Speaker 1: It's always a pleasure to welcome Josh Rogan to the show.
Speaker 1: Josh is a global opinions calumnist for the Washington Post.
Speaker 1: Came across a piece he wrote recently about China's military
Speaker 1: expansion that I thought was just a home run and
Speaker 1: it's not getting nearly enough conversation. But Josh joins us, Now,
Speaker 1: how are you? Josh? Great? Guys, Listen, if the rapture happened,
Speaker 1: I'd rather be down here with you guys. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be a lot more fun here. You go an idea. Well,
Speaker 1: I wasn't gonna, you know, put two fine a point
Speaker 1: on that, but you appeared to to be here, so yeah, well,
Speaker 1: experts have had concerns about my soul for quite some time. Yeah, yeah, anyway, Josh,
Speaker 1: it's yeah, no kidding. It's always great to talk to you.
Speaker 1: I loved your piece in the Post. As I mentioned,
Speaker 1: uh tell us about China's military expansion. How notable is it? Right? Well,
Speaker 1: I had a travel nightmare of my own getting back
Speaker 1: and forth to Singapore last weekend. If you think it's bad,
Speaker 1: if you think that domestic flights are bad, wait till
Speaker 1: you try to catch your forty minute layover in Munich
Speaker 1: and then you find out the entire flight is well,
Speaker 1: that's that was like Saigan, okay, and it was. It
Speaker 1: was a disaster. But eventually I did make it to
Speaker 1: Singapore for this conference called the Shangoli Dialogue. They had
Speaker 1: it every year, except they didn't have it during the pandemic.
Speaker 1: So this is the first time in a few years.
Speaker 1: All of these diplomats and generals and animals were all
Speaker 1: these countries all over Asia got together. The Chinese People's
Speaker 1: Liberation Army leaders were there. They were meeting with our
Speaker 1: defense secretary. It was a big, big fin deal, okay.
Speaker 1: And after spending three days from there, I came back
Speaker 1: pretty scared, Okay, pretty worried, very concerned because the level
Speaker 1: of Chinese government aggression, military expansion, coercion UH in the
Speaker 1: region has gone way up since the last time I
Speaker 1: was in Asian three years, according to everybody in Asia, okay.
Speaker 1: And they'll all tell you the exact same thing. And
Speaker 1: the Chinese military is happy to tell you the same thing,
Speaker 1: which is that they're expanding and they're being more threat
Speaker 1: thing and more coercive, and they're looking at Taiwan and
Speaker 1: they see lunch okay, and they're gonna try it if
Speaker 1: they can. If they get to the level where they
Speaker 1: think they can get away with it, they're going to
Speaker 1: attack Taiwan and subject those poor people, twenty three million
Speaker 1: people who have been living in freedom since nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: nine or whatever, to the worst cruelty you can imagine.
Speaker 1: And so that's why I wrote the column, is like,
Speaker 1: we better wake up to that. And I get that,
Speaker 1: you know, the stuff happening in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Speaker 1: The world's a complicated place, but this is a thing
Speaker 1: that's going to happen sooner or later. We better start
Speaker 1: preparing for it now. That's my warning. Yeah. I remember
Speaker 1: when we were talking to you about this surround Hong Kong,
Speaker 1: and it was a similar sort of conversation. It looks
Speaker 1: like it's gonna happen, and then it happened, and it
Speaker 1: has happened, and it's over in. Hong Kong is part
Speaker 1: of China, and we don't want the same thing to
Speaker 1: happen here, right. I mean you could even say, well,
Speaker 1: Hong Kong was actually a Chinese city, so babe, we
Speaker 1: didn't have any right to stop them, but I thought
Speaker 1: we should have stopped them, and we didn't. And those
Speaker 1: eight million people's lives are much worse than you to
Speaker 1: breathe the error freedom, and now they're not all. If
Speaker 1: they go into the town square and say the wrong thing,
Speaker 1: they'll disappear, and the whole family will disappear just like that.
Speaker 1: It's not now be gone from being a free society
Speaker 1: to a fear of society. And I can't remember that
Speaker 1: really happening on that scale in my lifetime. It's pretty shocking.
Speaker 1: And I know a lot of the people who escaped,
Speaker 1: who fled Hong Kong, their lives are ruined. Not to
Speaker 1: mention the people that are in prison, do we really
Speaker 1: want to see that for Taiwan? And the Chinese saying, oh, well,
Speaker 1: that's our country, that's our that's our province. Taiwan belongs
Speaker 1: to us. But I've been there, okay, And there's those
Speaker 1: twenty three million people who don't agree with that. They
Speaker 1: don't think, they don't want to be part of China,
Speaker 1: they don't want to, you know, be governed by the
Speaker 1: Chinese Communist Party. They liked their democracy, and we did
Speaker 1: make a promise to help them defend it. And if
Speaker 1: you looked at Hong Kong. You would have to think
Speaker 1: that that promise is losing its credibility. And what I
Speaker 1: argue in my column is that we're also losing credibility
Speaker 1: because the Chinese military expansion is not being met with
Speaker 1: a proper response. So, you know, if there's one thing
Speaker 1: we should have learned from this whole Ukraine mess is
Speaker 1: that the only way to deter are these aggressive totalitarian
Speaker 1: dictatorships from scooping up democracies is to make sure that
Speaker 1: they know they can't get away with it by putting
Speaker 1: an opposing force on the other side. That's not a
Speaker 1: perfect solution. You know, we should also have diplomacy and
Speaker 1: economics and all that stuff. But if they get too powerful,
Speaker 1: if they think they can just swallow up Hong Kong
Speaker 1: and it's they're too uh, they're gonna try it. I
Speaker 1: think they're gonna try it, and I think we're gonna
Speaker 1: regret it. By the way, we have a link to
Speaker 1: Josh's colument Armstrong and getty dot Com under hot Links.
Speaker 1: But Josh, what are American military officials saying about the
Speaker 1: Chinese build up and how does it square with reality? Right?
Speaker 1: And again, you know, I get it, like you know,
Speaker 1: there's a you could over overreact, right, and you don't
Speaker 1: want to spend every sub cent in our treasury on
Speaker 1: military Stuff's not a good idea. But I interviewed the
Speaker 1: top commander of the U s Indo pay come into
Speaker 1: a Pacific Man's guy named Admiral Aquilino. Serious guy, okay,
Speaker 1: four star admiral. He's got to manage all of this stuff.
Speaker 1: And he said he's watching the largest military build up
Speaker 1: in history on the Chinese side, nuclear silos by the hundreds.
Speaker 1: Why are they doing that? Are they gonna nuke us? No,
Speaker 1: they're trying to make sure that they can blackmail us
Speaker 1: if we try to get in the middle of them
Speaker 1: in Taiwan. Then they've got hypersonic missiles. Then they've got
Speaker 1: anti satellite laders. There's then they're building new bases all
Speaker 1: over the region without telling anybody's secret Chinese military basis
Speaker 1: all over Asia. So that sounds like a really good development.
Speaker 1: So all he's saying is like, hey, guys, you know,
Speaker 1: if you really want to stop this, we better start now,
Speaker 1: because you know it's only gonna be a few years.
Speaker 1: It won't say exactly how many, but some people say seven.
Speaker 1: That's probably the deadline when Juan King is gonna make
Speaker 1: a run at this thing. And if we wait till
Speaker 1: then to start to think about it, uh, we're gonna lose. Man.
Speaker 1: This is some serious world history making stuff. These are
Speaker 1: some major decisions that are or aren't being made. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we're sleepwalking past the graveyard here. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, we're we're always is reacting to these crises
Speaker 1: when it's too late, Like you imagine if we get it,
Speaker 1: like you know, people were worry about arm in Ukraine,
Speaker 1: but imagine we had armed them sooner. Maybe a lot
Speaker 1: of less people would have died right now. It would
Speaker 1: have cost less, by the way, you know, if you
Speaker 1: wait for the crisis to come, it's gonna cost more. Right,
Speaker 1: This is an insurance down payment to give the Taiwan
Speaker 1: ease for just, for one example, enough weapons to defend themselves.
Speaker 1: They're gonna need some stingers and toes and all this stuff,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna have to make it and sell it
Speaker 1: to them or give it to them or something. And
Speaker 1: all you hear out of sort of the Button administration
Speaker 1: is like, oh yeah, we're gonna pivot to Asia. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be beautiful. But then the stuff never really arrives
Speaker 1: because they're too busy putting out fires on the other
Speaker 1: side of the world. So we gotta walk into gum
Speaker 1: on this thing. Okay, we can't just be leaders in
Speaker 1: Europe and not Asia, and we're gonna have to be
Speaker 1: a global superpower with global responsibilities. And it's not gonna
Speaker 1: be I'm sorry to say, it's not gonna be cheap.
Speaker 1: I wish it. We're gonna be cheap, but it's gonna
Speaker 1: be much more expensive if we, like the dictatorships expand,
Speaker 1: because then we're gonna have to deal with them when
Speaker 1: they're much more powerful. Josh Rogan of the Wampo is
Speaker 1: on the line. Josh, what's the state of the free
Speaker 1: navigation of waters? Say in the child South China? See
Speaker 1: with those those brand new military bases, et cetera. How
Speaker 1: belligerent are the Chinese getting. They're getting more and more
Speaker 1: belligerent every day as there they expand. You know, and
Speaker 1: right now, you know you have a U S policy
Speaker 1: where we just okay, we're gonna agree to disagree. We're
Speaker 1: gonna sail where we want, and they're gonna get yell
Speaker 1: and scream about it. But at some point they're gonna
Speaker 1: start to escalate this. They're gonna start bumping into our boats.
Speaker 1: They're already bumping into our planes. They're trying to like
Speaker 1: shoot down Australian spy planes with lasers. They're doing a
Speaker 1: lot of really aggressive stuff. And what they're doing is
Speaker 1: they're testing us. And the more aggressive they get, they
Speaker 1: see if they can go a little bit further, a
Speaker 1: little bit further and see what are responses. And so
Speaker 1: that's why we have to respond, unfortunately, because if we
Speaker 1: don't respond, they just get worse, they get more aggressive.
Speaker 1: So you know, that's a really big problem. But it's
Speaker 1: not getting any better. And this again sort of go
Speaker 1: to the region, talk to all the people in all
Speaker 1: these different countries. Uh, that's what they're saying. They're saying,
Speaker 1: this is gonna get worse before it gets better, and
Speaker 1: we can't ignore it anymore. Yeah. Well, the history of
Speaker 1: the world, as we all know is Hitler takes poland
Speaker 1: he doesn't stop there. Putin takes crime, doesn't stop there.
Speaker 1: And there's no reason to think that the end game
Speaker 1: is Taiwan. And even if they you know, we allowed
Speaker 1: that to happen, that that's the end there's nobody believes that,
Speaker 1: do they, Well, some people do. I mean, there are
Speaker 1: there there are people both on the left and the right,
Speaker 1: as you know, who think we should just like pull
Speaker 1: up the drawbridge, uh, you know, build a huge missile
Speaker 1: defense for our country and tell the rest of the
Speaker 1: world to go through itself and that will be fine,
Speaker 1: you know. And I hear that a lot. And I
Speaker 1: get that people are tired of military interventionism. It's very expensive,
Speaker 1: it's hard to balance against the things that we need
Speaker 1: to do at home. Those are all real concerns, but
Speaker 1: we should have learned in the twentie century that eventually,
Speaker 1: if you ignore the aggressive, expansionist, totalitarian, militaristic dictatorships, they'll
Speaker 1: come knocking at your door. It's just too it's just
Speaker 1: a matter of time, and either you know, the free
Speaker 1: world is expanding or it's contracting and ever stays static.
Speaker 1: So the more that they advance, the worst position that
Speaker 1: we're in. So, unfortunately, freedom isn't free. And unfortunately the
Speaker 1: work of you know, fighting thugs and dictators and just
Speaker 1: mad men like Puno are willing to kill millions of
Speaker 1: people for no reason. That work is not over, you know.
Speaker 1: So We're gonna have to do it because if we
Speaker 1: don't do it, nobody else will. Yeah. Boy, And if
Speaker 1: I'm in some western Japanese island or the Philippines or
Speaker 1: something like that, I'm not content to think, Yeah, China
Speaker 1: will halt its expansion after Taiwan, not for a second.
Speaker 1: Josh Rogan, Global Opinions columnists with The Washington Post's the
Speaker 1: author of a terrific book, Chaos Under Heaven Trump she
Speaker 1: in the Battle for the twenty one Century. You're working
Speaker 1: on anything right now, Josh book? Why? Uh, we're all
Speaker 1: looking at the president's trip to the Middle East where
Speaker 1: he was going to uh takeing a cows out to
Speaker 1: the Saudi clown Prince Mohammed Ben Solmon. That seems to
Speaker 1: be the next big foreign policy story. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's sort of like the administration has been talking
Speaker 1: about human rights, but they don't walk the walk. And
Speaker 1: now we're gonna everyone's gonna see it on national TV
Speaker 1: when the President States goes hat in hand to beg
Speaker 1: for oil from a dictator. And that's going to be
Speaker 1: a pretty demoralizing moment in units form policies for it's
Speaker 1: not concerned Josh Rogan, Global opinions columnists with The Washington Post. Josh,
Speaker 1: always a pleasure, always enlightening. Thanks a bunch of the
Speaker 1: time any time. Yeah, smart guy, interesting to talk to,
Speaker 1: and and and none of that hyperbole or an exaggeration
Speaker 1: or this is some high stake stuff. And then you've
Speaker 1: got the complicated you know, I would never pretend that
Speaker 1: these are easy decisions, because there's two ways to look
Speaker 1: at it. There's the um great empires have collapsed because
Speaker 1: they got overextended, Roman Empire, Soviet Union, whatever, get involved
Speaker 1: in various places around the world over extending. Okay, you
Speaker 1: could go with that narrative, or you can go with
Speaker 1: the the one I laid out, the letting a Hitler
Speaker 1: take Poland and putin take crime or whatever, and they
Speaker 1: don't stop, and then you end up facing them when
Speaker 1: they're bigger and more powerful. Which is it? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think it's the latter. Well, you have a superpower
Speaker 1: that is openly declared its hostility to the United States
Speaker 1: arming itself as fast as it can. I mean, you
Speaker 1: need not have a pH d in international relations to
Speaker 1: realize we gotta pay attention to that. Yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of people who pointed out they're not hiding their
Speaker 1: ambitions to become the global hyperpower at all, and we're
Speaker 1: either going to try to stop them or not