World on the Brink How America Can Beat China in the Race for the Twenty-First Century

Look as I write in the book I think we're on a path to conflict here it's not immediate I don't think it's gonna happen this year or next but in the next 48 years I think Xi Jinping is committed to taking Taiwan and I think he's with an actual invasion with an actual invasion because I don't think that a blockade scenario can work because Taiwan has capabilities to break through that blockade and you're gonna end up in a war anyway so we might as well just launch one to take over Taiwan but he wants this to happen under his watch while he's in power in 2032 he'll be 79 may not get another five-year term and their system unlike ours perhaps they don't tend to elect their leaders into their 1980s so that eight next eight years is gonna be really dangerous.

Well you're gonna have a blockade and what they've done just now in this exercise is they completely encircled the island with 19 warships 49 combat aircraft the actual invasion would be several magnitudes more than that of course you're gonna need to bring in hundreds of thousands of troops to occupy this island of 24 million people this is going to be massive invasion and I believe it's gonna start with an airborne assault on key installations in Taiwan the port facilities facing the Taiwan Strait the airfields in Taiwan to try to occupy that and bring in massive amounts of troops onto the island.

Well I think we need to engage in aggressive deterrence across the entire spectrum of our capabilities certainly military we need to expand our ability to deploy missiles and naval mines and drones near the Taiwan Strait to be able to strike the Chinese armada as it's crossing the Strait but we also need to engage in economic deterrence the name of the game for Xi is going to be to try to keep America out of this conflict because he knows that if we're not coming to Taiwan's aid he can defeat Taiwan he can defeat the Taiwanese military so he's gonna try to send us a message that he can ruin our economy by increasing our reliance on semiconductors produced in China critical minerals like rare earths and others that are refined and processed in China that we need to manage our economy.

Well since the 1940s and really through the early 1960s also with John F Kennedy of course we focus on another conflict with the Soviet Union of course with a Cold War the first Cold War as I call it because I think we are in the second Cold War with China and we focus on deterring a Soviet invasion of West Berlin in fact President Kennedy in 1961 went on American television and warned America that we're gonna fight for this outpost surrounded by East Germany that Khrushchev wanted to take in that summer of 1961 and we were even gonna be willing to risk nuclear war to defend freedom in that in that part of the city well I think the same thing is now playing out in Taiwan where we have to make a case to the American public that Taiwan is really important to the US interest not just because it produces so many semiconductors that we rely on in our new digital economy but also because of its vital geopolitical position General Douglas MacArthur in 1950 called for Mosul or Taiwan as Taiwan was called at the time an unsinkable aircraft carrier it is key to the domination of Asia if China takes Taiwan is going to be able to expand its security and economic influence in a really vital part of the world and diminish ours okay there is of course some feeling amongst in Beijing that if the if Europe and America won't defend Ukraine to the hilt why on earth would they defend people out in Asia and the Chinese are watching that by the way for the authors amongst us Richard Haass and Jonathan Lemire that little pin that Dimitri is wearing is not a flag pin as I thought it was it's a book pin we are missing a trick guys in our book sales I've never seen something like that in a wardrobe. We need little book pins.

I actually think that the weather conditions do not play as big of a role as is often said because this is not going to be a beach invasion, this is not saving private Ryan Chinese edition, I spent a lot of time walking the terrain of Taiwan.

I've had conversations with senior Japanese government officials and others who have told me that if China occupies Taiwan, that is going to change everything for them, they're going to have a new sheriff in town that they're going to have to sing in large part to their tune in many ways that you see states, their neighbor in Russia, they're not part of NATO sitting into Russia's tune because they have no choice, the United States is far away.

You can't allow that to happen and Taiwan is that anchor point that if they take Taiwan they're going to be able to push the US out of the Western Pacific push us all the way back to potentially Hawaii it will change the entire dynamic of that region.

Chips are cold in new oil, I actually say in the book that's a misguided view because there are alternatives to oil there are no alternatives to semiconductors, our entire economy the digital economy runs on semiconductors.

I believe that we need to support Ukraine I don't believe that we need to withdraw from everywhere in the world and only focus on China but I do believe that China needs to be a top priority and as we are allocating our limited resources we should be asking what is going to be the impact to deter in this or only devastating conflict if it were to occur in the Taiwanese Strait.