Preparing for war with China over Taiwan
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Summary
In this episode, we talk with Scott Simon, a professor at the University of Ottawa and former resident of Taiwan, about the situation in the South China Sea between China and Taiwan, and why Taiwan is not part of China.
Transcript
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Hi everyone, welcome to the latest episode of Full Comet. I'm Anthony Fury. Don't forget to
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subscribe to this show to learn when new episodes are posted. I'd like to start today's show with
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throwing out a few provocative phrases. World War III. A new Cold War. Cyber warfare. Amphibious
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land invasion. Uh-oh, Fury's been reading the Tom Clancy again. Well, no, that's actually not it.
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I've been reading essays and journals like Foreign Affairs magazine, top journals, articles by very
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prominent people, and those phrases that I just said, well, they are increasingly appearing in that
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type of work. At least when it comes to the issue of the South China Sea, what's going on there in
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that area right now concerning China and Taiwan. Our guest today is Professor Scott Simon. He's
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co-chair of Taiwan Studies at the University of Ottawa, and he lived in the island nation of 25
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million people for 10 years. He joins us now to break down this whole issue for us. Professor,
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welcome to the podcast. Good. Thank you for inviting me today. Yeah, thanks so much for coming
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by, Scott. And, you know, right when I just, in saying that introduction there, I said, island nation,
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that's how I described Taiwan. I thought, uh-oh, you know, if Xi Jinping's listening on his Huawei
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device right now, I've already upset them. You know, even just by describing Taiwan as its own
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country, sometimes you ruffle some feathers. Well, that's, in fact, what is, that's the fact.
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You know, Taiwan is an independent sovereign country. Its official name is the Republic of
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China ever since 1952. But it's never been ruled by the People's Republic of China. Xi Jinping has
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nothing to do with Taiwan, and so it is definitely an independent country. And yet we're in a situation
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right now where, you know, to your point, they've got their own currency, they have a national anthem,
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they have a president that's elected, and she was re-elected just the other year. And yet you go to
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the United Nations, and you, you know, you follow, I guess they're in alphabetical order, and you get
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to T, oh, no, Taiwan. And you get to this other international body, they're not there. And sometimes
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when you're even at an airport, and it's telling you where it's landing and so forth, and the flight
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says it's going to Taipei, but it doesn't always even say Taiwan. Somehow it just says China. And you go,
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what on earth is going on? How can that be, Scott? Well, you know, if you look at the Air Canada
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website and buy your ticket, it's going to say Taipei province of China. And what's going on is
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that China has for a very long time, been putting pressure on the world to pretend that Taiwan is
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already part of China. And they hope that they kind of twist everybody's arms. And so that if there is
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a conflict, people will just stand by and be confused. Right. So to bring it back to basics,
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though, why is this even happening in the first place? This typically does not happen where one
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country tries to convince the rest of the world that another country is just a part of them.
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Where did this come from? What are the origins of it? Well, you know, where did this come from is
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that Taiwan used to be part of Japan. And then after World War II, there was a treaty called the San
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Francisco Peace Treaty in 1952. That's why I just said 1952 just now. And in Canada, there was a party
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to this. And the different countries that were in this peace negotiation about Japan, Japan was not
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there, had some disagreements about what would happen to Taiwan. And so Canada said, well, why don't
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we just not say anything? And so at that time, the People's Republic of China had already been
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existing, had been in existence for three years. Chiang Kai-shek with his Republic of China had
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already been on Taiwan for seven years. They were occupying it on behalf of the allies with whom they
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fought in World War II. And so what happened then is Japan subsequently signed a treaty with the Republic
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of China. And so that, along with the US getting involved in the militarily in the Taiwan Straits
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in the beginning of the 50s, kept Taiwan as an independent country. But it never was part of China.
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And China has ever since then had it as their goal to someday absorb Taiwan or annex Taiwan into its own
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territory. And so where I come off using these phrases like World War III and all of that, and while
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you're hearing more people talk about those possibilities, and there's a great novel out,
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well, maybe not a great novel, a tragic novel called 2034, where a former head of the American
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Navy, an admiral there, talking about how a conflict could materialize there, all that comes from
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is the use of the phrase reunification, and how Xi Jinping says, all right, we got Hong Kong,
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we got Tibet, we got Taiwan, they're all a part of China proper, and China's destiny,
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its dignity is not going to be whole until we get all these guys back in the family.
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Well, basically, every time we use that word reunification, we're falling into that trap,
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because we're using the words that they want us to use. So we should be very honest about this.
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China wants to annex Taiwan. And it's every bit as absurd as if the United States wanted to take
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Newfoundland. It's just unacceptable. And we have to be honest about that, which many times the
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world has not been honest about. And I can see where companies might be able to fall to pressure,
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you know, Air Canada, what would happen if they turned down China?
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Right. You know, and I guess the challenge with all of this, you go, Fury, why are you using the phrase
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amphibious invasion? Well, because we learned in recent news reports that China's actually bragged about the
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fact that in a province just across the Taiwan Strait, which is that small body of water that
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separates the island of Taiwan from mainland China, that they've said, well, we've actually been
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practicing amphibious invasions, we've been practicing land invasions. Well, hold on a second.
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That's like, you know, that's what Hitler was talking about doing across the English Channel.
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Or of course, you know, this is the scenes in Dunkirk and so forth. You're like,
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China's actually talking about prepping, doing that sort of stuff.
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That's right. I think we have to face the fact that the China that we see in the world right now
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is a China which is very similar to what Hitler's Germany was at one time.
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And they don't have gas chambers, but they do have some very serious types of concentration camps or
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detention camps with the Uyghur. And they are planning some kind of an attack, if necessary,
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on Taiwan. They are sending out signs. They just sent some naval ships with Russia,
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10 ships in total through straits belonging to Japan to show that they have the military force.
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They're preparing for this amphibious landing. They sent over 150 airplanes, military planes,
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into Taiwan's air defense identification zone in October alone, most of them in the first four days.
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So they're sending a lot of signs. Now, a lot of signs doesn't mean that World War III is imminent.
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But what it means is that there's a possibility. And I think that the world has to really
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unify and do what it can, not just to deter war, but to prevent it and make it unthinkable.
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So we have to make it clear to China that the costs are very high.
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Scott, you surprised me a little bit, though, with the invocation of Hitler. Because,
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you know, I've heard a lot of people say some really strong worded stuff about Xi Jinping and
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everything going on in that region. And I know you're someone who's, you know, you teach on this
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issue, you study on it, you've reflected on it a lot. I mean, I haven't heard anybody really make
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that invocation yet. But, you know, you're certainly unapologetically laying out the case.
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Well, you know, people are afraid to go down that path. But I think quite a bit about the
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Sudetenland when Chamberlain went and negotiated with Hitler for a piece of territory, saying that
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we're going to have peace in our time, we're going to let them have this little piece of the Czech
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territory, and then we'll be fine. And I think that there are some leaders in the world who believe
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that by letting China have their way with Taiwan, that they can avoid war. But what happened after
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Hitler took to the Sudetenland is he turned on the rest of Europe. And I think that should be a warning
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for us. And that's the spirit in which I'm saying that we must be very open-eyed about the dangers in
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front of us and realize that if we negotiate away Taiwan or let Taiwan become part of China,
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China, then the risk is even higher that China will go elsewhere. And we have to be serious about
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the fact that China also claims part of Japan and they claim part of India. And they claim the whole
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South China Sea. Well, hold on a second. They claim part of India? They claim part of India. They claim
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the entire state of Arunachal Pradesh, which has one million people, all of whom are citizens of the
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Republic of India. How serious are they with these claims? Well, they're right now amassing troops on
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the border of India. So when you say World War III, I would like to say that's nonsense. But if they're
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amassing troops on the border with India, and they're threatening Taiwan, and they're using
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grave zone tactics against Japan, and they're allying themselves with Russia, as we just saw
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between Honshu and Hokkaido, it looks like this is not imminent. We're not talking about the next two
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years. But it does show that there is a threat on the horizon. What does Prime Minister Narendra Modi
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have to say about these incursions? Well, I appreciate they're not incursions yet. Although
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I know there have been a couple of weird conflicts between a few soldiers here and there. But what
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does he have to say about those claims on the amassing of troops? Well, they've never accepted
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those claims, and they are amassing troops on their side of the border too. And there was a conflict.
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Actually, the soldiers got into a fight, and some people got killed. And so that is also a
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serious issue to take a close look at. I guess the question is, in what way do we need to be
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prepared for this? Because there's so many people who I think are unaware of the severity of the
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situation. You know, there are times when I'll be writing my columns, or I'll be on this podcast,
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or the radio programs, and people write back, and they just say like, oh, well, you know,
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why do you hate China? And you know, it's such a great country, these people are so great, you know,
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my community, man, I mean, whoa, whoa, that is not what we're talking about at all here. And we're
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talking about the geopolitics of the authoritarian communist regime of Xi Jinping, and their motivations
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that to your point, they have clearly articulated. And I think a lot of people aren't even there at the
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101 basics, let alone the whole, what are we going to do about, you know, okay, yes, talk about Taiwan,
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what are we even going to do about the India situation, which is clearly something that can mount as
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well. I mean, I think there's such a gulf between what's really going on. And, and I guess,
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Western awareness and urgency, at least in the general public, I know that the, you know,
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the White House is concerned about the South China Sea, but the general public perceptions.
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Yeah, well, I think the general public needs to get on board with this, because
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we're going to have to raise our budget for the military.
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And that's going to happen around the world. Japan has just announced they're going to raise theirs,
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they, they tend to peg it to GDP. And so they've decided to raise it from 2% of GDP to 4%. And I
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think that's a move that Canada should do. And we do need to enforce our naval abilities. Anyway,
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we really should be reinforcing the Arctic, and buying those submarines. And so we do need to be prepared.
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And that is also a way of deterring war by showing, by showing China and other rogue states, because
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China is not the only one, that the world is united. Then even a relatively small military like Canada's
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has a voice and has a place at the table and can really be supportive and make a difference.
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Now, Scott, one of the reasons we're talking now is that the rhetoric has really been ratcheted up
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from Xi Jinping in terms of, I know you said don't use the phrase reunification, but that's the phrase
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he's using. Rhetoric has really gone up. He said this is inevitable. Now, one doesn't know the timeline
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that he's thinking of, but we know they're talking about practicing the invasions. And we know something,
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something we haven't discussed as well yet. There's been well over 100 incursions into their airspace
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recently, into Taiwan's airspace. They've got bombers, fighter jets from China's People's
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Liberation Army, really buzzing into Taiwan's airspace. And that's a thing that really has
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not been happening to the extent and volume it's happening right now in pretty much ever.
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Well, I think we have to kind of step back there because they haven't been going into Taiwan's
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airspace. It's a technical difference here, but it's a very important thing.
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Yeah. They're going into Taiwan's air defense identification zone. And what that is, it's a
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much larger zone in which any aircraft entering that has to identify themselves and what they're
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doing. And then Taiwan can chase them out if necessary, which is what's happening with these
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military jets going into it. So, so far the rhetoric has been notched up in China
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and there have been more military excursions into the ADIZ, but they have not crossed the median of
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the Taiwan Strait. So the halfway point between China and Taiwan, and they've not gone over Taiwan
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territory. And so they kind of know where their limits are right now. And because of that, we can't
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even be a hundred percent sure that these military flights are aimed only at Taiwan. And so most of
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them are going Southwest of Taiwan. So between Taiwan and the Philippines, and you know, some of it could
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be for consumption within China saying, look, we're doing something about all of these issues.
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The ones around the beginning of the month of October, it might be because Japan and the United States
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in Canada and several other countries were doing some military exercises in that part of the world
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and to show them that we're here too. It could just be practice, but it's also practice for Taiwan,
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because every time this happens, Taiwan scrambles their jets and gets rid of the ones from China.
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And so they're getting their practice and they're getting to understand how these Chinese jets work.
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And so it's also good for their military intelligence as well.
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Now, I understand the United States, while not officially recognizing Taiwan as a country in
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terms of formal diplomatic relations and not pushing for them to have a seat at the United Nations,
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they do have a collaboration with them in terms of selling arms to them. And as we actually just
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learned the other week, which I'm sure ruffled feathers with China, US Special Forces commanders have
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been on the ground helping Taiwanese military officials and commanders prepare for whatever
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Yeah. Well, you know, we're talking about the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act. And through that,
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without having official diplomatic relations with Taiwan, the United States has been very supportive of
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Taiwan. And in recent years, because of the greater threat from China, it has nothing to do with who's in
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the White House. But it's because of the actual threat coming from China. They've increased sales
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of weapons to Taiwan. And they have been training special forces. But I have a feeling that those
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training things have been going on for at least 20 years. And I say that because when I was working
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out in the gym as a grad student in the 1990s, there were Taiwanese military people, young guys,
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you know, telling me that they've been working out that they've been working recently with American
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So something that's been a longstanding issue going on. Will these ties deepen right now?
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Well, the ties are there. And I think that well, I know the United States policy is to encourage all
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like minded countries to help them support Taiwan. And the number one thing that they want other
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countries to do is support giving Taiwan some international space. Right. And they're willing
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to do all of the diplomatic nicety with China. The, you know, the goal is to encourage China to become
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a good player in the international rules-based system. And so they're willing to make some
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compromises in the way they talk about things publicly. But they want the world to support Taiwan
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having a, some kind of meaningful participation at the United Nations and international organizations
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like the International Civil Aviation Organization, the World Health Assembly, and so forth. And,
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and that's a way of showing China that the world supports Taiwan and will not accept annexation.
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Right. And I know one of the requests that Taiwan has of Canada right now, and has it of many countries,
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is that they would like to be signatories, members to the new Pacific trade deal,
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the whatever it's called now, CPTPP. China is applying to it as well. Taiwan is, I guess,
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return fires and we're applying to it as well. And they're asking Canada to support their submission.
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I think that's a very modest request. And is that not something that Canada can get behind?
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It's a very modest request. And like I said, the world is like, very willing to accommodate China and
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the way they talk about Taiwan publicly. And so that's why even Taiwan does that they've applied to join as
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the customs area of Taiwan, the pescadors, Matsu and Jinman. And saying that they're a customs entity
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rather than a country is their way of signaling that to the world that they don't want to make trouble.
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on very practical issues where they can help out. And trade is one of them. We get most of our
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electronic goods and computers and cell phones and pretty much all of our semiconductor chips that
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are in all of those things come from Taiwan. What do the people of Taiwan want? How do they see
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themselves in relationship to China? One thing I found very interesting when I visited Taiwan, going to
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their national museum is a very interesting experience because, as you know much more than I do, when
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Chiang Kai-shek and his government would have fled the mainland and gone to Taiwan, they took a lot of the
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the national treasures of China with them. And the main museum in Taipei has so much of the heritage
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of China. So all of the tourists actually in that museum are people from mainland China coming
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to see their own heritage and culture in a Taiwanese museum. So, I mean, these people are very
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inextricably linked. Yeah. Well, you know, there's a very diverse population in Taiwan.
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At the end of the World War II, there were 6 million people living there. And then another 1 to 2 million
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people came as refugees from China because they were fleeing communism. And so I, and then of course,
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they're indigenous people too. They're about 600,000 indigenous people. And they all have different
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ways of thinking about their relationship with China. But I think that the one thing that they
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all have in common is they don't want to be part of the People's Republic of China. They don't want
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to be under communist role. And if you look at the surveys, because they do surveys at National
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Sun Tzu University in Taipei all the time. And consistently, since they started doing these surveys
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in the 90s, the percentage of people who want to be part of the People's Republic of China is about
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2%. And the majority of the people say they want to keep the status quo. And that's because they're
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afraid if they say they want independence, then China will attack.
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Isn't that crazy, though, for a country that is pretty much already an independent country,
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anthem currency, all that stuff, democratic elections, for a country to dare to say,
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we want independence, oh, we're gonna bomb you. I mean, that's not, that's kind of reverse psychology.
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Yeah, it's completely unacceptable. And in some ways, you know, the United States tries to
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marginalize Cuba, but they've never said they're going to take it over.
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Good point. And that's a really good comparison point.
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It's a comparison I make quite a bit, because what it is, is that the US has tried to marginalize Cuba.
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And, you know, it's had the economic blockade, and it also tries to, you know, twist the arm of Air
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Canada and other companies and so forth. And Canada's refused as much as possible to go along with that.
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And so I think the comparison is very good. Because if we can say no to the United States
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from time to time, I think we have to learn to say no to the Chinese from time to time as well.
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One of the things when I think about Taiwan, and I thought this in my visit there, is, you know,
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and some people in Canada may say, okay, well, this is a conflict on the other side of the world.
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And why should I care? And how does it matter to me? And you mentioned the phrase earlier,
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Scott, of like minded nations. And when I was in Taiwan, even though it's geographically a very
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different country, and of course, a different language and various different cultural aspects,
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I felt like there was a lot of similarities and a lot of affinity between Canada and Taiwan in
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terms of, I don't know, just who we are as sort of middle class values and our democratic systems.
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I just felt there was kind of a natural kinship. I mean, more similarities than differences.
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Well, you know, Canada and Taiwan share in common being relatively small, not an area size for Canada,
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but being relatively small countries next to bigger countries that often are, you know,
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have some hegemonic influence over them in many ways. And they're very proud of the things that
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they have. And the things that we have are very much in common. So LGBT rights, indigenous rights,
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health care. You know, the Taiwan has universal health care, which China doesn't have. And they
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basically came to Canada, then learned what we do here. And then they improved upon it and instituted that
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in Taiwan. And so we have quite a bit of things in common with them that, you know, we're liberal
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democracies. We have a very strong respect for human rights. We've got our charter, they've got
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their laws too. And so there is an affinity that I think people haven't been there find maybe difficult
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to imagine. But we are part of one democratic world and we do have an external threat that we have
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to face together. One of the uncomfortable questions I hear a lot of people ask when it comes to Taiwan
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and the defense of Taiwan is, is it worth it? They ask, is it worth it for Xi Jinping to do an
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invasion, to do a quote unquote reunification? And of course, there's debate and disagreement about how
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serious he is for that. But then there's also the question of, is it actually worth it for the United
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States to come to Taiwan's defense? And would they actually do it? Well, that's two questions. Is it
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worth it to China? And I would say no. And the reason is that Taiwan has been investing billions
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of dollars into China. And that's why China has become so wealthy. So why kill the chicken that's
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laying the golden eggs, right? So it's really not worth it to China. And that's why I think that the
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actual threat of a war or an invasion is far down the road. Because I don't think it's really in China's
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best interest to start a war. I think that a lot of that is rhetoric for internal consumption.
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And part of the psychological warfare towards Taiwan, because they want to have some kind
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of an annexation by peaceful means. But hold on, it's interesting you say far down the road. And I
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hear those similar sort of phrases from others. And you're not saying, it's gonna fade away, or it's
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a thing that's not serious. You say it's far down the road. So there's still an acknowledgement
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that it is a very viable thing. It's just whether it's immediate or not. It's just whether, you know,
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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,
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.
00:25:32.720
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
00:26:30.880
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
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