Full Comment - Preparing for war with China over Taiwan

00:00:00.000 Hi everyone, welcome to the latest episode of Full Comet. I'm Anthony Fury. Don't forget to

00:00:07.080 subscribe to this show to learn when new episodes are posted. I'd like to start today's show with

00:00:11.340 throwing out a few provocative phrases. World War III. A new Cold War. Cyber warfare. Amphibious

00:00:21.020 land invasion. Uh-oh, Fury's been reading the Tom Clancy again. Well, no, that's actually not it.

00:00:26.160 I've been reading essays and journals like Foreign Affairs magazine, top journals, articles by very

00:00:31.160 prominent people, and those phrases that I just said, well, they are increasingly appearing in that

00:00:37.080 type of work. At least when it comes to the issue of the South China Sea, what's going on there in

00:00:42.400 that area right now concerning China and Taiwan. Our guest today is Professor Scott Simon. He's

00:00:49.240 co-chair of Taiwan Studies at the University of Ottawa, and he lived in the island nation of 25

00:00:53.740 million people for 10 years. He joins us now to break down this whole issue for us. Professor,

00:00:59.960 welcome to the podcast. Good. Thank you for inviting me today. Yeah, thanks so much for coming

00:01:04.820 by, Scott. And, you know, right when I just, in saying that introduction there, I said, island nation,

00:01:08.960 that's how I described Taiwan. I thought, uh-oh, you know, if Xi Jinping's listening on his Huawei

00:01:12.780 device right now, I've already upset them. You know, even just by describing Taiwan as its own 0.92

00:01:18.740 country, sometimes you ruffle some feathers. Well, that's, in fact, what is, that's the fact.

00:01:25.360 You know, Taiwan is an independent sovereign country. Its official name is the Republic of

00:01:31.040 China ever since 1952. But it's never been ruled by the People's Republic of China. Xi Jinping has

00:01:38.900 nothing to do with Taiwan, and so it is definitely an independent country. And yet we're in a situation

00:01:43.640 right now where, you know, to your point, they've got their own currency, they have a national anthem,

00:01:46.820 they have a president that's elected, and she was re-elected just the other year. And yet you go to

00:01:51.500 the United Nations, and you, you know, you follow, I guess they're in alphabetical order, and you get

00:01:54.600 to T, oh, no, Taiwan. And you get to this other international body, they're not there. And sometimes

00:01:59.320 when you're even at an airport, and it's telling you where it's landing and so forth, and the flight

00:02:03.080 says it's going to Taipei, but it doesn't always even say Taiwan. Somehow it just says China. And you go,

00:02:08.440 what on earth is going on? How can that be, Scott? Well, you know, if you look at the Air Canada

00:02:13.240 website and buy your ticket, it's going to say Taipei province of China. And what's going on is

00:02:20.000 that China has for a very long time, been putting pressure on the world to pretend that Taiwan is

00:02:28.540 already part of China. And they hope that they kind of twist everybody's arms. And so that if there is 0.95

00:02:33.760 a conflict, people will just stand by and be confused. Right. So to bring it back to basics,

00:02:39.560 though, why is this even happening in the first place? This typically does not happen where one

00:02:45.320 country tries to convince the rest of the world that another country is just a part of them.

00:02:50.000 Where did this come from? What are the origins of it? Well, you know, where did this come from is

00:02:54.840 that Taiwan used to be part of Japan. And then after World War II, there was a treaty called the San

00:03:04.200 Francisco Peace Treaty in 1952. That's why I just said 1952 just now. And in Canada, there was a party

00:03:10.360 to this. And the different countries that were in this peace negotiation about Japan, Japan was not

00:03:18.020 there, had some disagreements about what would happen to Taiwan. And so Canada said, well, why don't

00:03:23.200 we just not say anything? And so at that time, the People's Republic of China had already been

00:03:30.520 existing, had been in existence for three years. Chiang Kai-shek with his Republic of China had

00:03:35.440 already been on Taiwan for seven years. They were occupying it on behalf of the allies with whom they

00:03:41.440 fought in World War II. And so what happened then is Japan subsequently signed a treaty with the Republic

00:03:49.040 of China. And so that, along with the US getting involved in the militarily in the Taiwan Straits

00:03:55.600 in the beginning of the 50s, kept Taiwan as an independent country. But it never was part of China.

00:04:01.040 And China has ever since then had it as their goal to someday absorb Taiwan or annex Taiwan into its own

00:04:10.160 territory. And so where I come off using these phrases like World War III and all of that, and while

00:04:17.040 you're hearing more people talk about those possibilities, and there's a great novel out,

00:04:20.720 well, maybe not a great novel, a tragic novel called 2034, where a former head of the American

00:04:26.400 Navy, an admiral there, talking about how a conflict could materialize there, all that comes from

00:04:31.680 is the use of the phrase reunification, and how Xi Jinping says, all right, we got Hong Kong,

00:04:37.520 we got Tibet, we got Taiwan, they're all a part of China proper, and China's destiny, 0.70

00:04:44.560 its dignity is not going to be whole until we get all these guys back in the family.

00:04:49.680 Well, basically, every time we use that word reunification, we're falling into that trap,

00:04:54.560 because we're using the words that they want us to use. So we should be very honest about this.

00:05:00.080 China wants to annex Taiwan. And it's every bit as absurd as if the United States wanted to take

00:05:06.720 Newfoundland. It's just unacceptable. And we have to be honest about that, which many times the

00:05:14.160 world has not been honest about. And I can see where companies might be able to fall to pressure,

00:05:20.720 you know, Air Canada, what would happen if they turned down China?

00:05:23.040 Right. You know, and I guess the challenge with all of this, you go, Fury, why are you using the phrase

00:05:30.560 amphibious invasion? Well, because we learned in recent news reports that China's actually bragged about the

00:05:35.520 fact that in a province just across the Taiwan Strait, which is that small body of water that

00:05:40.240 separates the island of Taiwan from mainland China, that they've said, well, we've actually been

00:05:45.120 practicing amphibious invasions, we've been practicing land invasions. Well, hold on a second.

00:05:49.040 That's like, you know, that's what Hitler was talking about doing across the English Channel. 0.82

00:05:52.400 Or of course, you know, this is the scenes in Dunkirk and so forth. You're like,

00:05:55.200 China's actually talking about prepping, doing that sort of stuff.

00:05:59.600 That's right. I think we have to face the fact that the China that we see in the world right now 0.99

00:06:05.200 is a China which is very similar to what Hitler's Germany was at one time.

00:06:10.320 And they don't have gas chambers, but they do have some very serious types of concentration camps or

00:06:18.400 detention camps with the Uyghur. And they are planning some kind of an attack, if necessary, 0.96

00:06:25.040 on Taiwan. They are sending out signs. They just sent some naval ships with Russia,

00:06:32.560 10 ships in total through straits belonging to Japan to show that they have the military force.

00:06:38.960 They're preparing for this amphibious landing. They sent over 150 airplanes, military planes,

00:06:44.640 into Taiwan's air defense identification zone in October alone, most of them in the first four days.

00:06:52.000 So they're sending a lot of signs. Now, a lot of signs doesn't mean that World War III is imminent.

00:06:57.440 But what it means is that there's a possibility. And I think that the world has to really

00:07:02.800 unify and do what it can, not just to deter war, but to prevent it and make it unthinkable.

00:07:09.920 So we have to make it clear to China that the costs are very high.

00:07:12.960 Scott, you surprised me a little bit, though, with the invocation of Hitler. Because,

00:07:17.120 you know, I've heard a lot of people say some really strong worded stuff about Xi Jinping and

00:07:20.960 everything going on in that region. And I know you're someone who's, you know, you teach on this

00:07:24.560 issue, you study on it, you've reflected on it a lot. I mean, I haven't heard anybody really make

00:07:28.000 that invocation yet. But, you know, you're certainly unapologetically laying out the case.

00:07:32.560 Well, you know, people are afraid to go down that path. But I think quite a bit about the

00:07:39.440 Sudetenland when Chamberlain went and negotiated with Hitler for a piece of territory, saying that

00:07:46.080 we're going to have peace in our time, we're going to let them have this little piece of the Czech 1.00

00:07:49.680 territory, and then we'll be fine. And I think that there are some leaders in the world who believe

00:07:56.800 that by letting China have their way with Taiwan, that they can avoid war. But what happened after

00:08:03.840 Hitler took to the Sudetenland is he turned on the rest of Europe. And I think that should be a warning 0.64

00:08:08.480 for us. And that's the spirit in which I'm saying that we must be very open-eyed about the dangers in

00:08:14.320 front of us and realize that if we negotiate away Taiwan or let Taiwan become part of China,

00:08:21.440 China, then the risk is even higher that China will go elsewhere. And we have to be serious about

00:08:30.720 the fact that China also claims part of Japan and they claim part of India. And they claim the whole

00:08:37.840 South China Sea. Well, hold on a second. They claim part of India? They claim part of India. They claim

00:08:44.000 the entire state of Arunachal Pradesh, which has one million people, all of whom are citizens of the

00:08:52.240 Republic of India. How serious are they with these claims? Well, they're right now amassing troops on

00:08:58.720 the border of India. So when you say World War III, I would like to say that's nonsense. But if they're

00:09:08.400 amassing troops on the border with India, and they're threatening Taiwan, and they're using

00:09:14.160 grave zone tactics against Japan, and they're allying themselves with Russia, as we just saw

00:09:20.160 between Honshu and Hokkaido, it looks like this is not imminent. We're not talking about the next two

00:09:28.800 years. But it does show that there is a threat on the horizon. What does Prime Minister Narendra Modi

00:09:34.960 have to say about these incursions? Well, I appreciate they're not incursions yet. Although

00:09:38.480 I know there have been a couple of weird conflicts between a few soldiers here and there. But what

00:09:42.000 does he have to say about those claims on the amassing of troops? Well, they've never accepted

00:09:47.040 those claims, and they are amassing troops on their side of the border too. And there was a conflict.

00:09:52.720 Actually, the soldiers got into a fight, and some people got killed. And so that is also a

00:09:59.040 serious issue to take a close look at. I guess the question is, in what way do we need to be

00:10:09.840 prepared for this? Because there's so many people who I think are unaware of the severity of the

00:10:16.400 situation. You know, there are times when I'll be writing my columns, or I'll be on this podcast,

00:10:21.680 or the radio programs, and people write back, and they just say like, oh, well, you know,

00:10:25.360 why do you hate China? And you know, it's such a great country, these people are so great, you know,

00:10:28.960 my community, man, I mean, whoa, whoa, that is not what we're talking about at all here. And we're

00:10:32.320 talking about the geopolitics of the authoritarian communist regime of Xi Jinping, and their motivations

00:10:37.680 that to your point, they have clearly articulated. And I think a lot of people aren't even there at the

00:10:41.600 101 basics, let alone the whole, what are we going to do about, you know, okay, yes, talk about Taiwan,

00:10:47.760 what are we even going to do about the India situation, which is clearly something that can mount as

00:10:51.920 well. I mean, I think there's such a gulf between what's really going on. And, and I guess,

00:10:59.520 Western awareness and urgency, at least in the general public, I know that the, you know,

00:11:04.480 the White House is concerned about the South China Sea, but the general public perceptions.

00:11:08.960 Yeah, well, I think the general public needs to get on board with this, because

00:11:12.960 we're going to have to raise our budget for the military.

00:11:16.560 Here in Canada.

00:11:17.200 And that's going to happen around the world. Japan has just announced they're going to raise theirs,

00:11:21.600 they, they tend to peg it to GDP. And so they've decided to raise it from 2% of GDP to 4%. And I

00:11:28.160 think that's a move that Canada should do. And we do need to enforce our naval abilities. Anyway,

00:11:34.160 we really should be reinforcing the Arctic, and buying those submarines. And so we do need to be prepared.

00:11:42.880 And that is also a way of deterring war by showing, by showing China and other rogue states, because

00:11:50.240 China is not the only one, that the world is united. Then even a relatively small military like Canada's

00:12:00.080 has a voice and has a place at the table and can really be supportive and make a difference.

00:12:05.040 Now, Scott, one of the reasons we're talking now is that the rhetoric has really been ratcheted up

00:12:10.960 from Xi Jinping in terms of, I know you said don't use the phrase reunification, but that's the phrase

00:12:15.600 he's using. Rhetoric has really gone up. He said this is inevitable. Now, one doesn't know the timeline

00:12:22.000 that he's thinking of, but we know they're talking about practicing the invasions. And we know something,

00:12:27.040 something we haven't discussed as well yet. There's been well over 100 incursions into their airspace

00:12:33.760 recently, into Taiwan's airspace. They've got bombers, fighter jets from China's People's

00:12:39.520 Liberation Army, really buzzing into Taiwan's airspace. And that's a thing that really has

00:12:44.800 not been happening to the extent and volume it's happening right now in pretty much ever.

00:12:50.720 Well, I think we have to kind of step back there because they haven't been going into Taiwan's 0.71

00:12:54.880 airspace. It's a technical difference here, but it's a very important thing.

00:12:59.040 Right. Yeah. Please explain it.

00:13:01.200 Yeah. They're going into Taiwan's air defense identification zone. And what that is, it's a

00:13:07.520 much larger zone in which any aircraft entering that has to identify themselves and what they're

00:13:13.760 doing. And then Taiwan can chase them out if necessary, which is what's happening with these 0.90

00:13:18.720 military jets going into it. So, so far the rhetoric has been notched up in China

00:13:25.760 and there have been more military excursions into the ADIZ, but they have not crossed the median of

00:13:36.160 the Taiwan Strait. So the halfway point between China and Taiwan, and they've not gone over Taiwan

00:13:40.800 territory. And so they kind of know where their limits are right now. And because of that, we can't

00:13:48.160 even be a hundred percent sure that these military flights are aimed only at Taiwan. And so most of

00:13:56.960 them are going Southwest of Taiwan. So between Taiwan and the Philippines, and you know, some of it could

00:14:03.120 be for consumption within China saying, look, we're doing something about all of these issues.

00:14:10.000 The ones around the beginning of the month of October, it might be because Japan and the United States 0.59

00:14:15.200 in Canada and several other countries were doing some military exercises in that part of the world

00:14:20.240 and to show them that we're here too. It could just be practice, but it's also practice for Taiwan,

00:14:27.120 because every time this happens, Taiwan scrambles their jets and gets rid of the ones from China.

00:14:32.400 And so they're getting their practice and they're getting to understand how these Chinese jets work.

00:14:36.960 And so it's also good for their military intelligence as well.

00:14:43.600 Now, I understand the United States, while not officially recognizing Taiwan as a country in

00:14:49.280 terms of formal diplomatic relations and not pushing for them to have a seat at the United Nations,

00:14:54.480 they do have a collaboration with them in terms of selling arms to them. And as we actually just

00:14:58.800 learned the other week, which I'm sure ruffled feathers with China, US Special Forces commanders have

00:15:03.600 been on the ground helping Taiwanese military officials and commanders prepare for whatever

00:15:10.480 may come their way.

00:15:11.920 Yeah. Well, you know, we're talking about the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act. And through that,

00:15:20.320 without having official diplomatic relations with Taiwan, the United States has been very supportive of

00:15:25.440 Taiwan. And in recent years, because of the greater threat from China, it has nothing to do with who's in

00:15:32.080 the White House. But it's because of the actual threat coming from China. They've increased sales 0.93

00:15:38.000 of weapons to Taiwan. And they have been training special forces. But I have a feeling that those

00:15:43.680 training things have been going on for at least 20 years. And I say that because when I was working

00:15:50.400 out in the gym as a grad student in the 1990s, there were Taiwanese military people, young guys,

00:15:56.960 you know, telling me that they've been working out that they've been working recently with American

00:16:01.120 military forces.

00:16:03.040 So something that's been a longstanding issue going on. Will these ties deepen right now?

00:16:08.960 Well, the ties are there. And I think that well, I know the United States policy is to encourage all

00:16:14.800 like minded countries to help them support Taiwan. And the number one thing that they want other

00:16:21.120 countries to do is support giving Taiwan some international space. Right. And they're willing

00:16:26.080 to do all of the diplomatic nicety with China. The, you know, the goal is to encourage China to become 0.94

00:16:33.600 a good player in the international rules-based system. And so they're willing to make some

00:16:41.120 compromises in the way they talk about things publicly. But they want the world to support Taiwan

00:16:47.360 having a, some kind of meaningful participation at the United Nations and international organizations

00:16:54.400 like the International Civil Aviation Organization, the World Health Assembly, and so forth. And,

00:17:00.320 and that's a way of showing China that the world supports Taiwan and will not accept annexation.

00:17:05.600 Right. And I know one of the requests that Taiwan has of Canada right now, and has it of many countries,

00:17:10.400 is that they would like to be signatories, members to the new Pacific trade deal,

00:17:14.560 the whatever it's called now, CPTPP. China is applying to it as well. Taiwan is, I guess,

00:17:20.000 return fires and we're applying to it as well. And they're asking Canada to support their submission.

00:17:25.200 I think that's a very modest request. And is that not something that Canada can get behind?

00:17:30.000 It's a very modest request. And like I said, the world is like, very willing to accommodate China and

00:17:36.640 the way they talk about Taiwan publicly. And so that's why even Taiwan does that they've applied to join as

00:17:43.120 the customs area of Taiwan, the pescadors, Matsu and Jinman. And saying that they're a customs entity

00:17:50.800 rather than a country is their way of signaling that to the world that they don't want to make trouble.

00:17:58.960 They just want to have a place in the world

00:18:01.440 on very practical issues where they can help out. And trade is one of them. We get most of our

00:18:09.760 electronic goods and computers and cell phones and pretty much all of our semiconductor chips that

00:18:14.480 are in all of those things come from Taiwan. What do the people of Taiwan want? How do they see

00:18:20.080 themselves in relationship to China? One thing I found very interesting when I visited Taiwan, going to

00:18:26.000 their national museum is a very interesting experience because, as you know much more than I do, when

00:18:32.560 Chiang Kai-shek and his government would have fled the mainland and gone to Taiwan, they took a lot of the

00:18:38.480 the national treasures of China with them. And the main museum in Taipei has so much of the heritage

00:18:47.120 of China. So all of the tourists actually in that museum are people from mainland China coming

00:18:54.080 to see their own heritage and culture in a Taiwanese museum. So, I mean, these people are very

00:18:59.120 inextricably linked. Yeah. Well, you know, there's a very diverse population in Taiwan.

00:19:05.680 At the end of the World War II, there were 6 million people living there. And then another 1 to 2 million

00:19:11.520 people came as refugees from China because they were fleeing communism. And so I, and then of course,

00:19:17.760 they're indigenous people too. They're about 600,000 indigenous people. And they all have different

00:19:23.040 ways of thinking about their relationship with China. But I think that the one thing that they

00:19:27.440 all have in common is they don't want to be part of the People's Republic of China. They don't want 0.94

00:19:31.120 to be under communist role. And if you look at the surveys, because they do surveys at National

00:19:37.200 Sun Tzu University in Taipei all the time. And consistently, since they started doing these surveys

00:19:42.640 in the 90s, the percentage of people who want to be part of the People's Republic of China is about

00:19:49.120 2%. And the majority of the people say they want to keep the status quo. And that's because they're

00:19:57.040 afraid if they say they want independence, then China will attack.

00:19:59.840 Isn't that crazy, though, for a country that is pretty much already an independent country,

00:20:06.240 anthem currency, all that stuff, democratic elections, for a country to dare to say,

00:20:11.760 we want independence, oh, we're gonna bomb you. I mean, that's not, that's kind of reverse psychology.

00:20:17.440 Yeah, it's completely unacceptable. And in some ways, you know, the United States tries to

00:20:25.360 marginalize Cuba, but they've never said they're going to take it over.

00:20:28.480 Good point. And that's a really good comparison point.

00:20:34.160 It's a comparison I make quite a bit, because what it is, is that the US has tried to marginalize Cuba.

00:20:41.600 And, you know, it's had the economic blockade, and it also tries to, you know, twist the arm of Air

00:20:48.000 Canada and other companies and so forth. And Canada's refused as much as possible to go along with that.

00:20:55.040 And so I think the comparison is very good. Because if we can say no to the United States

00:20:58.880 from time to time, I think we have to learn to say no to the Chinese from time to time as well. 1.00

00:21:02.960 One of the things when I think about Taiwan, and I thought this in my visit there, is, you know,

00:21:07.600 and some people in Canada may say, okay, well, this is a conflict on the other side of the world.

00:21:10.560 And why should I care? And how does it matter to me? And you mentioned the phrase earlier,

00:21:13.120 Scott, of like minded nations. And when I was in Taiwan, even though it's geographically a very

00:21:18.560 different country, and of course, a different language and various different cultural aspects,

00:21:22.800 I felt like there was a lot of similarities and a lot of affinity between Canada and Taiwan in

00:21:27.440 terms of, I don't know, just who we are as sort of middle class values and our democratic systems.

00:21:33.680 I just felt there was kind of a natural kinship. I mean, more similarities than differences.

00:21:39.440 Well, you know, Canada and Taiwan share in common being relatively small, not an area size for Canada,

00:21:45.600 but being relatively small countries next to bigger countries that often are, you know,

00:21:50.720 have some hegemonic influence over them in many ways. And they're very proud of the things that

00:21:55.360 they have. And the things that we have are very much in common. So LGBT rights, indigenous rights,

00:22:01.280 health care. You know, the Taiwan has universal health care, which China doesn't have. And they

00:22:07.760 basically came to Canada, then learned what we do here. And then they improved upon it and instituted that

00:22:13.120 in Taiwan. And so we have quite a bit of things in common with them that, you know, we're liberal

00:22:20.480 democracies. We have a very strong respect for human rights. We've got our charter, they've got

00:22:26.720 their laws too. And so there is an affinity that I think people haven't been there find maybe difficult

00:22:33.200 to imagine. But we are part of one democratic world and we do have an external threat that we have

00:22:40.000 to face together. One of the uncomfortable questions I hear a lot of people ask when it comes to Taiwan

00:22:44.480 and the defense of Taiwan is, is it worth it? They ask, is it worth it for Xi Jinping to do an

00:22:51.280 invasion, to do a quote unquote reunification? And of course, there's debate and disagreement about how

00:22:55.840 serious he is for that. But then there's also the question of, is it actually worth it for the United

00:23:00.960 States to come to Taiwan's defense? And would they actually do it? Well, that's two questions. Is it

00:23:05.920 worth it to China? And I would say no. And the reason is that Taiwan has been investing billions

00:23:12.320 of dollars into China. And that's why China has become so wealthy. So why kill the chicken that's

00:23:19.120 laying the golden eggs, right? So it's really not worth it to China. And that's why I think that the

00:23:24.560 actual threat of a war or an invasion is far down the road. Because I don't think it's really in China's 0.92

00:23:31.680 best interest to start a war. I think that a lot of that is rhetoric for internal consumption.

00:23:38.000 And part of the psychological warfare towards Taiwan, because they want to have some kind 0.91

00:23:42.080 of an annexation by peaceful means. But hold on, it's interesting you say far down the road. And I

00:23:46.800 hear those similar sort of phrases from others. And you're not saying, it's gonna fade away, or it's

00:23:52.000 a thing that's not serious. You say it's far down the road. So there's still an acknowledgement

00:23:55.920 that it is a very viable thing. It's just whether it's immediate or not. It's just whether, you know,

00:24:01.760 you and I are going to be doing the fighting, or whether my kids are going to be doing the fighting.

00:24:04.720 Yeah. Well, actually, I think that we might be alive when it happens. And this is why we have to

00:24:09.360 keep the urgency there. Because there is a possibility. I don't think it's going to happen in

00:24:14.720 the next two, three, maybe five years. But if the world gives signs of weakness to China, 0.55

00:24:21.680 China, then there's a greater possibility of war. And you just asked the other question,

00:24:27.600 what does it mean to us? And I can answer that one. This basically is the center of the world economy.

00:24:34.960 It's where we get our semiconductors from. I think everybody likes their cell phones,

00:24:38.560 and their computers, and their iPads, and so forth. There are 60,000 Canadians living in Taiwan

00:24:44.400 that would have to be evacuated. There are some 200,000 Taiwanese living in Canada,

00:24:50.800 and so there'd be a refugee crisis with all of their relatives coming. And China would no longer

00:24:58.400 be a place where we can go and do business. So the cost of a war is very high for us.

00:25:06.640 Is China currently a place where we can actually viably go and do business?

00:25:11.360 Well, right now it's close to COVID, so it's difficult. But what I'm trying to say is that

00:25:16.160 the cost of war is so high that we have to do everything we can to do, even if it costs more,

00:25:20.960 and we have to raise our military budgets, to prevent war. Don't let it happen in the first place.

00:25:28.400 Because preventing a war is expensive, but it's even more expensive to have a war.

00:25:31.840 I don't think...

00:25:32.720 And the most expensive also lose one. So we have to invest in this.

00:25:36.320 But no, and I take your point. I don't think we have the public appetite in Canada

00:25:42.400 to do that. I think we learn the lessons before they're too late. And I think we also, well,

00:25:47.760 we clearly have this sort of administrative, bureaucratic mess where we can't get a few

00:25:54.000 fighter jets made. We can't do naval resupply vessels in a timely way. I ask with zero degree of...

00:26:01.120 I mean, it would be treated as a naive question. I don't think it should be. When are we getting

00:26:07.280 an aircraft carrier here in Canada? But that's just not anything that's on the horizon.

00:26:10.880 Yeah. Well, you know, I have great uncles who fought in World War I and World War II with Canada.

00:26:19.920 And Canada was a very important military player in the world. And I would like to see Canada get back

00:26:28.160 to that. We had an aircraft carrier.

00:26:30.880 Yeah. It's in our best interest to show to the world that we're serious. And, you know,

00:26:36.560 if Australia can do it, which is a country of about a similar size economically in the term,

00:26:41.360 you know, it's smaller actually in terms of population, then that's... If Australia can do it,

00:26:46.640 we can do it. And so I think we really should be learning from them and doing our best to come back

00:26:55.200 to the world, as so many of our leaders have said they want to do, saying Canada's back. Well,

00:27:00.160 if Canada's back, we need an aircraft carrier. We need nuclear submarines. We need to have regular

00:27:06.000 patrols up and down the Taiwan Strait. Talk to me about that a bit, because we had a news report

00:27:11.680 just the other week that, yes, we had vessels from Canada and the United States doing transits

00:27:17.120 in the Taiwan Strait. And those news articles are cropping up, I don't know, once every six months,

00:27:21.120 something like that. We'll maybe have one ship followed by a resupply ship that go through the

00:27:25.360 Taiwan Strait. And then they will say, oh, we're not doing it deliberately. It's just,

00:27:28.880 it's the shortest distance from point A to point B and so forth, which is totally within the rules

00:27:32.480 of, you know, freedom of navigation. You're saying, great, let's do that a bit more.

00:27:36.960 That's all right. The United States goes through once a month. I'm saying maybe we should go with

00:27:43.200 them once a year. You know, the US has got 10 times our population. So maybe they go once every

00:27:51.920 10, every month, and we go once every 10 months. That novel I referenced, 2034, how Admiral Stavridis

00:28:00.400 conceptualizes World War III beginning is, of course, a mistake and an error that happens,

00:28:06.080 and then a misjudgment of the intentions of other countries. And that's so often the case in studies

00:28:11.840 of war. It's not actually the, you know, the first volley is not always an intentional target,

00:28:16.560 but people miscommunicating. Are you concerned about open channels of communication,

00:28:23.200 misinterpreting intentions of different actors in the South China Sea right now?

00:28:28.000 Yeah, I absolutely am. And that's why I think that in addition to military preparations, we need

00:28:33.920 to have our diplomats on the ground. We have to be in communication with China. It's in our best

00:28:40.400 interest to work with China in multilateral places where we can cooperate with them on things like

00:28:46.240 climate change and build trust on other issues and keep the lines of communication open. And that's,

00:28:52.880 of course, again, it's not Canada alone. It's the whole world. But we should be engaging with China

00:28:57.520 as much as we can. There are lots of Chinese people who think like we do on these issues.

00:29:03.840 We don't know how many, but there are many, many, many Chinese people who want to have the

00:29:08.640 same rights and freedoms that we have. And so they're just waiting for some change to happen.

00:29:14.320 And so I think basically, it's a question of which is going to come first, some kind of an

00:29:18.640 accident that causes World War Three, or maybe some kind of an internal change within China.

00:29:25.280 And Chinese people have been dreaming about that for a long time.

00:29:29.200 I saw a social media post from Margaret McQuaig Johnson a while ago. She was a very senior government

00:29:35.200 official in Canada for many years. And she's got a lot of experience working on the China file. She's

00:29:39.440 now working in the academy. A lot of people pay attention to what she has to say about China.

00:29:43.680 And I couldn't find the tweet, so I won't direct quote. But basically, she said, I've been to China,

00:29:48.160 whatever, 20 times over the past few decades. I'm not going anymore. And I've heard that from some

00:29:53.520 other business figures, some other academics. What is your sense post the release of the two

00:29:59.440 Michaels about the safety of Canadians visiting China for business, visiting for leisure?

00:30:08.320 Well, you know, I've spent two years in China. I lived for two years in Zhejiang province of China.

00:30:14.000 I was traveling regularly to China until 2013. And I would say that for the most part,

00:30:22.000 it's safe for most people to go to China. But that being said,

00:30:27.840 China still has under detention a Canadian of Uyghur origin. And I understand that there are

00:30:35.120 over 100 Canadians who've got citizenships, but they're of Chinese origin who are detained.

00:30:42.400 And if you look at global affairs of the US State Department warnings about China, they often warn about

00:30:49.360 exit bans. And this can happen if there's some kind of a, and this is what business people should

00:30:54.560 be concerned about. If there's some kind of a conflict and business, you know, business can

00:31:00.800 lead to some conflict and some, somebody powerful takes it to the authorities, they can actually put

00:31:05.520 an exit ban on somebody. So they can't leave China until the court case is over.

00:31:09.680 So how would that happen? Like you're, you're there on business and then somebody makes a claim that

00:31:14.560 doesn't necessarily need to be accurate because we know that happens there just to mess with you and

00:31:18.800 whatever business dealings you're doing there. They know you're, you're selling dodgy goods here,

00:31:22.240 you scam me in a deal or what have you. And then that, that freezes you.

00:31:26.080 So yes, that's right. There are, there is that risk of that happening. And so I would say that

00:31:31.200 compared to many other countries, China has higher risks to, to business people. And, you know, even,

00:31:40.320 even to, even to students and university professors, I think that the risk is slightly higher in China

00:31:49.200 than it is elsewhere. And, you know, the world is a big place. So if I were doing business, you know,

00:31:53.840 I think that I would not make China my, my preferred market because of the risks.

00:32:00.240 We hear from a lot of observers though, that things are not as rosy for Xi Jinping as he would like the

00:32:05.280 rest of the world to think. It's really difficult to keep a massive, uh, massive government operation

00:32:10.480 like China, uh, you know, under one's direction and managing all the standing committees and the

00:32:16.400 Politburo. What's going on right now internally in the upper brass in China? Are things good? And is

00:32:23.520 Xi Jinping leader for life or are things starting to crack? You know, we can't really tell what's

00:32:29.920 going on from here. We have really no way to know for sure, but I actually think that the strident

00:32:36.240 tone about Taiwan is a sign of weakness. And that's another reason why I don't think the World War

00:32:43.840 Three is imminent, although we do have to take it serious. I think that it's a sign that he's trying

00:32:51.120 to whip up support within China with this kind of nationalism and with emotions about something that

00:32:58.880 a goal that's probably unattainable, but it's something that can unite people or he imagines it

00:33:06.160 can't. We don't really know about that. And so I think it's a sign that things are not going well.

00:33:12.480 And I know that a lot of Chinese people are concerned about the possibility that

00:33:16.960 this system could end in a rather dramatic and difficult way.

00:33:23.600 They have had rather dramatic and difficult times not too long ago in their history, of course,

00:33:28.320 with the Cultural Revolution and the not-so-great leap forward. They're currently in a situation where

00:33:34.080 they're really churning out new millionaires every day, new billionaires as well. For people who are,

00:33:39.280 I guess, playing by the rules and know how to navigate that communist system, it's actually been

00:33:43.120 rather non-communist in terms of how beneficial it's been for them. And it's really working out

00:33:48.560 for a whole lot of people. But then you also get signs it's not working out for a whole lot of people

00:33:52.560 as well. What are the underlying tensions right now in terms of managing the stability of this very

00:33:59.200 large country of a billion people? Well, you know, I think a lot of attention is being paid in the West

00:34:04.800 to the big consumer market, the emerging middle class. There's still a huge population, over half

00:34:12.400 the population living in poverty, not having the kind of high school education that we take for granted.

00:34:21.200 And so a lot of inequality is there. And so there's a real serious, there are a series of, you know,

00:34:28.080 there are problems with housing, there are problems with health care, because a lot of people don't have

00:34:33.040 access to health care. And so there's a real possibility of unrest due to inequalities in

00:34:40.320 China. And I think that a lot of Chinese people are concerned about the possibility that, not even

00:34:46.240 talking about Taiwan, but China could break up. And that's because they've gone through periods of

00:34:52.400 history when China was what they call the warlord periods, when there were warlords in charge of

00:34:59.360 different parcels of land. And they were not one united country. And they're kind of afraid of that

00:35:04.800 kind of chaos. What are the specific action items on the table right now that Canadians need to be aware

00:35:11.360 of? And that Canadian officials, if you were advising the Prime Minister right now, or the Foreign Affairs

00:35:15.120 Minister, what would the particular next steps be? Well, I actually made a list of five of those.

00:35:22.080 Perfect. Yeah, I think the first one is to make it clear through our, through continuing public

00:35:28.080 statements and actions that we support Taiwan's meaningful participation in organizations like

00:35:32.960 the WHO and the ICAO. That's relatively easy for us to do, just saying that they should be there for

00:35:38.800 dramatic issues. Maybe, you know, someday even at the General Assembly of the United Nations, if two

00:35:43.760 Germanys could be there, I think that China and Taiwan can be. That's a really good point.

00:35:47.760 I also think that we should make it clear with our statements from time to time, like Australia just

00:35:53.200 did, that any issues of differences about the issue of the future of Taiwan should be resolved

00:36:00.800 peacefully through dialogue and without threat or coercion. So every time China threatens Taiwan,

00:36:06.560 we should make it clear that we object to that. It's just simply not following rule of law. It's not

00:36:11.520 respecting the UN charter. We should make that clear. Thirdly, I think we need to enhance our military

00:36:17.360 cooperation. I think it would be great if we had some interoperability with Japan, the self-defense

00:36:22.800 forces of Japan. Make Japan a close alliance. Maybe some way down the road we can cooperate more with

00:36:29.600 Taiwan, you know, the Coast Guard or something would be a good start. So we need to start thinking outside

00:36:34.480 of the box and how we can collaborate with Taiwan. Some countries have diplomatic relations with Taiwan and

00:36:39.760 they do with us. So maybe we could do something in one of those places like Haiti. Haiti needs a lot of help and I think

00:36:45.120 Taiwan and Canada could go there together. And then finally, I think it's really important

00:36:51.280 to know that the United States expects like-minded countries to support Taiwan. There's a bill going

00:36:56.400 through the Senate right now, which actually talks about Canada. And I think that it's in Canada's best

00:37:04.000 interest to have a reputation as being a like-minded democratic country like Japan, Australia, the Czech

00:37:10.880 Republic, Lithuania, etc. And I think it's not in our best interest to have a reputation as being a

00:37:17.840 foot dragger. There you go. Five items, five action lists. I hope that list is doing the rounds. I hope

00:37:23.040 you're shopping it around to all the officials and diplomats because that's important stuff. It's

00:37:27.680 important to know where we want to head. Yeah, I think it's important to reach out to the general

00:37:31.600 public and do our job as educators and also to talk to policymakers and our politicians. And

00:37:37.680 frankly, some of the politicians are more willing to listen to these messages than others.

00:37:43.120 Well, this is a really important message and it's been great to do this deep dive on Taiwan,

00:37:48.160 on China and what it means for Canada and Canadians. Professor Scott Simon,

00:37:52.400 thanks very much for joining us today. Thank you very much for doing this. Bye-bye.

00:37:55.600 Full Comment is a post-media podcast. I'm Anthony Fury. This episode was produced by Andre Pru with

00:38:01.440 theme music by Bryce Hall. Kevin Libin is the executive producer. You can subscribe to Full

00:38:06.160 Comment on Apple Podcasts, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can help us

00:38:11.120 by giving us a rating or a review and by telling your friends about us. Thanks for listening.

Full Comment - October 25, 2021

Preparing for war with China over Taiwan

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