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--:-- Host: In a movement to discourage Chinese military aggression, leaders from the U.S., U.K., and Australia recently announced a new defense pact that will give Australia nuclear submarines. The move comes as China has ramped up its presence on the global stage, including its influence in the Middle East and Russia.
--:-- Host: In this episode, we talk with China expert David Goldman about the latest developments related to China's military threat and the West's attempt to thwart it.
--:-- Host: It's March 19th, and this is a Sunday Extra Edition of Morning Wire.
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--:-- Host: Joining us now is David Goldman, a Claremont Fellow and Deputy Editor of Asia Times. Welcome, David.
--:-- David Goldman: Thanks for having me on the show.
--:-- Host: So this week, prime ministers from Australia and the UK met with President Biden in San Diego and announced the AUKUS Defense Pact, which is 18 months after the partnership was announced. Can you tell us a bit about this pact?
--:-- David Goldman: The United States, the UK, and Australia have proposed to enhance allied naval capability in the Pacific and the South China Sea in particular in order to improve Australia's position against an increasingly powerful China. And to that effect, the United States has agreed to provide submarine technology to Australia, although exactly what the military thinking behind it might be used to me is still a bit unclear.
--:-- David Goldman: Do we know what specific types of submarines they're offering?
--:-- Host: They're proposing to build nuclear submarines.
--:-- David Goldman: Originally, the idea had been diesel-electric submarines. The Australians had contracted the French to do that. They walked out in the French deal to the great chagrin of the French and proposed to buy them from the United States instead.
--:-- David Goldman: The news that's made the headlines is that Australia will get nuclear submarines, but according to President Biden, will not get nuclear weapons. Exactly what the military function of a nuclear submarine without nuclear weapons is not at all clear, so a great deal of this seems to be more symbolic than practical from the standpoint of buildup of American and allied forces.
--:-- Host: How has China responded to this deal?
--:-- David Goldman: China has said that this has put the Allies on the path of error and danger, and they in fact accused the United States of violating the Nuclear Non Treaty by transferring nuclear weapons to a non-power, namely Australia. In response to which the United States said that no nuclear weapons are intended at all, which again, to my view, makes the exercise somewhat less interesting from a strategic standpoint.
--:-- Host: A handful of nuclear submarines in a very large area of ocean are not going to do much to challenge China's control of its coast, say, out to a thousand miles.
--:-- David Goldman: So we're seeing here Australia ramping up defense spending. We also saw Japan increase its military spending to the highest level since World War II.
--:-- Host: What do China's future military capabilities look like, and why is it so concerning to multiple nations now?
--:-- David Goldman: Well, China has massively invested in coastal defense. The People's Liberation Army as a land army is one of the most under-invested military forces in the world. It's a very poor fighting force.
--:-- David Goldman: However, the Chinese have about 2,000 land-based missiles, most of them surface-to-ship missiles, and an enormously expanded satellite capability, which, according to the Pentagon's November 2022 report, makes it possible for them to precision target ships well into the Western Pacific. We're talking about more than 1,000 miles from their coast. That's a formidable capability.
--:-- David Goldman: China has also been rapidly modernizing its fighter fleet. It has at least 800 fourth and fifth generation fighters. Since they've never fought with them, we don't know how good they are. There's mixed opinion, but I think the consensus of the Pentagon is that what they're flying now is pretty good, and they've got some very good long-range air-to-air missiles.
--:-- Host: So their defensive capabilities on their coast are a serious obstacle to anyone who would want to tangle them without a thousand miles.
--:-- David Goldman: And of course, Taiwan is only 90 miles from the Chinese coast, which makes it very challenging for the United States at a very great distance to defend Taiwan against China's home court advantage.
--:-- Host: You mentioned Taiwan. They're very happy about this deal with Australia. Could the Defense Pact actually help deter China from invading Taiwan?
--:-- David Goldman: I don't think that a handful of nuclear submarines are going to make a great deal of difference. China is less likely to invade Taiwan than to blockade it and try to force it into submission.
--:-- David Goldman: Having more submarines gives us the capability to try to interrupt the blockade, particularly on the western side of Taiwan, away from Chinese missiles and planes. Nonetheless, from the standpoint of running a blockade, we're talking about a relatively small number of boats. The Chinese have roughly 60 diesel-electric submarines which are much cheaper, they're much quieter than nuclear submarines, much harder to detect, and those are pretty good relatively close to a home base.
--:-- David Goldman: The advantage of a nuclear submarine is can go anywhere it wants and sand or water virtually indefinitely. But I'm not sure that as a blockade breaker, nuclear submarines are necessarily the most effective instruments.
--:-- Host: So I think this will have a marginal effect at best on defending Taiwan.
--:-- David Goldman: Now China also seems to be building up their political influence as well. We just saw them serve as mediator between Saudi Arabia and Iran eventually leading to the two making a deal.
--:-- Host: How does this deal work in China's favor?
--:-- David Goldman: China has a very basic interest in the Middle East. It is the largest buyer of oil from the Persian Gulf, and any interruption of the flow of oil due to, for example, a war between Saudi Arabia and Iran would be devastating for the Chinese economy.
--:-- David Goldman: So China has an interest in preventing the two from fighting. It also has a very ambitious and, to my view, impressive campaign to promote its broadband technology, its 5G networks, and the artificial intelligence and other applications that go with them.
--:-- David Goldman: It's basically offered to build an entirely new digital economy for Saudi Arabia, including whole new cities powered by AI-enabled solar power cloud computing networks and so forth.
--:-- David Goldman: So partly as a way of expanding its technological capability, partly to secure its oil supplies, and partly, of course, to enhance its prestige, China managed to lever a very weak military position in the Middle East into a very powerful political position, which I think rests ultimately on soft power, that is, economic power.
--:-- Host: As a footnote, China has between 1,000 and 2,000 military personnel in the Middle East at one base in Djibouti. We have, by my count, at least 30,000.
--:-- David Goldman: America's military footprint is much greater, but our ability to export digital infrastructure is, of course, much weaker than China's.
--:-- Host: So I think we're seeing the political impact of China's leadership in 5G and related technologies, which are of great importance to people like the Saudis and the Emirates.
--:-- Host: Related to this idea that they're trying to expand their political influence, we have Chinese President Xi planning to meet with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. This follows a 12-point plan the Chinese put forth for peace.
--:-- David Goldman: I think it's neither good nor bad, but exactly the opposite. I think it's irrelevant for the time being.
--:-- David Goldman: China would certainly urge Zelensky to make concessions to Russia, which the Ukraine has no intention of making at the moment. And China will certainly not try to press Russia to remove all of its troops.
--:-- Host: So I think this is a show of prestige, which will not have any important outcome at all.
--:-- David Goldman: I think China is in the odd position of wanting to keep Russia strong as a counterweight to the West, but not wanting to see the Ukraine war spiral out of control to the point, for example, that there might be use of nuclear weapons.
--:-- Host: So they have a mixed view on this, and I don't think Xi will accomplish anything at all in Ukraine.
--:-- David Goldman: But since the Biden administration at this point will not accept any deal which leaves a significant amount of Ukrainian territory in Russian hands, then I think the China-Ukraine proposal is going to be irrelevant.
--:-- Host: So I think that the administration will ignore it. And there's really nothing specific to respond to.
--:-- Host: We've seen multiple reports, sometimes conflicting, about what exactly China is providing to Russia in terms of the war.
--:-- David Goldman: What we know thanks to some excellent reporting from the Wall Street Journal and others is that a very large amount of Chinese technology, including chips, dual-use drones, other electronic components, are making their way to Russia, not directly from China, but mainly through intermediaries like Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Uzbekistan, and so forth.
--:-- David Goldman: Turkey's exports to Russia have tripled in the past year, and China's exports to Turkey have also more or less tripled, and the charts look pretty much identical.
--:-- Host: So Turkey and others are doing a land office business by supplying Russia with components that feed their military industry.
--:-- David Goldman: There's no evidence that China is sending weapons to Iran. Quanticopters don't quite count as weapons, although they can be used for certain military functions.
--:-- Host: I don't think the Chinese want to stick their neck out and incite Western sanctions or some kind of deterioration of relations with the United States to help the Russians.
--:-- David Goldman: I don't think the Russians really need that. Remember, China is a massive buyer of weapons from Russia. Russia has never been a significant buyer of weapons from China.
--:-- Host: So, so far, Russia's economy has been pretty much in an even keel. The IMF expects to groan this year. Their military industry has been grinding out a lot of material. They don't seem to have desperate shortages.
--:-- David Goldman: So I don't think China has any reason to go beyond this arrangement.
--:-- Host: We may not like it, and we've complained to the Turks about it, but it's not clear that we have any means of stopping it.
--:-- Host: Final question. Do you feel that there are any key issues that are under the radar or underreported about the global threat posed by China?
--:-- David Goldman: I think the key issue with China is that by massively concentrating resources into a critical technology, which is transformative for many countries, namely digital infrastructure, that's Huawei's leading role in 5G development and related things, China has developed an enormous amount of goodwill and soft power, particularly in Asia and to some extent in Latin America and Africa as well.
--:-- David Goldman: We saw, for example, just today that Honduras is considering breaking diplomatic relations with Taiwan. It was one of the very few countries that recognized Taiwan and instead switching its diplomatic ties to Beijing.
--:-- Host: I don't think that's unrelated to the enormous investment which China has made in digital expansion and other infrastructure in Honduras and other Latin American countries.
--:-- David Goldman: So I think we've vastly underestimated how important China's soft power is and what a disadvantage it is for the United States not to have its own technology to sell to the world.
--:-- Host: And that's something we need to think about changing seriously.
--:-- Host: David, thank you for joining us.
--:-- David Goldman: Thank you for having me.
--:-- Host: That was David Goldman, a Claremont Fellow and Deputy Editor of Asia Times, and this has been a Sunday Extra Edition of Morning Wire.
