China's Generals, Purges and Power Plays

- Welcome to China Considered, a podcast that brings fresh insight and informed discussion to one of the most consequential issues of our time, how China's changing and changing the world. I'm Liz Economy, Hargrove senior fellow and co-director of the program on the us, China and the world at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. And today I'm delighted to welcome Dr. Bonny Lin. Dr. Lin is the director of the China Power Project and a senior advisor at CSIS think Tank in Washington dc. She also spent several years working in senior positions on Asia in the Department of Defense. Welcome, Bonny.

- Great to be with you.

- So Bonny, I wanna touch on three broad issues with you today. First, just what are China's security ambitions? You know, are they basically to supplant the United States? Is the dominant power in the Asia Pacific or you know, are the ambitions bigger than that or are they smaller than that? In fact, second, what about Taiwan? It's an issue that I know you've spent a lot of time thinking about. Is Xi Jinping 100% committed to claiming sovereignty over Taiwan? Is the Chinese military ready to take action today if, if need be? And then what is the story about Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign in the Chinese military? I mean, I think we can look back to 2012 when he first came into power and then into 2013 and we saw a lot of churn, you know, throughout the Chinese political system, including in the People's Liberation Army, then in the PLA in terms of senior officials and actually many junior officials as well, getting purged, getting arrested for corruption. But we're now 13 years on. So I'd love to get your insights into why this is still going on at this point. He's purging people, he appointed. So those are the topics I wanna cover with you. And so let's just start off with the biggest, you know, picture one, which is talk to us a little bit about China's security ambitions. You know, what do you see as the trajectory? What do you see as inflection points? How is Xi j what's his ambition?

- Right, well thank you Liz. So I think China under Xi Jinping is very, very ambitious. And in terms of what Xi Jinping wants, it is not just China to be the dominant actor in the Indo-Pacific. I think China wants, sorry, thinking wants China to be either on par with the United States or even more leading the leading the international world in leading the world to the extent that China is number one in terms of inflection points On the security side, I would note this is, this again goes back to how active Xi Jinping is. If you look at what's been happening since Xi Jinping's been in power since late 20 20, 20 12 to 2013, we've basically seen a major change almost every two or three years. So the first one is, for example, in the South China Sea, which actually your book covers quite well from late 2013 to 2016, we saw massive island building from China on in the South China Sea. That's unprecedented. We've all, we've often seen China ramp up and down tensions in South China Sea, but we've never seen the island building to the extent that we saw under Xi Jinping. My colleague Greg Polling has done some excellent statistics on this and he's shown that since 2013 to now we've seen China reclaim over 4,000 acres of land in the South China Sea. Wow. And, and the difference between prior to Xi Jinping and now is by now, particularly since 2018, we now see China's maritime. We now see China's maritime actors basically able to sustain paramilitary operations in the South China Sea on a day by day basis. Whereas before we would only occasionally see Chinese maritime actors by the various disputed features. The other major change I would say that we've seen, which is only about two or so years after the massive Land Island reclamation campaign is in 2015, Xi Jinping engaged in a massive reorganization of the PLA. So starting in late 2015 and continuing for quite some years and even now there it's arguable whether the PLA reforms had been done or not. We see, we saw change across the board. So previously China was organized around seven military regions under Xi Jinping. He changed the number from seven to five and each of the five theater commands now are no longer just administrative actors. They actually control the forces and can execute joint operations within their theater command. At the same time, while we see the massive military or reorganization, we also saw at the central level changing of from from four major departments, four general departments under the PLA to 15 different agencies, we saw changes across the services. So China used to have three major branches, the PLA Navy, PLA Army, and PLA Air Force. The Rocket Force, which controlled China's missile assets, was elevated to a full service under Xi Jinping. And then China also added in the PLAS strategic support force as well as the joint logistics force. As part of this major overhaul around 20 17 20 18, we saw Xi Jing cut about 300,000 people from the PLA, mainly from the army side because at that time the Chinese military was about 70% ground force. So he wanted to have each of the forces to have a little bit more equity. And then we also saw the change of the Central Military Commission, which is the top body within the Chinese military. It used to be 11 people in the Central Military Commission. Now it's, oh well about half a year ago it was seven people. Now it's down to four people, which we can talk about later. But it showcases the centralization of power under Xi Jinping and the demotion of other military leaders such that Xi Jinping himself has the most power. So all of these changes within the PLA have caused experts to say that if you look at the PLA, and it was founded in 1927 that within its almost a hundred year history, the changes under XI have been the most extensive, much more than we saw under HU Jintao or or ing. The last thing I would say in terms of major inflection points is 2020. I would say it's a major inflection point in terms of thinking about security issues vis-a-vis China and as well as its foreign policy defense outlook. And two things really make 20 20, 22 that significant. First is China's pronouncement of a no limits partnership with Russia and then of course China's support of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and all the fallout from that and what that means in terms of China's alignment, also the same year and partially due to China support of Russia was all the concern about if China supports that type of activity in Europe, what does that mean in terms of how China thinks about Taiwan. And then then speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan in August of 2022 and the major Chinese military exercise that happened afterwards really showcase the international community a new type of normal in China's military activity and aggression towards Taiwan. That has really set China on a slightly different trajectory vis-a-vis Taiwan as well as the international community.

- So that is just fascinating and you hit on a number of issues that I definitely wanna come back to. But let me just ask you about one other issue that you didn't mention, which is that of Chinese bases overseas. Because I know that up until, or I should say, I think that up until about 2011 you really didn't see much mention of China having overseas bases. In fact, it seemed to be antithetical to their sort of military doctrine as far as I could tell. Then all of a sudden you at least I started seeing, you know, articles by experts that, you know, we both know people like she DLI talking about why shouldn't China have overseas bases? And of course we saw the first one in Djibouti, the military logistics base. But I have to say I expected to see more by now. I thought that China had these big, you know, overseas basing ambitions. What's, do you have a sense for, you know, was I just mistaken in my anticipation that they were gonna move very aggressively in this direction or have they been slowed by some other kinds of factors?

- So I think there's still a debate within China on whether having overseas military bases the same way that the United States has ours, is actually beneficial to the Chinese. Because on one hand they don't want the burden that the United States has with our allies and partners. They don't want, China does not want to be responsible for the defense of another country. China doesn't want to be dragged into, conflicts are beyond the Chinese border, which is what they associate some of these military bases with. On the other hand, we do see a PLA that's much more active not only in the Indo-Pacific, but going beyond. We're seeing a PLA that does a lot more port calls in countries across the world. I would say what the, the model that China seems to have set, have settled for is investing in a lot of infrastructure that could be dual use and that infrastructure doesn't have to be called a military base. So it avoids all the burdens of the military base, but still provides China with, for example, the deep water ports that Chinese military, air military vessels can go into. But also provides China with a flexibility to use those bases in a time of crisis. Sorry, use those facilities in a time of crisis.

- Right. It does seem to be doing something in Cambodia though, doesn't it? Like I, I've heard something a little more than just a port.

- So there is a short list of countries that the Department of Defense has listed in, I believe the 2024 annual Chi China military power port. And it's over half a dozen countries of which China is suspected to be, have interest in having a, a facility there that could function as a military base. I don't have that list at the top of my head, but Cambodia was one of those countries.

- Right. - And, and the Chinese interest was across, it wasn't just in, in Pacific, we, it was in countries in Africa and in the Middle East as well as, I believe there were reportings of maybe one or two countries in Latin America. But I need to go back and check that list.

- Yeah, no, no, I think, I think that's right and I think one of them stuck in my mind for other reasons was the UAE. And so maybe just keep, we should keep our eyes open to see whether they make any progress there. But what you're saying is so interesting, I hadn't realized that there was an ongoing debate over whether, you know, basis would be beneficial for the reasons that you suggested. So it's really, it's really interesting. So let's just like expand that a little bit and, and give us a sense of China's military capabilities, you know, relative to those in the United States. You know, because we keep hearing of course that China now has a larger, you know, Navy than the United States does, you know, it's testing hypersonic missiles. I think there's a sense that China's moving very aggressively in a number of different areas in ways that their capabilities maybe in some cases have even surpassed those of the United States. So what's your assessment? And it's not to, not to ask you to go, you know, you know, from from one weapon system to the next. Yes. Just to give us sort of your broad sense for where the two are, you know, where they have, we have parody or you know, one is slightly ahead of the other, you know, can you give us a sort of picture of what that looks like?

- Sure. So I guess I would try to simplify down to hardware, software, and then in addition to capabilities, particularly if we're talking about contingencies, there's also the question of resolve. And then the last dimension I think to think about is friends allies and partners, right? So on the hardware side, I think that's where China has made the most progress hardware across the board. There's lots of discussions of how much China has basically tripled it and doubled its missile capability, ballistic missile capabilities based on since 2020. We've also seen reports that since 2020, China has also doubled its nuclear weapons count from 300 warheads in 2020 to, to an estimate 600 warheads This year we know that China has been constructing significant shelters, changing its military bases, adding runways, adding hardening to basically across military bases across across from Taiwan. We also have reports as of this year that China is constructing a massive wartime underground command center near Beijing that's a size of 50 pentagons. So basically across the board you, you can find massive investments on infrastructure, on equipment and on all the hard capabilities. Now in terms of what the software, that's where I think China really has a lot of problems. So we haven't seen China fight a war, actual war in decades. And even when we look at the large scale Chinese exercises, we so far haven't seen a very large scale military exercise that's completely unscripted and evolve life fires. And as you know, when you're thinking about actual combat, it's all, all of the above and more complexities involved. So I have serious doubts on how whether the Chinese military leaders are able to perform in actual real combat situations. And we also see what writings in by Chinese authors that they have what they call the five incapable. So this is how Chinese authors described their, these five incapable include one Chinese commanders not being able to judge situations. Two, not being able to understand higher authority intentions. Three, not being able to make operational decisions. Four, not being able to deploy forces, and five, not being able to manage unexpected situations. That sounds to me that the PLAs commanders are not able to function as commanders and that this is being widely reported within Chinese language materials about weaknesses within the PLA.

- So can I just ask, are these writers, are they scholars like traditional foreign policy scholars or are these writers within the PLA or within the Ministry of Defense?

- They're writers within the PLA. They're PLA experts, not just foreign foreign policy experts. And this is also reported on in the annual US mil, US Department of Defense, sorry, department of War assessments to Congress as one of the weaknesses from the PLA side. And

- Then I sometimes, sorry Bonny, lemme just, lemme just get your thought on this. I do worry sometimes that, you know, as we do in the Chinese economy, you know, that there can be a tendency for us to maybe inflate our capabilities relative to those of China or just to say, you know, because we know that China has a highly centralized system that, you know, their people in the mid-level won't be able to make split, you know, moment decisions they're gonna have to report back to Beijing, you know, in the middle of, of some kind of, you know, air fight and, and therefore they're not going to be successful. Is there any, is there any sort of, do you have any concern that when you would read a Department of Defense, and I still call it department of defense because I I think technically they don't have approval to call it Department of war, but, but, but Department of Defense, you know, writings that, that that might be the case or, or do you, do you think that these are actually, these criticisms are well taken?

- I think that these criticisms are well taken. They're criticisms that we've, we are basically reporting on based off of PLA assessments experts within the Chinese system that are assessing the PLA. And I would add that I worry that these issues may have been further exacerbated under the P current PLA purges because if you look at the Xi Jinping's purges of the PLA, if you are a mid to low commander in the pla LA and you're looking at all the people who are purged above you, and one of the criticism of those folks purged above you is either allegations of corruption, which can, you can allege corruption almost any official in China. Right. And then other allegations of of forming these coalitions or, or different loyalties, not necessarily to Xi Jinping, if you look at that and look at the extent of the purges, I don't think it incentivizes lower or mid-level commanders to say, let me take the initiative and do something. I think it incentivizes them to keep their heads down so that they won't be purged. So they won't attract any of the discipline, any of the, I guess, questions about their own discipline.

- Yeah, I mean I think that's a, that's a very good point. And let me actually then let's, let's turn to the issue of, of purges because you know, I have to say even I'm surprised about this, you know, I've seen it in other sectors, you know, cyber where you know, officials that Xi Jinping has appointed are now being purged. It's not a matter of once he's brought you into the senior most position that you're safe, right? But as you say, you know, they can look back 20 years and find an example of corruption and you know, go after you for that. But do we actually have any understanding of why this most recent batch of senior military officials, you know, was purged or do we understand it? You mentioned, you know, sort of loyalties outside of just the party and Xi Jinping and not maybe respecting the sort of the, you know, the party as opposed to the military or, or putting military professionalism perhaps over the party. Do you have any thoughts about what's going on in this particular last

- Purge? Yeah, so I'll share I guess three different theories for it. And I guess I probably believe more in the, the first or second one and a third is a bit more outlandish, but it's circulated. I'll just say that. So the first theory, and actually you can listen to my podcast with John Culver where he talks about this will do, is basically that there, it's really hard for us to tell from the outside what is causing these purges is probably a combination of different factors for different, different types of purges. One could, some could be for corruption, some could be loyalty, but on the outside you really can't tell, well is this based on corruption? Is this based on loyalty? Is this based on competence? And here John really points to the purges that have been pretty systematic. He tracked over two dozen purges of top PLA leadership and based, and it's across all five military regions with exception of the Southern Theater Command. All the leader, all the commanders of each of the four military regions haven't purged. But if you look, go look one level beyond, below the commanders, you will look at, you see that the political commissar, every single political commissar from across the right, right below the commander across five military regions haven't purged. So doesn't seem to be, if you look, you look at how systematic it is, it's hard to say it is just caused by one particular factor. So that's one theory. The other theory, which I think is well documented by excellent work from Neil, Neil Thomas and others are there are factions within the PLA and the faction that is winning out is more of the shion that is closer to where the current, the remaining vice chair of the CMC is and not necess and not the vice chairman of the CMC that was recently per, which is, so in this, in this argument is that, and others within the PLA system, most of them have at one point in their careers worked within the Fuji system, either at Fuji or within the current, current or former Eastern Theater Command. And because they grew up through this system where they worked at Fuji one, one for another, they actually formed their own clique within the PLA that was opposed. And to the other click led by jam sha and Jam sha has sort of won this internal factionism. So that's why Hu do and others are out the door. But to your point, Liz, earlier about how some of the, the folks within the PLA were pro were promoted by Xi Jing Don is one of the folks who were promoted by Xi Jinping and some of the other folks that are also out were also promoted very fast by Xi Jing, which is why there's a third theory, which I don't quite buy 'cause we see no other evidence of, but it's being, I guess, shared by some princelings in China and also shared on Chinese social media, which is that John Yha is winning out the, the, the internal PLA struggles. And he is trying to, he is able to get rid of all of the folks who are loyal to seeking Ping and he's actually trying to force ing to accept a term limit. But again, that's a pretty radical theory. Yeah, that is a very radical theory. Yeah. Pretty radical theory and, and the only evidence that these people can point to is that Daniel Shah has lasted out the purges. And the argument is if he's, you know, remaining and he is still in power, that means he still has power, which means that he's gotten rid of his enemies. But I don't know how that really relates to forcing Xi JP to accept term limits. So that's why I don't really believe in that theory. But again, that speaks to how much we don't know because a lot of these folks who were, who rose up very fast in the system were she's protege right people, he, he promoted very fast, which is why some were asking, well why did then after promoting him then he within a couple years just gets rid of them. But I think one thing that we do see from the PLA purchase that I think is relatively fact-based, it you don't, it doesn't really matter what theory you abide, you believe in, is that a lot of the folks who are now being purged from the system or have been recently purged, did, did start their careers or at one point or another, spent a good portion of their careers in Food Jam. Which means that if they're purged, China is losing a significant portion of experts that have a lot of expertise on operations vis-a-vis Taiwan, which then raises questions if China does want to engage in another large scale military exercise or large scale military operation vis-a-vis Taiwan, how much existing expertise is still within the PLA system and how, how do the remaining leaders think about operations against Taiwan? The other fact I think that is well known and you were, you probably noticed 'cause this coincide with your most recent stint in government, which is that Huong, the outed vice chairman and of the CMC, he was largely responsible for the very flashy displays, the PLA power against Taiwan during then Speaker Pelosi's visit to Taiwan. So one other theory that's being circulated is Hui do may have been outed because he was too supportive of these very large demonstrations of military force. And John y sha wants the PLA to continue to build on his capabilities and not demonstrate the force in the same way.

- Hmm. I mean so many different theories flying around that it's, it's difficult to make sense of some of 'em, like I have to say, I I perhaps the one I find most puzzling is the idea that haw is still there because he's trying to enforce a term limit on Xi Jinping. Did I understand that correctly?

- So, so the argument, some, some argue that Johnny Shah is still there, which means that he still has power and he's so powerful and I don't really know how that relates to Johnny Shah trying to force the term limit eating, but those are things that I've heard all in one big group batch. Yeah.

- Yeah. I mean, I guess for me, as someone who focuses primarily on the political side, it's very difficult to imagine that if she didn't ping had somebody underneath him who was trying to enforce term limits on him, that he wouldn't by now have gotten rid of that person as opposed to everybody else around him because he does hold, he does hold the, the sword when it comes to lopping off the heads of the people, you know, right. In your military position. So that one doesn't make so much sense. I guess for me, I, what I always find interesting, and this applies not only to the military, but more broadly to these purges, is, is the difference in the language around the ones that seem to be entirely about corruption, which you know, is very clear and then the ones where the reasoning seems to be a little bit more murky and there seems to be some kind of political issue behind it. And what that, you know, might be whether, you know, if, if you have an entire clique of Fuji, you know, PLA officials, you know, what was it, were they saying things that Xi Jinping didn't like about, you know, the potential for, you know, a Taiwan action or, you know, who knows, right? I mean, we could just sit and speculate, you know, all day long. It's probably not that fruitful, but, but I think it's a, it's an important enough issue that

- Right.

- I think, you know, we should all be thinking hard about what's actually going on behind the scenes there, but thank you for sketching out sort of what's, what's in the minds of both people inside China and you know, top scholars like yourself who focus on this issue. Okay. So let's, let's move to our, our third, our third issue, which is Taiwan and an area that, you know, you are certainly one of our country's leading experts on Taiwan and on sort of relations between the mainland and Taiwan and the US and broader regional security issues. So okay, let's just get right to it because there seems to be just an insatiable appetite for the question of, you know, whether or not Xi Jinping is, you know, committed to, you know, claiming sovereignty over Taiwan in a, in a real, in a real sense. Whether that 2027 deadline for the PLA being ready, you know, has any material significance. How do you understand Xi Jinping's objective? You know, when it comes to Taiwan, let's assume for the sake of argument that he has at least one more term in him, and we probably could agree on that, that 2027 is not going to see c Jinping moving himself into retirement. So let's say he's got one more term as general secretary from 2027 to 2032 and after that, you know, probably maybe would take a backseat chairman of the party or something pertained to chairman of the Central Military Commission, but most importantly one big five, you know, year term left in him. What, what do you think he wants by the time he actually leaves that position?

- That's an excellent question. So by 2032, the end of the, of potential she, fourth term, he would be 79 years old. And I think it's, I I found the hot mic moment between Xi Jinping and Putin in September when they were talking about how people can live to 150 years to be interesting. 'cause that made me wonder if she really wants a sixth term or maybe a sixth term because if, if you believe you can live to 150, 80 is not that old. Right? But having said that, I personally do believe Xi Jinping, if possible, wants unification with Taiwan during his term, his before he leaves office. But if you look at all the official documents, they all set rejuvenation of the Chinese nation by 2049. So Xi Jining has not boxed himself in to necessarily have to unify with Taiwan before he leaves office. But if you look at the 2022 China, China's new white paper on Taiwan, it very clearly spells out why China needs to unify with Taiwan. So the exact language in there is that national unification is the only way to avoid the risk of Taiwan being invaded, occupied again by foreign countries to foil the attempts of external forces to contain China and to safeguard Taiwan and to safeguard the sovereignty, security and development interests of our country. So from China's perspective and from teaching things perspective, unless Taiwan can be brought back to the motherland, China can continue rising, Taiwan will always be used by the United States or another foreign power to check China and China cannot be as powerful as it needs to be both in the Indo-Pacific as well as in the world globally. So I think it's very much central to how Xi Jining views China's rejuvenation.

- So what does that look like? Does that mean it's a one country, two systems? Does it mean that he's just made progress in terms of closer ties? You know, look at the new head of the, the new chairperson of the Guang, right? Who was just elected, who, you know, speaks in terms of, you know, Taiwan and the mainland's, you know, vision for the future being the same, right. And working together. Is it enough to have people like that in power who align Taiwan's interests with those of the mainland? Or does it actually have to be, you know, a, you know, where, where Taiwan no longer has, you know, an independent foreign policy has elections? What does that look like in your mind?

- Yeah, that's a really good question. So I did a look at what terms condition Xi Jinping would be able to accept in Taiwan compared to what his predecessors were able to accept. And if you look at the, the outline of, for example, what, who was will, who, who in TA and Zae were willing to accept you actually saw that they were quite willing to accept that Taiwan could keep its political system largely intact, that Taiwan may even be able to have its own military forces that Taiwan might also be able to conduct some form of foreign policy if there is a recognition of sort of Taiwan's role subordinate to the central government of China. But under Xi Jinping, and I think this is also quite impacted by how he saw dynamics in Hong Kong, you don't have Chinese leaders saying that Taiwan can keep its military anymore, or Chinese scholars or writers talking about that understanding team. You don't have any discussion about how, how Taiwan could keep its political system or its legal system in place anymore. And it's becoming very clear that only Patriots can become the leaders of Taiwan. Just as, just as we, how we saw only Patriots can now be appointed leaders of Hong Kong. So the terms for which Taiwan can be unified with China are much more stringent now under Xi because he, he is worried that if he does make protests in Taiwan, Taiwan experience, similar things as Hong Kong waves a protest and that will challenge Chinese rule and he doesn't want that again. Right. Having said that, I don't know what she wants to achieve or it's possible by 2032, I mean ideally it would be Taiwan in a similar DEG under a similar degree of control as Hong Kong, but he might be okay, for example, if they have a KM, if there is a KMT leader who's very much pro-China and, and see a path towards integration between Taiwan and the mainland politically, I think that might be acceptable. I think there's a difference between what he would I like ideally like, and what is politically feasible. But what I don't see is, for example, if we continue to have DPP leaders win the Taiwan presidency, that that would be acceptable for Xi j Ping particularly as it gets closer to the end of his fourth term.

- And so given that you, you know, you, you left, you left me hanging right there. So given that, does that then mean if, you know, in 2028 when the DPP, when the Taiwan has its next election, if another DPP candidate, you know, say William Ly is elected for a second term, does that then in your mind force Xi Jinping's hand to take some kind of military action because you know they're both gonna be, you know, finishing close to 2032? I mean, what does, what does that look like then? I mean,

- I do worry that the late twenties, 27, 20 28 is a very dangerous period of cross straight relations for all the wrong reasons that, that the original 2027 was attributed to. But to your point, I do worry that if the C CCP sees that another DPP leader, they might actually come to the assessment that the prospects for peaceful unification with Taiwan is out the door. And if that is out the door, it leaves open a lot of questions on what are the options for Beijing. And here I'm not sure necessarily the military option would be the first one. It depends on how close the election results are. If the results are very close, we could see a renewed campaign to destabilize the DPP, which we've already started. We've seen here, we've saw in the past year or so massive recall campaigns both the DPP on the KMT and KMT and vice versa. We could saw that, see that accelerate, we could see gray zone, significant Chinese gray zone operations against Taiwan. So such as a quarantine or a blockade, that does not necessarily mean a lead up to innovation. I do think as China's looking at the prospects for used for evading Taiwan, they are recognizing that it's incredibly costly. That's a capability and option China wants to have, but it's not anywhere clear as a first resort option for China.

- Yeah. So, you know, one thing I did wanna ask you about and then we'll just go to our quick, you know, wrap up questions. You know, you raised the issue of China and Russia and of course then you'd expand to that kind of Iran and North Korea, you know, how concerned are you about this alignment that we've seen emerge, you know, around and in support of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine and you know, does it signal something new to you in terms of China's willingness to, to play in a different way? It, they're not alliances, I guess. Well they technically they do have a formal alliance, right? A treaty alliance with North Korea, but, but certainly not with Russia. But does it say anything new about the way that, you know, we should think about China working with others in the future and in, you know, you know, security in military ways?

- Sure. I think a couple of things there. If you talk to the Russia experts before 2022, I don't think anyone would've predicted the way the Russia has strengthened its relationship, the fact that Russia has signed a security re agreement with Iran, the way Russia has signed a security agreement with North Korea. I think some might say that they could have predicted some North Korean troops in Ukraine because Russia has always had North Korean workers in Russia. But I think most would probably not have predicted the exact extent to which Russia paid for North Korean troops in Ukraine. And I think very few would've predicted that Russia was willing to give many of its military crown jewels to China, for example, on helping China with its nuclear submarine technology, but also providing China with capabilities that could be directly relevant to animation of Taiwan in some ways as payment for all the economic support China has provided Russia as well as dual use equipment. So le the main lesson learned for me from Russia's invasion Ukraine, is once you have a war situation, it really changes the calculations of the state that is engaged in that conflict and it makes that state potentially more willing to give to other countries, both in terms of payment as well as deals, and then it provides this opportunity for other countries to deepen friendship, deepen, deepen relationship, but also provides support. So when I look at that in the context of China, I don't think what China provided Russia was necessarily that surprising. But if China were to take those lessons learned from Russia, and if China were to engage in a war with Taiwan, particularly a protracted war in what China is not doing as well, we could see China in a similar situation as Russia, as being more willing to offer things to Russia, to North Korea, to Iran, to ask them to help China. And that's where I feel like we need to use our imagination a little bit and, and not think that because China hasn't been willing to offer X, y, and z, China won't do so if it's in, finds itself in a more dire situation.

- Yeah, I think, I think it's a really important point just that now this sort of, this is a, a new, not a new mechanism exactly, but that we could see something similar emerge around Taiwan, you know, that China has other countries that it can call on in for support in different kinds of ways. I think that is really important lesson to take from, you know, Russia's experience in, in Ukraine and now, you know, Russia, you know, owes China to some extent and you could imagine that it would, it would find ways to support China. So it just adds to the complexity certainly for I think us military planners as they're thinking about Taiwan and for Taiwanese themselves, of course when contingencies. Okay. So let's just, let's go to our, our sort of quick four questions, broaden, you know, out our the range of things we're gonna discuss a little bit. And just quickly, if you are going to sort of nominate one book or one article that you think our listeners should, should, you know, read, what would it be? What do you think is most important or what's top of mind for you?

- This is gonna sound a little weird, but as a China analyst, I think sometimes what I don't understand the most these days is US policy. So what I'm gonna recommend that I found most useful to understanding the Trump administration's policies is Robert O'Brien's recent foreign affair article, the case of Trump's second term foreign policy. I read that and I think it, it helps me, helped me connect quite a bit of dots and also helps me understand for the internal logic with how folks in the Trump team think about their foreign policy.

- Okay, excellent, excellent suggestion. I, I read the Bolton and and McMaster's books for the same reason over the summer and I think it's, it's useful to get those kinds of insights from people who have served with the president in, in the past. Okay. What do we not know? I mean, I guess I guess in your space, you know, there's so much, but, but what do, what do we not know about China that we need to know? Like what, if you could pick one thing and say I could get access to this sort of set of, of, of facts or information, this is what I would want to know that we don't know about China, what's most important?

- I think what would be most important for me as an analyst of China security and defense policy would be to understand what is driving all the PLA purchase. Because if we know why certain people are being purged, whether it's mainly for loyalty issues, for competent issue, competency issues or disagreement and policy issues, we would have a better sense of both where the pla A is going, but also she thinking priorities.

- Yeah, I agree with you. And even not being a, a sort of military security specialist, I would love to, I would put that close to the top of my list of things I'd wanna know as well. Okay. Now let's pretend that you are sitting at the right hand of President Trump and you have served in the defense department before. What advice would you give him? Like what's again, top of mind for you as you're looking at US policy and and security policy toward, toward China? What would you say this is the number one thing that you really need to do?

- I think that's a really difficult question. I guess maybe the one thing that we really should be doing is trying to capitalize on Chinese mistakes. And I think recently China made a pretty big move with all its rare earth export controls. And I think, I mean, of course President Trump has been going around to various allies and partners trying to secure more rare earth fields working with our allies and partners. But I think this mistake is actually one that could unify us with our all partners a lot more and we should be capitalizing it to make, make sure to showcase to the Chinese that they overplay their hand and if they play this again, which I think they're going to continue to do, it's going to only unify us with our allies and partners more because this is, there's a lot of ways in which China's trying to divide us from our closest allies and partners, but this one tool that China is using is something that all of our closest allies and partners are really, really worried about.

- So is your suggestion that we sort of broaden the range of issues on which we're working with our allies and partners to demonstrate this, you know, cooperation and collaboration? Or is it that we find new ways in this space around rare earth elements to cooperate?

- I think both, definitely both. We do see the Trump administration on security front, particularly at the secretary level doing a lot more with our allies and partners. But at the presidential level we also see President Trump emphasizing that. But when it comes to US China relations, it's quite puzzling to me that President Trump does not seem to mention security issues directly with CDP.

- Yeah, right. That's a that's a good point. I mean, I guess the most recent meeting was really just about the trade issue, which we know is his number one priority, but it is important that we see Secretary Hegseth out there. I think as you're referencing in a number of occasions, frankly, over the past several months, really talking about the challenge that China presents in the region and the importance of all of our allies and partners stepping up and, and working together. So I yeah, I agree with you. All right. Then last, on a scale of one to 10, we have a, a sort of summit meeting coming up in Beijing in April. On a scale of one to 10, what do you think is the likelihood that we have a new, you know, Nixon mao moment between President Trump and President Xi Jinping, some real breakthrough in the US China relationship

- In April, 2026 or, or during Trump's tenure?

- Okay, well, all right, I was thinking April, 2026, but let's, let's we can, we can include all of, all of President Trump's in the next three years.

- Okay. I think April, 2026 is 2%, I don't wanna say zero, but 2%. Okay, let's give it some optimism there. But under Trump president Trump's tenure, maybe the maximum 30 40%, but that's really high and that might be very optimistic. I, I give it, I think it's high because I think President Trump has big ambitions and wants to have some form of deal with China, as with as with any other country. And his use of the term G two to characterize his recent meeting with Xi thinking, I think showcases that desire. I think it's low on the 30% because I don't think she is interested in doing that. When you talk about, for example, Mao Nixon, China was in completely different place during the Cold War that China was the weaker of three powers and was looking to increase its hand and leverage against a Soviet Union that it viewed as its large main adversary right now, China views United States as our, as its main adversary, main competitor. So it's, I don't think she's necessarily, she's interest to have this grand deal with President Trump, even if he wants one, because I think she wants to be number one. So

- That I think is an important point, but maybe I just suggest that if that big deal involves somehow trading out Taiwan security, she might be interested in that deal.

- I think he might be interested in that deal. And I think there, that's why I do did have the percentage around 30 because I do think President Trump would probably be interested in a deal like that because as if you look at his first, almost first year, he has really prided himself in stopping wars, preventing wars from happening. And if you think about a, a effort that could win him the Nobel Peace Prize, I think Taiwan would be high up there.

- Yes. Although I don't really think that trading out Taiwan is going to get him the Nobel Peace Prize, but I think, I'm pretty sure the Nobel Committee is not, would not, would not reward President Trump with the Nobel Peace Prize if for he said, we are no longer going to sell arms to Taiwan and we support unification with the mainland immediately. I don't, I don't, I don't think that the Nobel committee would, would give him that. But anyway,

- So I think his argument would probably be he's preventing war between us and China and that's why he might think so. I'm not, I'm not arguing whether that's true or not. I'm just saying like looking at his logic, I think he would want that to be solving the most, the issue between the United States and China that can most, that would most likely bring the two sides to war and anytime in the future.

- Okay, well this is what I have to say, Bonny. I'm gonna have you on every year at this time and we can assess your answer to that question and see whether, whether things have moved along, you know, in that, in that direction or not. But really, I wanna thank you just for a fantastic discussion and you know, your mastery, both of the big picture and the details is really incredible. And so thank you for sharing all of that with us today.

- Oh, thank you very much, Liz, for having me on. And it's always a pleasure to be in the same platform as you.

- So if you enjoyed this podcast and want to hear more recent discourse and debate on China, I encourage you to subscribe to China considered via the Hoover Institution YouTube channel, or the podcast platform of your choice.