WEBVTT - Graham Allison on the Risks of a US-China War 0:00:02.720 --> 0:00:17.759 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:20.920 Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Thoughts podcast. 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:22.640 I'm Tracy Alloway and I'm Joe. 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:23.720 Wasn't thal Joe? 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:27.960 In preparation for this conversation today, I sat down this morning. 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:31.240 We're recording on what is it? November twentieth, that's correct, 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:37.520 and I typed US China into Google news results. Here's 0:00:37.560 --> 0:00:42.159 a selection of headlines. US Commission says China could invade 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:46.680 Taiwan with little advance warning, China leveraged India Pakistan conflict 0:00:46.680 --> 0:00:50.280 to trial and tout its military strengths, Pacific Islands on 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:54.000 frontline of future US China war, and then finally the 0:00:54.120 --> 0:00:56.640 US China Chip War. Are we ready? 0:00:56.880 --> 0:00:59.440 I was just gonna say, I feel like the Chips 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:02.560 in particular, or every other day, there's a different headline 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:04.920 about what's allowed or what's not. But to your point, 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:07.440 this is the story. I mean, there's Ai, there's a 0:01:07.480 --> 0:01:09.720 couple other things, and then the US China relationship. 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:12.760 Absolutely, and it seems almost inevitable at this point that 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:16.759 we talk about US and China in competitive terms, right 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:19.959 and also in militaristic terms. And this has been going 0:01:20.000 --> 0:01:22.360 on for as long as I can remember. 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:25.000 At this point, it's building up right, Like really in 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:27.640 the last decade. You know, when we were younger, thought oh, 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:30.160 we're just going to trade together and maybe they'll even 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:32.680 liberalize it become a liberal democracy. 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:35.200 One day, it didn't happen. But in the last ten 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:37.920 years or nine years, it's really picked up. How much 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:40.200 people are framing this in military terms. 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:42.959 Well, I wrote that paper back in like two thousand 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:45.800 and two that China was going to invade Taiwan by 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:48.560 the two thousand and eight Olympics. So my view of 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:51.200 this might be different to yours. My view has also 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:54.400 been proven to be incredibly incorrect, So I'll leave it 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:57.160 at that. But you know, we recorded this episode with 0:01:57.160 --> 0:01:59.160 Henry Wang a few months ago where we were talking 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:03.040 about US China relations and he mentioned one person, Yeah, 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:04.680 and he said, you got to get him on the show. 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:08.680 You got to get his perspective on this view of 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:13.680 US China competition and are we doomed destined to end 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:15.640 up in a military conflict. So here we are, We're 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:16.120 going to do it. 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:17.840 We're in his office. Let's do it, all right. 0:02:17.919 --> 0:02:21.320 We have, in fact, the perfect guest. We have Professor 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:25.280 Graham Allison. He is the Douglas Dylan Professor of Government 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:28.360 at Harvard University, and he, of course is the one 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:32.520 who coined the term the Thucidities trap to describe the 0:02:32.560 --> 0:02:37.000 potential outcome of US China competition. So really the perfect 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:40.160 person to speak to about this, Professor Allison, thank you 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:41.520 so much for coming on all thoughts. 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:42.799 Thank you so much for having me. 0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:46.200 So I mentioned the thucidities trap, and I think a 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:49.200 lot of listeners will know what it is, and probably 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:52.960 a substantial portion of our listeners are really into ancient 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:55.959 Greek history and know all about it. But when you 0:02:56.040 --> 0:02:59.399 first came up with that term, was there a light 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:02.679 bulb moment in your head where you thought like, this 0:03:02.760 --> 0:03:05.000 is the way to characterize the future of US and 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:06.320 China relations. 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:11.400 So thank you and answers. Yes, I think I had 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:16.320 actually speaker Kevin McCarthy here at the Forum event a 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:19.040 couple of nights ago, and he was reminding me that 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:23.400 when he was trying to figure out what was happening 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:25.440 with China, he called me up and he said, would 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:27.359 you give me a tutorial? I said, of course, I'd 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:31.880 be under too. We've started this conversation and his first 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:34.359 question when we began was what the hell is going 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:34.800 on here? 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:37.080 That should have been my first question. 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:37.640 Good question. 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:43.240 Basically here, every day and every way, somehow or another, 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:48.080 there's a story about China, threat, China, competition, China, China, 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:51.040 and China, I said in a word, if you're trying 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:54.240 to capture this from a phrase, this is a classic 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:59.600 lucidity and rivalry. So China is a meteoric rising power 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:04.080 never before in history as a nation risen so far, 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:08.400 so fast, on so many different dimensions. A country that 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:11.320 we couldn't even find in our review mirror at the 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:14.280 beginning of the century because it was so far behind us. 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:17.280 It's very hard to find in our rearview mirror today 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:20.760 because it's either beside us or ahead of us if 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:24.960 you think about arrival. So a meteoric rising power. The 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:29.680 US is a colossal ruling power. Never since Rome has 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:33.919 a country been so powerful in so many different dimensions 0:04:34.240 --> 0:04:36.919 for such an amazing period of time. In fact, I 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:39.760 just have a peace. They'll be in foreign affairs next week. 0:04:40.279 --> 0:04:45.280 On the longest piece, this is the longest period without 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:50.760 great power war since Rome eighty years. We celebrated in 0:04:50.800 --> 0:04:55.800 September without great power war. Historically, every generation or two, 0:04:56.560 --> 0:05:00.000 for the last few thousand years, there's been great power 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:05.320 or wars, so amazing, colossal ruling power who's not only 0:05:05.400 --> 0:05:08.839 been good for itself, but actually good for an international piece. 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:12.919 So Thucydides, when he was trying to understand what the 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:17.400 hell was going on in ancient Greece, wrote about what 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:21.960 he called the rise of Athens and the fear that 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:26.560 this instilled in Sparta that made war virtually inevitable. So 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:30.520 think about a seesaw on a kid's playground, and one 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:34.000 heaviest on the one end and one lightest on the other. 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:36.680 And the heavy is kind of in control. I can 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:39.000 jiggle you if I want to, blah blah blah. Now, 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:43.839 all of a sudden, the light starts heavy weight, and 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:46.960 he gets a little bigger and a little bigger. Pretty 0:05:46.960 --> 0:05:49.400 soon I'm feeling Wait a minute, I maybe I have 0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:52.679 only one foot on the ground. Maybe maybe I'm feeling less. 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:56.080 So when you see this tilt of the sea saw 0:05:56.720 --> 0:06:03.719 and the tectonics of power, this concretes a discombobulation for 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:08.240 both parties. The ruling party thinks, hey, wait a minute, 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:10.880 what's happening here? I used to look down on you. 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:14.880 Now you're looking me straight on. And maybe even so 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:19.400 my perspective. I used to be able to push a 0:06:19.400 --> 0:06:22.320 button and things would happen, and now I push the 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:25.400 button and the things don't happen because my relative power 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:29.840 has changed. Psychologically, I'm accustomed to being at the top 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:34.640 of every backing order Americans. My wife says about me, wa, 0:06:34.680 --> 0:06:37.839 wash the cosmetics off my chest, and it says, USA 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:42.000 is number one. Number one is who we as our identity. 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:45.000 If you do the television, they scan you know whatever 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:48.320 people hold up there, number one for their team, whatever, whatever. 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:53.200 So the idea that somehow somebody is challenging my position, 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:57.040 as I used to be the biggest economy. Now I've 0:06:57.080 --> 0:06:59.680 an economy. I used to be the main trading part 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:02.960 of it. Yet now I used to be everything that 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:05.360 was made was made by us, that was made. So 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:10.960 as this happens, historically, we've seen over and over this 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:19.040 discombobulation that leads into lots of misperceptions, miscalculations, misjudgments, and unfortunately, 0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:22.400 in about three quarters of the cases, this sends up 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:25.560 in war, often a catastrophic war. So sorry, that's a 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:26.320 long version. 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:26.920 Of that's perfect. 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:31.239 Sparta ended up attacking Athens, right because they were scared 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:32.160 of the rising power. 0:07:32.440 --> 0:07:36.280 Well, basically what happened, I mean, it's a little more 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:40.560 complicated than that, but yes, basically, as the discombobulation was 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:44.200 occurring and Athens became more and more full of itself, 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:48.320 as the rising power always does, and the ruling power 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:51.480 become more and more fearful, then it turns out that 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:56.160 some third party activity in Corsera that wouldn't have mattered 0:07:56.200 --> 0:07:59.800 to the two parties otherwise. So something that's otherwise incidental 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:06.640 or easily managed with throwing a layer of misperceptions and 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:10.840 miscalculations and you get there. Another wonderful example, I think 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:13.560 the one that's closest to what we're now seeing is 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:17.320 the period from nineteen hundred to nineteen fourteen that led 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:19.960 to World War One. So if you ask yourself, how 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:24.480 in the world could I assassinate an archsdooke in Sarajevo, 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:27.400 which was so inconsequential that it didn't even make the 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:31.440 front page of the newspapers in New York. Within five weeks, 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:33.560 all of Europe was caught up in a war. And 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:36.480 when you looked afterwards, people said how did you guys 0:08:36.520 --> 0:08:42.280 let this happen? And as Beulau, the chancellor for Germany, 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:44.280 he said, ah, if we only knew. 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:50.040 So, the rising distrust and the anxiety about status position, 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:54.440 it's not that it directly provides the impetus for war 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:57.800 per se, but that it creates the conditions such that 0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:02.120 reserve as an incident or an and that oh, because 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:04.760 there's no trust, because there's all this concern. It can 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:07.480 be that random thing, an large duke, some people in 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:08.520 a third city. 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:11.760 Something happens in Taiwan, something happens here, something happens here. 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:17.080 And because as this seesaw is shifting as the rising 0:09:17.160 --> 0:09:25.160 and ruling, the technonics or moving, the mis perceptions or magnified, 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:31.720 and miscalculations multiply, and the impact of third party incidents 0:09:31.800 --> 0:09:36.160 or accents amplified, so things that would otherwise be manageable. 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:39.640 This is just nonsense. Let's deal with this problem. All 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:41.800 of a sudden, I see it as you doing something, 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:44.920 and then when I see that you see something, one 0:09:44.920 --> 0:09:47.160 thing leads to the other. So if you look in 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:53.439 the case of Athens and Sparta Corran a city state, 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:56.599 that neither of them cared much for it. In particular 0:09:57.080 --> 0:10:01.800 trusted at all gets involved with Era, which is now Corfu, 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:05.600 and there's a fear that they're going to have a 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:08.560 navy that will be able to challenge Athens, so that 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:11.800 the Athenians get more excited. So one thing leads to 0:10:11.840 --> 0:10:14.120 the other. You get kind of a vicious cycle of 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:18.880 misperceptions and miscalculations that then all of a sudden, certain happens, 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:21.360 and once they something happens, oh my god, I have 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:24.120 to react that action and reaction, and there you get 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:25.240 to somewhere you don't want to go. 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:28.480 We don't talk about ancient Greek history enough on this podcast, 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:30.800 in my opinion, but I do need to bring it 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:33.440 up to date. So you know, some people would argue 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:36.160 that China has been on the rise for decades now, 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:38.560 and I'm sure people have different starting points, but let's 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:42.760 say since the nineteen nineties, and you know, now thirty 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:45.760 or forty years later, we're at a point where there 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:50.080 is competitive rivalry both militarily and economically, but we haven't 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:53.640 had war so far. As you just noted, we've had 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:56.160 eighty years of peace between the great powers, which is 0:10:56.200 --> 0:10:59.880 our good news story of the day. But why is 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:02.760 that and doesn't mean that you need to reconsider the 0:11:02.920 --> 0:11:04.479 throcidian framework. 0:11:05.280 --> 0:11:09.360 Well, again, Thucydites is very thoughtful about this. He didn't 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:12.760 say that there was a specific moment or point in 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:16.920 the story. And in the book that I wrote called 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:19.839 a Destined for work in the US and China, Escape 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:22.679 through Cynities Trap, I looked at the last five hundred 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:28.920 years and find sixteen incidents or sixteen cases in which 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:32.680 a rising power seriously threatens a ruling power, the World 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:37.120 War One being one interesting and dramatic example. So in these, 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:42.440 sometimes before the rising power has actually overtaken the ruling power, 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:47.640 something happens sometimes after. So it's that is not about 0:11:47.920 --> 0:11:53.120 some specific moment in time. It's about a dynamic that 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:57.320 then when something happens, something happens. So if you look, 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:00.720 for example, at the Cold War, which is one of 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:04.440 the so in the sixteen cases, twelve in the war. 0:12:04.840 --> 0:12:08.560 If you want to model for war, think World War One, 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:12.360 but four in the No War. So that's good news, 0:12:12.760 --> 0:12:16.160 one of which is called Cold War. So it's called war, 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:19.079 but it's not war. It's war on every four bullets, 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:22.360 bombs and bullets. So in the Cold War we had 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:26.680 several very very close calls, for example, the Cuban missile crisis, 0:12:26.679 --> 0:12:28.680 about which I read a book, and that if you 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:31.240 look at that chart over there on the wall, that's 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:38.559 Kennedy's doodles during the Cuban missile crisis. Thinking about the 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:41.640 choices that he's making, he thought that was between a 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:43.960 one and three and even chance this was end in 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:46.280 the nuclear war. That it ended in a nuclear war, 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:48.600 we would have had a couple hundred million people killed. 0:12:48.679 --> 0:12:51.240 We wouldn't be doing this interview. So it could could 0:12:51.280 --> 0:12:54.000 he could have happened in that insence, but it didn't. 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:56.720 How did it come not to happen? First, there was 0:12:56.760 --> 0:12:59.680 some brilliant state craft, for example, to get out of 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:02.720 it so that they could otherwise there was a great, 0:13:02.960 --> 0:13:07.000 great glob of grace and good fortune, I say, But 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:12.600 also there was a rivalry that went on for long 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:16.839 enough in which one of the parties, the Soviet Union, 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:21.400 ended up holloway being hollowed out by the contradictions that 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:24.200 were part of a Soviet command and control system turned 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:26.600 out not to be commitative of the lower So that's 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:29.840 how one story ended that successfully, and that could be 0:13:29.880 --> 0:13:34.360 a possible analog for the current US China rivalry, and 0:13:34.440 --> 0:13:38.880 which Chinese would say, we see in your divisions, in 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:45.280 your society and in your come up decadent of you know, whatever, whatever, whatever, 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:46.880 maybe you'll be the one. 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:49.119 They perceived us as the Soviet Union. 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:53.000 And we many Americans trying to tell our side of 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:54.840 the story, say well, they're going to be sort of 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:57.880 like the Soviet Union because actually they were coming us 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:14.480 and blah blah blah. 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:18.160 You know, obviously we look to the US Soviet relationship 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:21.880 for perhaps lessons from history. China feels in many ways 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:24.800 very different from the Soviet Union in some ways with 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:28.120 respect to foreign policy, you know, like I read Henry 0:14:28.520 --> 0:14:31.040 doctor Kissinger's book on China, and he starts off by 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:34.680 pointing out that China has never never been particularly interested 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:38.280 in people beyond its borders, outside of the territorial questions, say, 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:43.000 related to Taiwan or Tibet, and even still today, it's 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:45.640 not obvious that China's interest with the rest of the 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:49.480 world expands much beyond the goods trade at all. Does 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:52.200 that affect your calculation the sort of internal when you 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:55.000 think about these statistics, the fact that yes, there are 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:57.880 these patterns of history, but also countries are different internally 0:14:57.880 --> 0:14:58.960 and may have different motivations. 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:02.280 Absolutely, I mean a can you can take it at 0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:06.080 the kind of level one, level two, level three, level four. Obviously, 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:08.680 each of the country's story is different. If you look 0:15:08.720 --> 0:15:11.600 at Portugal and Spain, which is the first of these 0:15:11.640 --> 0:15:15.560 sixteen cases, back of the time of Christopher Columbus, they 0:15:15.600 --> 0:15:19.720 both were Catholic and there was a pope, and so 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:22.280 when the conflict got to the edge of a conflict, 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:25.400 the pupe said, I got a solution. Here's a line. 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:27.640 I'm gonna draw the line down here. This side is 0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:30.440 going to be Portuguese, this side is going to be Spanish. 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:34.080 Then that's why people in Brazil speak Portuguese, because they 0:15:34.120 --> 0:15:37.160 got on the Portuguese side of the line. But you 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:39.320 had a situation which you had a kind of a 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:43.960 ruling guru who could make a declaration. Unfortunately there's no 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:47.320 such person today to do that. But looking at the 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:51.880 Chinese cases, as you say, China's history has been one 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:56.040 in which historically it is wanted to be and thinks 0:15:56.080 --> 0:16:00.000 of itself as the sun around which everything else rotates. 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:02.840 They've got a line about there can be only one, 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:04.040 you know, tiger in. 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:07.160 The valley, but It's literally called the Middle Kingdom right 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:08.400 in the Middle Country, and. 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:11.920 The Middle Kingdom was the meaning of it was the 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:15.520 middle between the Earth and heaven. So we're the We're 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:20.040 the that. But not about the Soviet not like the 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:22.400 Soviet Union wanting to convert everyone. 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:24.480 Right, China's never had a come intern. 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:28.080 Fort and they haven't been trying to take over territories 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:31.040 of other parties other than just you know, they're in 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:35.080 their periphery and they haven't had an aspiration. Enry actually 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:37.920 has a good line about this. He said, you know 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:41.120 that the Americans and Chinese are very similar in that 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:45.320 both of us have a superiority complex, but only one 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:48.080 of us is a missionary. The other one doesn't think 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:51.920 people are even good enough to be Chinese, so they'd 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:55.120 like for you to mimic their behavior. But they don't 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:57.080 think you're ever going to become Chinese, and they don't 0:16:57.120 --> 0:16:59.320 wanted you to become Chinese. I want you to rule 0:16:59.360 --> 0:17:01.840 your country the way Chinese do. They want to They 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:04.639 want you to have respect, yeah, and they want to 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:08.240 be in their own domain. I would say that's roughly right. 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:12.560 Leak On you was the best, the most insightful China 0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:15.400 Watcher and she China Watcher was leak On You. Leak 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:18.480 On You was the founder and father builder of Singapore, 0:17:18.800 --> 0:17:21.920 and he was one of my mentors. I wrote a 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:26.679 little book about him. And uh Hey said about China, 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:29.080 this is going to be the biggest player in the 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:32.320 history of the world. It's going to be very uncomfortable 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:36.119 for Americans to get used to it, especially the idea 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:41.159 that some smaller yellow ration. There's a racial element in 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:44.399 the history and orever, he said. But he believed that 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:47.600 it was possible that the US in China could find 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:51.400 the way if they were smart, to share the Pacific 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:53.480 in the twenty first century. And I would say that, 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:55.760 you know, that would be the good news home. 0:17:56.760 --> 0:17:59.680 So both Joe and I did international relations, I guess 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:04.080 in the early two thousand, yeah, around that time, and 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:07.240 a line of thinking back then was that globalization was 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:09.520 going to save us all and we were going to 0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:12.520 have our economies so enmeshed with each other that the 0:18:12.600 --> 0:18:16.800 idea of going to war or military competition would just 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:21.080 be completely insane because it would mean mutual self destruction, 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:24.520 not with bombs, but with I don't know, consumer goods 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:27.359 like La booboos. So I had to throw that in there. 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:30.640 Do people still believe that, because on the other hand, 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:33.359 it seems like the central conflict between the US and 0:18:33.440 --> 0:18:36.600 China right now is economic. But on the other hand, 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:39.280 we haven't had outright military war. 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:43.840 So good to remember how the cycles go. And I 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:46.760 think I remember that period since I've been teaching for 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:52.000 a long time. The theory that somehow economic entanglement would 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:57.240 prevent war was a famous theory in the beginning of 0:18:57.240 --> 0:19:01.440 the twentieth century as well. So the biggest, the best 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:05.119 selling book in the decade before World War One was 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:08.640 Norman Angels book I write about this actually in Destined 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:12.480 for War, called the Great Illusion, and he said, there's 0:19:12.520 --> 0:19:16.639 not going to be wars anymore because the cost of 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:21.880 war will so greatly exceed the benefits that the winner 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:26.400 will be a loser. And if you asked Andrew Carnegie, 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:31.680 who was the richest man of the time in nineteen fourteen, 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:36.479 for the Christmas nineteen thirteen fourteen, he sent out Christmas 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:40.280 cards to his favorite four thousand people, who included the 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:43.320 pins of every state, and he said, there's not going 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:46.240 to be war anymore because now we have this. 0:19:46.359 --> 0:19:48.200 You know, Merry Christmas, No more war. 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:51.920 Exactly, and he said, and I have built the peace 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:56.320 Palace at the Hague where people can go and resolve disputes, 0:19:56.440 --> 0:19:58.199 So it's not going to be necessary to have the 0:19:58.240 --> 0:20:01.320 fighter war. I would say that's a grand delusion. It 0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:04.119 turned out out to be right. Now, what's right and 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:08.280 wrong about it? Interesting? So is it true that the 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:12.520 US and China, both financially and in terms of supply 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:16.440 chains and in terms of economy are so entangled today 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:25.520 that this should provide some counterbalance to the geopolitical and 0:20:25.680 --> 0:20:31.199 military impulses for confrontation. Absolutely right. And this is what 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:34.879 you can see in Trump and She at their recent summit. 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:40.040 I mean, of the people in the current foreign policy world, 0:20:40.520 --> 0:20:46.200 Trump is a far, far, far outlier in this respect, 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:49.840 in that he thinks it's possible that the US in 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:53.640 China can actually both be involved in such a kind 0:20:53.640 --> 0:20:57.880 of economic relationship that will be beneficial to both parties. Now, 0:20:57.960 --> 0:21:01.520 partly that's because I think he's so some of the 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:05.600 people who are pessimistic about this have kind of given 0:21:05.680 --> 0:21:08.880 up on American competitiveness and thinking, you know, maybe we're 0:21:08.880 --> 0:21:12.840 not as competitive. Trump has I think a romantic view 0:21:12.880 --> 0:21:15.520 that the US can win, you know, every race. But 0:21:15.520 --> 0:21:18.040 on the other hand, he also has a businessman's view 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:22.439 that's possible for people to be entangled in ways in 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:25.920 which they can be fierce rivals and can also be 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:32.080 somehow cooperating. So I've been stretching for silver linings because 0:21:32.080 --> 0:21:34.880 there's as many, many, many things. Nothing like about true, 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:39.439 but I think it's conceivable if you look look at 0:21:39.440 --> 0:21:41.840 see what he said after the summit, when he tweeted 0:21:42.359 --> 0:21:45.000 at first he said it was great success for us 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:48.080 on a ten point scale, that was a twelve. Actually 0:21:48.280 --> 0:21:51.639 what he understood was he came up against somebody who's 0:21:51.680 --> 0:21:54.800 as strong and has as many cards as he does, 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:59.080 so you have to find a way to cooperate with him. 0:21:59.520 --> 0:22:02.720 But if that's true, if the both of the parties 0:22:03.000 --> 0:22:05.840 are searching for ways to cooperate, could this be a 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:08.960 stabilizer in what would otherwise be I would say yes 0:22:09.000 --> 0:22:11.320 it could, and could it just end up in some 0:22:11.440 --> 0:22:15.760 kind of a a So Henry, who was my other 0:22:15.920 --> 0:22:22.920 most mentor about China, kept saying, Henry Kissinger, sorry that 0:22:22.960 --> 0:22:28.720 we need a new strategic concept that's that's comprehensive enough 0:22:29.280 --> 0:22:31.520 to encompass the fact that we're going to be the 0:22:31.600 --> 0:22:35.360 fiercest doucinity in rivals at all times, each of us 0:22:35.400 --> 0:22:37.479 really really does want to be number one, and it 0:22:37.520 --> 0:22:40.040 matters in many many But at the same time we're 0:22:40.080 --> 0:22:44.240 so entangled that we require cooperation or the other for 0:22:44.240 --> 0:22:47.600 our own survival. So this sounds like a contradiction. It is, 0:22:48.080 --> 0:22:52.240 But we managed a version of that a little bit 0:22:52.520 --> 0:22:55.800 in the Cold War. This one's much more complicated because 0:22:55.960 --> 0:22:58.879 the Soviet Union was never really a serious economic rival. 0:22:59.280 --> 0:23:01.600 By the time you go to high codeor in the 0:23:01.800 --> 0:23:06.080 Chinese case, China is media. But is there something in 0:23:06.080 --> 0:23:08.720 that space? I think there is. How did this might be? 0:23:08.880 --> 0:23:12.159 So you mentioned that like compared to many others, Trump 0:23:12.320 --> 0:23:14.800 is a US unto optimist and maybe even a dove 0:23:15.200 --> 0:23:17.359 venu measures, which is a little weird given that, But 0:23:17.640 --> 0:23:20.200 it clearly is how did this happen? Like how did 0:23:20.640 --> 0:23:24.399 so much of the foreign policy elite in the US 0:23:24.840 --> 0:23:27.840 over the last several years, it feel like, becomes so 0:23:29.200 --> 0:23:33.760 doumor jaded, pessimistic about the prospect of peaceful coexistence. 0:23:34.280 --> 0:23:39.480 I think I think the main driver was structural in 0:23:39.600 --> 0:23:43.680 the thucidityan story. Okay, so if you look at the 0:23:43.720 --> 0:23:48.000 British in the period from nineteen hundred to nineteen fourteen. 0:23:48.760 --> 0:23:51.560 They become to be more and more shocked by the 0:23:51.600 --> 0:23:54.080 fact that the Germans are doing things that are supposed 0:23:54.080 --> 0:23:56.600