中間王國

AEI scholar and China expert Oriana Skylar Mastro joins The Remnant to help us all ...

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AEI scholar and China expert Oriana Skylar Mastro joins The Remnant to help us all understand the “Middle Kingdom” and its moves on the world stage. At a time like this, where the U.S. is retreating from its global responsibilities, how is China going to try to spin this into a positive outcome for themselves? Oriana has some ideas.


Show Notes:

–Oriana’s latest insights on China

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  1. Nick Imbo

    Great podcast, please have her back in a year or so after she finishes her research re: China and Russia!

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    WKDawson

    Thanks for putting this up and I'm glad you asked for some frank and genuine answers, rather than the useless political stuff. I was surprised you didn't ask anything about the so-called "trade war", but I can kind of predict her answer.

    In general, living in Japan as I do, I can basically agree with Ms. Skylar Mastro's assessment. She has the general sense right and that was really good advice on priorities. Because "democracy" has largely become a political meme, even I had missed the point that China would be doing what it is doing regardless of whether it were authoritarian or a democracy. That was my biggest "wake up" take away, and a useful reminder about how to assess these things.

    ... Great line at the end in Chinese.

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  3. PM

    The guest should have said: "Chinese Dispatch Now!"

    It was good to hear the obvious stated that China isn't about to roll over to Democracy anytime soon.

    Hopefully it will sink in that encouraging China to be the "world Factory" is not in American or other nations' interests.

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    Victor Clairmont

    Sorry all, but Guy Benson (caught it from David French Twitter) just linked an article showing China has seized 60 square KM from India (both over a billion people and both nuclear powers) and annexed it. Unless you do consider India Part of clearly China in it’s “regional” aspiration....

    It’s not gonna be content with regional stuff. Sorry to the speaker who had many valid points. (It’s pay walled)

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/12/china-annexes-60-square-km-india-ladakh-simmering-tensions-erupt/

    So yeah, Mao Zedong took a piece of India the size of Switzerland in the 1960ties, now Xi Jinging has taken land just the same almost 70 years later.

    *tuts own horn of being right* I still mix up my oceans though. :(

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    The Bell Tower

    Thanks for this one. My wife being born and raised and Shanghai, any small insight into the culture gives me "Aha!" moments that are easily worth the price of my subscription here.

    I thought Oriana's perspective on China was Orwellian, and I don't mean in the strict dystopian sense people mean when they say that word today. I mean, modern China sounds very much like Eastasia from the book, where they're invoking a sort of Monroe Doctrine of Asia but also, how she refuted Jonah's (and, alas, many Americans') common belief that the people might someday object to autocracy - especially thanks to upward mobility. This sounds similar to Winston's earnest hope that the proles will someday topple the Party and OBrien's ready to response to that aspiration. Depressing.

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    Kevin Johnson

    Really good, Jonah. Refreshing to have an expert on a huge and complex issue so ready to say, “not sure,” “don’t know” and “it’s complicated.”
    FYI, their is an org called “Community of Democracies” which dreamed of doing something like what you regularly mention. Madeleine Albright helped found it. I suspect it does little of importance or more people would have heard about it. There is a web site should you be interested.
    I like your idea of having a more selective group of “decent” (democracies or not) countries to do things the UN can’t, but it isn’t very practical. Domestically, a significant minority on the left don’t think the US has ever been a decent country, either at home or abroad, and would not want the U.S. leading anything. They have long argued that many of the things wrong abroad are the fault of the U.S. This predates the idiot in chief and I interacted with loads of these folk over 30 years as a diplomat. A significant minority on the right has always wanted less foreign entanglement, not more; this may be a majority now. Abroad, while it is possible to agree on WORDS supporting agreed definitions of decency, democracy, etc. (lots of ink spilled saying such things) it is not possible to get most countries to ACT on such principles except when it is in their interests. It IS possible, when/if the U.S. is willing and able to lead again, to strengthen alliances which, more or less, promote international peace, order, and decency. NATO and it’s extended network of friendly countries helps marginally. But even there we have Turkey, which is not decent at all any more. An assertive U.S. can help create broad coalitions (and ad hoc ones as needed) once we regain some credibility, I think, but more than that is too much to hope for. In the meantime, we should continue to call out international organizations which don’t work or actually harm our interests, and seek reform where we deem it possible.

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  7. es

    Anyone else not finding this episode in Apple podcasts for some reason?

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    Victor Clairmont

    Great podcast, but I find the reasoning of China only wanting to be a hegemon in Asia dubious. Did Hitler stop at Poland? Was Stalin content with the Baltic’s? Since when did a regime that is evil, ever stop it’s insatiable appetite? In fact, we know historically China will not stop with uniting just Asian countries under it. In 1962, Mao Zedong invaded the northeast mountains of India and took a swab of territory the size of Switzerland and occupies it till this day. Let’s not also mention the recent border dispute where they AGAIN crossed troops into disputed borders and started building there. Historically, China invaded Japan twice, but literally one of the invasions failed (Mongol invasion in the 13th century) because a hurricane came and destroyed their ships. It’s where the word, kamikaze comes from (translation: God/Divine Wind). Of course japan invaded China also, and they both invaded and occupied Korea. Even the Sino-Russian wars were fought, and if America wasn’t the over arching power I guarantee Russia and China would be happy to fight each other over old grievances. Just because generals or the population say one thing, doesn’t mean the communist party won’t do another. Remember: Legalism, one of the primary rules of old school thought (a rule of laws and justice not apealing to the supernatural but being ruthlessly rational) predates Machiavelli by more than a thousand years which Emperor Qin Shi Huang would use as a legal method to rule China after cutting down by the hundreds of thousands Chinese people to crush states and create the Qin dynasty. Just because China doesn’t have an Tyrannical Monarch today, doesn’t mean it isn’t an Empire of Lies.

    But hey, one person dying is a tragedy. A million dying? That’s a statistic.

    Other than that, she was an amazing guest! Bring her back when you can.

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      James Spiller

      Her argument, which I agree with was that unlike Russian ambitions, Chinese ambitions were regional. I’m not sure how it refutes that to say that Russian ambitions are global. Nor Hitler, for that matter. Nor does it appear to refute it to note that China has demonstrated regional ambitions.
      Regional ambitions aren’t trivial; China has defeated America in conventional warfare fighting for Korea, something no other power has done (arguably in the defeat of the invasion of Canada, but even that wasn’t as clear). If China were to take Taiwan, it would be, to put it mildly, a big deal. Worse even than taking parts of Ukraine. Japan would be a bigger deal still (The sword of Damocles over them after a reabsorption of Taiwan would be one of the bigger impacts). I don’t get the impression that they want Korea today, but if they took Japan their appetite would develop.

      But China has very little ability to project force around the world because it hasn’t been interested in it. It doesn’t buy newspapers like Russia does. It doesn’t engage in foreign genocides for cash and power. It’s just not interested in that stuff (it’s not like they’re spectacularly helpful to those in need, either. They are interested in avoiding foreign criticism, and they want to have the UN grease the wheels of various things, so they buy a lot of third world government support, but the difference between their paradigm and that of other concerning regimes is an important one that was worth outlining.

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        Victor Clairmont

        Maybe I am misunderstanding projecting force around the world here. In the Pacific Islands, such as Jamaica, China has practiced Eastern Imperialism. They built the federal highway there and rob the Jamaican people blind. The corrupt officials are okay with Chinese infrastructure built there because of corruption. They bring in Chinese workers, and don’t even hire the locals to work . Their building projects are all throughout the pacific islands, and they can squeeze them for endorsements and all for interest rates when it comes to lending. This is projecting economic force. One third of all China’s resources and trade comes from Africa. They let countries borrow money that they know they won’t be able to pay back (corrupt politicians are happy to take money and not care about their people, in example again the Caribbean, Haiti), and then make these smaller nations far more pliable to them. If you’re argument is Hard force(military) I would agree mostly if we are talking about the navy (except for you know, the whole occupying Japan’s sea and installing artificial islands). But it is clear that they have used hard hard force/power with their military outside of strictly Asian countries, which is why I cited India. They invaded it for goodness sakes and occupied land that they took till this day. And they force able moves into disputed India borders and started building there. The Communist Party. That’s not staying regional. No matter what they say their regional aspirations are now, once consolidated they will move beyond. What they say and what they do are completely two different things.

        Also, don’t forget, if it was truly only a regional thing, why worry about building a navy to contest us? They have spent billions soon to be trillions on preparing their navy. Why? We do not harass Chinese trade ships moving around the world. They could sit there for the next three decades and America would not touch their ships and they would continue to pull in profit. It’s because they know in the future that might makes right. And they do not intend to be an equal super power to the US. They intend to replace us.

        So, I completely disagree with the speaker just on this point. As for buying newspapers, no, they just buy chairs in universities and donate money for Confucius schools that then teach classes making the Communist party seem a-ok (The federal government has been cracking down on them). We have had several high profile researchers from Harvard and other grad schools caught working secretly with China and being arrested (you’ve probably seen the headlines in the New York Times). Yes, they want to fill the United Nations and pass policy in their interests regionally. But clearly their goals will be and is to go beyond that.

        So I disagree with you here my friend.

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          James Spiller

          So, yes, I meant hard/ military force. I mentioned their interest in buying governments, but for the most part they do that through relatively straightforward and honest commercial relations.

          It is true that they are trying to use higher ed to get a benefit, with various spies etc. That isn’t particularly externally focused, although the military tech obviously has external relevance.

          It is true that they fund Confucius Institutes, such that if one wants to learn PRC propaganda, one can, but the scope of that is relatively small. This week the President tweeted out a Russian sourced conspiracy theory about an elderly protester. His opponents were sending out a popular Russian video of the same protester intended to cast the police in the worst light. That sort of total capture of purely domestic political space happens all the time with Russia. It essentially never happens with China, which mostly only interests itself with opposing complaints about China.

          India has a border with China. Conflict that is literally on China’s border is about as close to a defining example of regional as I can imagine. It appears that you were saying that Indians are not Asian. As someone eligible for a form of Indian citizenship, I can assure you that that is not the dominant position of either Indians nor the rest of the world.

          On the other hand, few people believe that Jamaica is in the Pacific.

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            Victor Clairmont

            Hah, correct on the Pacific islanders point. I should have said Caribbean and not mixed up my oceans. Apologies. As for the India/Asia model, that's old British thinking and categorizing no? Also, if we are including it as the Indian population (Asian), that makes the situation worse: they want India for regional hegemony.

            Again, thank you for the correction. My brain farted. Apologies.

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    Mike Trainum

    Wonderful podcast! Unfortunately it won’t load in Apple podcast app so it cuts out every two or three minutes on sub-stacks player and must be restarted manually each time. I’ve unsubscribed. I’ll miss you...

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  10. Ronnie Bean

    I found this podcast fascinating. It’s certainly one of the top five remnants, IMO. I work in the semiconductor industry and so my livelihood depends on trade with China. Even so, I’ve long worried that as we teach them about our technology (or they just learn by stealing) we are simply strengthening an evil government.

    The guest, I believe, finally put the last nail in the coffin of the idea that China will take the road from prosperity to freedom.

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      James Spiller

      I’m pretty sure I’ve listened to them all with the exception of 11, and I agree with your ranking. Very good indeed.

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