Speaker 1: Politicians go to Taiwan all the time, and it's just
Speaker 1: it's you don't even hear about it because it's not
Speaker 1: a thing. But all of a sudden, when the story
Speaker 1: that normally you wouldn't pay attention to of Nancy Pelosi
Speaker 1: going to Taiwan, China reacted like what, no, you can't
Speaker 1: do that. Oh my god, this means war. And everybody's like,
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? But well, right, and our
Speaker 1: instinct says there's something else going on, maybe several something
Speaker 1: else is to discuss. Josh Rogan, global opinions columnists for
Speaker 1: The Washington Post, joins us. Josh is the author of
Speaker 1: the excellent Chaos Under Heaven Trump she in the Battle
Speaker 1: for the twenty one century. Josh, welcome, always great to talk.
Speaker 1: How are you glad to be back? In? Your instinct
Speaker 1: is right, there is more going on. Okay, Well tell
Speaker 1: us what it is. Well, you know, it's sometimes these
Speaker 1: things just come down to politicians and their egos. Okay.
Speaker 1: And here you have Nancy Pelosi, who's about to be,
Speaker 1: you know, displaced as Speaker of the House, likely she's
Speaker 1: going to retire, right, and she sees this off to
Speaker 1: Taiwan is the capstone of what of her self proclaimed
Speaker 1: career as a leader in U S China relations. So
Speaker 1: for her, this is a legacy item. That's why she
Speaker 1: can't delay it. That's so she went to Tanneman Square
Speaker 1: in and she sees this as the other bookend. So
Speaker 1: she's building a legacy item. But the guys in the
Speaker 1: Wine they don't care about that. Why do they care
Speaker 1: about Nancy Pelosi's legacy trip her? It's essentially a vanity trip.
Speaker 1: They think she's self promoting what she is. And for them,
Speaker 1: right now, they're trying to ramp down tensions in US
Speaker 1: China relations for whatever reason, that's their chess move. They're
Speaker 1: playing a chess game, their moves to ramp down tensions,
Speaker 1: and she's ramping them up. And they're like, hey, can
Speaker 1: you not, you know, mess with our strategy please? Uh
Speaker 1: because maybe nobody ever asked you to do that, And
Speaker 1: she's like, no, I don't care what you say. So
Speaker 1: in the end, you've got these these you know, old
Speaker 1: politicians Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi frankly, who are stubborn
Speaker 1: and neither one of them wants to give in. And
Speaker 1: then when the funny part is that this was all
Speaker 1: being negotiated behind the scenes, very quietly for weeks. By
Speaker 1: the way, weeks they were trying to convince her, they're
Speaker 1: pleading with her, showing her military operations that would be
Speaker 1: necessary intelligence assessments. The story league, and someone asked Biden
Speaker 1: about it, and he confirmed it, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: the quiet negotiations were over because he blurted it on
Speaker 1: in the public and he made it even worse because
Speaker 1: then the Chinese really overreacted. And now Fannancy because he
Speaker 1: doesn't want to look like she's backing down, So now
Speaker 1: she kind of has to go, oh, wow, you you
Speaker 1: mentioned the age of the participants. Of course, Nancy and
Speaker 1: her husband benefited from the opium Wars, and that's where
Speaker 1: they really made their money. So at the same time,
Speaker 1: though with all due respect of that, which I find
Speaker 1: oddly hilarious, um, the idea that the Chinese would well, okay,
Speaker 1: that's that's good to know. But the idea that the
Speaker 1: Chinese would get a veto power over any American going
Speaker 1: to Taiwan is utterly galling right, And that's the principle
Speaker 1: that's important to uphold here. Now, what's funny about that
Speaker 1: is that you know from the what the White House
Speaker 1: guys says, and they're like, listen, we know that the
Speaker 1: Chinese always pitch in bone, and we're not saying that
Speaker 1: we should give in, but what we're saying is, according
Speaker 1: to our intelligence, they believe that policy is going, you know,
Speaker 1: with the President's support. They can't understand our system that
Speaker 1: like the President of the United States can't control the
Speaker 1: Speaker of the House of his own party. She would
Speaker 1: go and tell him to go screw himself. Like in
Speaker 1: their system, if you sure by the president you did,
Speaker 1: you're gone. You're breaking rocks for twenty years. Your whole
Speaker 1: family is finished forever. So they can't they don't believe
Speaker 1: the bidens when they say no, no, no, we can't
Speaker 1: control Nancy Pelosi and she she just got have to
Speaker 1: lump it. So they think it's an escalation, which is
Speaker 1: like again the opposite of what they're trying to signal.
Speaker 1: And then you know when and then once they sort
Speaker 1: of realized that our system was so sort of dysfunctional
Speaker 1: and they started to believe, they're like, oh, now we'll
Speaker 1: double down and get even nastier and meaner and threatening
Speaker 1: her more. And so I mean, there I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course we can't back down to Chinese bullying, but
Speaker 1: we have to also understand that the reason that there's
Speaker 1: a risk is because they don't believe anything that we say.
Speaker 1: We don't believe anything that they say. And Nancy Plussy
Speaker 1: is just sort of injecting herself into that situation without
Speaker 1: regard for much of that because again that's she wants
Speaker 1: to do what she wants to do, and I was
Speaker 1: gonna tell her what not to do, and so the
Speaker 1: people were stuck really in the middle of the time
Speaker 1: when he's of course, because you know, like for Hume said,
Speaker 1: it's not very unlikely that the Chinese is gonna start
Speaker 1: World War three over this, right, They're not gonna attack us.
Speaker 1: What they do is they attack the weaker party that's
Speaker 1: Taiwan needs. So when she leaves, you know, and they
Speaker 1: impost some sort of new economic or military aggression on Taiwan. Uh.
Speaker 1: She's writing the check, but they're paying the bill. So
Speaker 1: do we know what the great chess game is that
Speaker 1: the White House is playing. I'm surprised to see the
Speaker 1: Secretary of Defense yesterday Mr Austin also making noises about
Speaker 1: this isn't exactly the best timing form. I mean, so,
Speaker 1: what what do we have going on? What's in the works. Well,
Speaker 1: President Biden and General Secretary shi Jingping are on the
Speaker 1: phone right now. I mean it's a video conference, but
Speaker 1: they're literally talking as we speak, okay, And that's what
Speaker 1: that's the that's what they're trying to do. They're trying
Speaker 1: to regularize the relationships so that we could at least
Speaker 1: talk to one another. And what they stay is the
Speaker 1: Biden people, the White House people anyway, where they say
Speaker 1: is listen, this relationship is going down okay fast, not
Speaker 1: because we want it too, but because the Chinese Communist
Speaker 1: Party it's getting worse. They're getting more aggressive, more repressive,
Speaker 1: more expansionist, nastier, meaner, acting more like ansters every day.
Speaker 1: I think the White House gets that right. But what
Speaker 1: they're what they're saying is that we're not we want
Speaker 1: to sort of prepare for this struggle carefully. We want
Speaker 1: to do it, you know, we don't want to spark
Speaker 1: crisis unnecessarily. And when we do have a crisis, we
Speaker 1: want it to be on our terms, not on Nancy
Speaker 1: Pelosi's terms. So they're just trying to keep things copathetic,
Speaker 1: and she's messing with that plan. Now. Overall, do I
Speaker 1: think that the Biden administration is doing enough to confront
Speaker 1: the Chinese Comments Party? No, but you could understand, just
Speaker 1: sort of from an intellectual standpoint, why on one particular
Speaker 1: day they might not want Nancy Pelosi to start a
Speaker 1: crisis because they're not ready for that. Josh Rogan, global
Speaker 1: opinions columnist for the Washington Post on the line, I
Speaker 1: believe we have live feed of the video conference right now,
Speaker 1: Mr President, you're on mute. Uh the little picture of
Speaker 1: the microphone, sir, no touch it that that, No, just
Speaker 1: touch it once, sir, you're still on mute. So more
Speaker 1: more seriously, Josh, one factor we haven't yet discussed is
Speaker 1: the upcoming coronation of j and Ping Is is a
Speaker 1: third term leader of slash President for life, with the
Speaker 1: economy faltering, the COVID not going away. Um, I understand.
Speaker 1: One factor is we don't want to give him an
Speaker 1: excuse for acting like the hardass nationalist to rally support
Speaker 1: behind him. Right. Well, the two things you've got that
Speaker 1: relates to what you just said. One is that you know,
Speaker 1: we've got this whole region full of countries and right
Speaker 1: we don't want to give him, like any plausible story
Speaker 1: as to to claim that we're the aggressives instead of him,
Speaker 1: and even if it's not true, we don't want to
Speaker 1: give him that chance. But the other thing is that,
Speaker 1: like you know, what the White House guys will say
Speaker 1: is listen, in these few months, it's pretty dicey before
Speaker 1: Jun Thing gets coronated for his third term, because he's
Speaker 1: under the microscope blah blah blah. And that presumes something
Speaker 1: which I don't think it is true, which is that
Speaker 1: after he gets a third term, it's gonna be better.
Speaker 1: My assumption is that once he becomes dictator for life
Speaker 1: like a Putin or an MBS or Kim Jong un right,
Speaker 1: he's actually gonna get worse. He's gonna get nastier. That's
Speaker 1: what happens with you know, psychopathic dictators. Their appetite grows
Speaker 1: with the eating. And so I don't think there's ever
Speaker 1: gonna be a good time for Nancy Pelosi to go
Speaker 1: to Taiwan where they're not gonna do some threatened to
Speaker 1: do some crazy stuff. That's why I think you might
Speaker 1: as well go now, because I don't think it's gonna
Speaker 1: get better later this year. Um. But you know, that's
Speaker 1: the situation we're in. The Chinese Communist Party is becoming
Speaker 1: a totalitarian state, almost a fascist state, and that we're
Speaker 1: all gonna have to do. Is well, that sounds awfully
Speaker 1: damned if you do, and damned if you don't. It
Speaker 1: is because what I was trying to express is that
Speaker 1: j and Ping has to have a justification for being
Speaker 1: recordnated and with the other stuff floundering. If being the
Speaker 1: brave military hero against the West is an excuse, he's
Speaker 1: looking for somebody to punch in the face. And we'd
Speaker 1: prefer not to give him that excuse for all sorts
Speaker 1: of different reasons. But uh, yeah, yeah, no, I think
Speaker 1: that's true. But I think he's gonna get coordinated one
Speaker 1: way or the other, and he's gonna get nasty or
Speaker 1: one way or the other. And if we look at China,
Speaker 1: would look at that zero COVID stuff. I mean, it's crazy,
Speaker 1: either killing their own economy, they're putting millions of people
Speaker 1: into quarantine for two cases of like the you know,
Speaker 1: the the various don't even work that way anymore. But
Speaker 1: they can't change that. No one can tell the dear
Speaker 1: leader that he's wrong. That's what's so scared worry about
Speaker 1: it is it doesn't doesn't need any more boogeyman, he
Speaker 1: doesn't need any more excuses. He's he's done it. He's
Speaker 1: he's assumed total power. And absolute power corrupts absolutely, and
Speaker 1: that's why China is a big threat. But it's also
Speaker 1: why we can't say that China is going to be
Speaker 1: the greatest country in the world, because all of those
Speaker 1: systems are essentially corrupt and rotten at the core. Well,
Speaker 1: that's actually good news for us. Um uh the yeah,
Speaker 1: double edged swords certainly. Um So the final on this
Speaker 1: from you, do you think she one has to go
Speaker 1: and will go? Yeah? I mean I don't know. I
Speaker 1: think if I had to put money on it, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think she's gonna go because she's going to Soul,
Speaker 1: She's going to Tokyo. So now she doesn't go, everybody
Speaker 1: will know she backed down. And you know what the
Speaker 1: White House says is, oh, just go after the election.
Speaker 1: It be fine after the election, but she won't. She'll
Speaker 1: be speaker, but should be a lame duck. It won't
Speaker 1: be the same thing. And I don't think she wants
Speaker 1: to take that chance. So you know, if you know
Speaker 1: I think at the end of next week Nancy posting
Speaker 1: in a delegation in Atlanta, Taiwan, And like I said,
Speaker 1: the Chinese are just gonna have to lump it. And
Speaker 1: you know, if fiddlet you know, if they do do
Speaker 1: something really crazy and provocative, then the Biden administrations should
Speaker 1: support Pelosi, not the Chinese. Yeah, and you know, and
Speaker 1: if they do something crazy, that was if they do
Speaker 1: something crazy that was gonna happen over something else. I mean,
Speaker 1: if they're willing to go to war over Nancy Pelosi
Speaker 1: visiting Taiwan, which is a completely normal thing to do, well,
Speaker 1: then there's something else was gonna happen anyway. And when
Speaker 1: the CCP challenges are resolved, what we should do is
Speaker 1: we should show resolved. How about that? Amen to that, brother,
Speaker 1: Josh Rogan of the Washington Post. You should read them.
Speaker 1: Is the most recent pieces posted at Armstrong and getty
Speaker 1: dot com. Josh, we always appreciate the time well done anytime.
Speaker 1: I love how fired up he is about this topic
Speaker 1: because everybody should be are strong and