning in order to preserve its relative power position, and they make analogies to Germany in 1914 in Japan in 1941. [01:10:00] What do you make of this argument and what do you think are the biggest challenges facing the Chinese government over the next few?
Bonnie Glaser: As somebody who has followed, uh, debates about China for several decades, although maybe the term peak China is new, the idea that China faces challenges, vulnerabilities might not ever surmount the middle income trap, might not become a strong power, might not be able to become the biggest economy in the world.
That argument has been made before and it has usually triggered a discussion about what are the risks of. Weaknesses in China. So if China's economy were to collapse, you know, what would be the implications for the rest of the work? That's highly likely, by the way, but it certainly is possible that China has seen the best days of its rapid double [01:11:00] digit growth and will likely, I think all economists agree, will likely grow at a much limited pace going forward.
Some economists would say 3% this year will be an exception because China's coming out of Covid and so it probably will grow at something like 6%. But some people even think that we may see negative growth in China and remarkably China's population has now begun to contract, which everybody I think is predicted, but is happening years before we expected that it would begin.
So yes, we have to be aware of what the implications are of. Something like Peak China or China's economic slowdown at least. But I don't think that a China that is growing more slowly or perhaps not growing at all necessarily makes China more dangerous. And, and [01:12:00] that's the part of the how brands Michael Beckley thesis that I think is most controversial, most of, uh, the historical example.
If you look at, at China's history, when it has encountered difficulties, uh, domestically, it turns inward, it has not used force in order to rally its population to support the leadership and, and the Communist party. So I don't think that there really, I don't rule it out, but I just don't think that that is the most likely outcome.
China might be tougher rhetoric. We all read about China wolf warrior diplomacy, so that could continue. They could use sort of small scale aggressive mes and places like the South China Sea. They can conduct more military exercises around Taiwan. But the idea that the Chinese Communist Party would choose to invade Taiwan at the time of [01:13:00] great weakness internally because it's facing.
Peak China, to me, is one of the most riskiest things that they could do. I think it would be more likely that they would try to stabilize the situation with Taiwan as they focus on trying to reinvigorate their economy, come up with ways to be competitive to become a leader in innovation. I think that's the way S J P thinks about this.
I think he would rather not invade Taiwan in the near term. So this connection between peak China and becoming more externally dangerous to me is just not proof.
Anita Kellogg: I completely agree. So in the second part of that question, what do you think the biggest challenges that the Chinese government face over the next few years?
You mentioned how its population is shrinking. Are there other challenges that you see that pose problems to President Xi in the Chinese government? ?
Bonnie Glaser: Well, I think their [01:14:00] economic model is probably the biggest problem there. So we shouldn't limit it to growth. Their entire model, which delivered them for them, delivered incredible growth for so many years really is not going to work any longer.
And now they have higher labor costs and they have relied very heavily on exports. So they need to become more consumer driven. Their growth needs to be driven more by consumption at home. And they, I think, have struggled to achieve that, although they recognize that that's what they need to do. So making, creating a new economic model that is successful for them, I think is the biggest challenge that the Chinese government faces.
And then there are things like debt within the system that needs to be dealt. They have a lack of a social safety, social security type net for people who, as they get older, they have an inadequate healthcare [01:15:00] system, which has certainly been demonstrated by the COVID 19 pandemic. And when they rip the band aid off and stop their zero covid policy abruptly, almost overnight, it was clear that the cases were already surging.
But they don't have the healthcare infrastructure to cope with that. They have a gap between the rural areas and the urban areas that I think they have to deal with. They still need to improve their educational system. There are many faces of China, some of which are very advance. Some of which are just very, very backward.
So the biggest challenge is really just to make China into a truly modern country in every definition of the term. And this is one of the reasons why China continues to call itself a developing country per capita income in China. Mm-hmm. , today's just over about $10,000. And so [01:16:00] again, whether or not China can get through the middle income trap remains a big question.
Anita Kellogg: Yeah. I find all those points interesting and definitely agree with much of it. Going back to Taiwan, just for a moment, Taiwan has been increasingly militarized by both China and United States. What do you think the countries need to be doing right now to prevent an accidental escalation of some sort of possible clash?
Bonnie Glaser: Well, Probably more concerned about a clash between Taiwan's forces and China's forces than I'm between the US and China and the Taiwan Strait. Cause there is the possibility that China could fly inside the territorial airspace of Taiwan, which they have not. But if, for example, the news speaker, the house Kevin McCarthy said he'll go to Taiwan this year.
Mm-hmm. . And it's possible that China will want to up the Y and do something they haven't done before. That they choose to fly with their Taiwan's territorial airspace, which is [01:17:00] 12 nautical miles around Taiwan. The Taiwan Air Force. Has been told that it can essentially fire first. That's new. The in the past Taiwan's military, their rules of engagement was to never fire first.
So I think that there is an increased risk of an accidental incident between Taiwanese and China's air forces. The United States and China certainly could have an abstinence similar to what we had in 2001 between the reconnaissance plane and the Chinese fighter jet. And perhaps there could be an incident between our ship.
So we need to have about how to avoid these incidents. We already have agreements in place since I believe 2014, but they're not adequate. And I think we do need. Try to find a way to have more crisis communications. This is very difficult cause of Chinese political system. We have mechanisms in place.
It's not a technical unwillingness than Chinese [01:18:00] to answer the phone in a crisis because nobody's authorized to talk to the United States in a crisis. So those are areas where I, we should be paying attention to. And of course the US government is quite aware of the urgency of making progress on those issues.
But getting the Chinese to agree is another set of challenges.
Anita Kellogg: Switching a bit to accomplish many of the Biden's administration's goals regarding China, the US needs the cooperation of allies, yet many of the allies do not see China as the same level of strategic threat as the United States. For example, while they share security concerns over Chinese technology, many of our European partners see their economic interest as diverging from the United States.
This is evident in the recent trip of German Chancellor Schultz to China and the upcoming trip by French President Macron. Does the US need to do more to build consensus with its allies and how can it do so?
Bonnie Glaser: Well, first, I think that the [01:19:00] conversation in Europe has moved a lot in recent years, so I agree with you that perhaps all of our allies, in particularly those in Europe, and not completely on the same page as the United States in our assessment of the urgency of the threat.
Nonetheless, it's clear to me that most governments in Europe, and really in Asia as well, are increasingly concerned. About China's ambitions and how that might affect their interests. The question is what price or governments willing to pay on the economic front? And that's an ongoing conversation with the United States.
And of course, last October, the Biden administration did impose some restrictions. On exports to China in the area of semiconductors and communicated that to our allies in advance. But then open discussions [01:20:00] with various governments and is a very small number of countries that have companies that are key in the supply chain for semiconductors.
So this primarily affected the Netherlands and Japan, and of course Taiwan. And over time that took just a few months of the United States has announced that we've essentially come to an understanding with those governments, although the specifics have not been made public yet. And these governments have to develop their own that enable them to implement the export controls that they have now agreed to pursue.
And that will take time. But yes, companies, particularly in Germany and in the automobile and chemical sectors, they have been extremely successful in China and that has helped drive the German economy. But we have individuals in Germany who are in the coalition government who have been warning [01:21:00] against the excessive risk that Germany faces because of its over-reliance on, on the Chinese economy, on trade with China and the German export machine.
So therefore, this is a work in progress. We are probably never going to be 100% on the same pay Germany or France or other European countries, and probably not with Japan and South Korea either. But I think that the gap is narrowing. Everybody wants to de-risk the pandemic taught a lesson to countries around the world about the risks of.
Overdependence on China for medical supplies and devices. That was, I think, alarming to many countries, including the United States, that we had to rely on China. And there was one point I recall President Trump telling people in his administration, basically, let's hold off on criticizing China because we have to get medical supplies from them.[01:22:00]
This is not a good position for any government to be in, so this is going to take time. But I think that the United States is making progress with our European partners and our Asian allies as well, in large part because of China's own behavior. And Europe has come to see that what happens in the Indo-Pacific region, including the possibility of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, would have profoundly negative implications for their.
There's recently a study that the Rodian group in New York put out and they make a set of assumptions clear, but they say that if there were just a blockade, a Chinese blockade around Taiwan, no use of force, nothing kinetic, that the annual impact or cost to the global economy would be two and a half trillion dollars, which is far higher than cost that the world is paying for Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
And I think that's a wake up call for [01:23:00] countries around the world and will incentivize countries to do more to prevent that from taking place.
Anita Kellogg: Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate that. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show and providing this comprehensive overview of China and US policy. I really appreciate it.
I've loved having a chance to talk with you and learn so much from you.
Bonnie Glaser: Well, thanks for having me on as your guest.
Anita Kellogg: Well, I think that brings us to the end of this episode of Kellogg's Global Politics. You can visit our website at www.kelloggsglobalpolitics.com and follow us on Twitter @GlobalKellogg or me @arkellogg.
Ryan Kellogg: You can also reach us by email, so anita@kelloggsglobalpolitics.com, and myself, ryan@kelloggsglobalpolitics.com. And as always, please see the show notes for all the articles we discussed in this episode. And if you like the show, please take time to tell your friends and share it on your social sites.
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