December 12, 2025 • 18 mins
From October of 2025 - The Best Of The Buck Brief.
After a week in Taiwan meeting with President Lai Ching-te, top military officials, and national security advisors, Buck Sexton breaks down the question everyone’s asking: Is China going to invade Taiwan? From drone factories and missile systems to Taiwan’s vital role in the global chip supply, Buck shares what he learned on the ground and why a Chinese invasion could trigger economic chaos around the world.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
You're listening to the Buck Sexton Show podcast, let make
sure you subscribe to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
So is China going to invade Taiwan? This is obviously
something that I'm spending a lot of time thinking about
right now because I just got back from a week
in Taiwan. I interviewed the president President Lai and that
now has been picked up by the international media. So
a lot of eyeballs on this issue, which is one
(00:42):
of the main reasons of course I wanted to go.
But I sat down with the Vice President of Taiwan,
the National Security Council, national Security Advisor. I went to
I'm going to answer the question it is trying to
get invade, but first I went to a military basis
either high mars artillery system really more like a rocket system,
but they call it an artillery system. I saw a
(01:05):
drone manufacturing facility. Of course, drones very important in military
applications and all kinds of defense of the future. Quite honestly,
it's going to be tech and AI related. I saw
a boat manufacturing facility that on the one hand makes
traditional all kinds of boats, but traditional navy boats, coastguard vessels,
(01:27):
but not very big ones, I think less than one
hundred feet only. But they are making speedboats that have
an explosive payload, that are autonomous, that are drone speedboats
with a big boom in them, or that will go boom.
That was really interesting. Went to TSMC, which is the
(01:48):
chip manufacturer that plays a huge role not just in
the global economy and artificial intelligence, but plays a very
substantial role in the whole national security situation.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
So I got a very good overview.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
And thank you to my friend Stephen Yates, my buddy
now of almost fifteen years, who set all of this up.
He's at the Heritage Foundation. He was my guru, my
shirpa through all of this. And my two brothers, Mason
and Keats came. They I just wanted them to be
there and see Taiwan and and to be able to
soak up as much of this information as they could.
(02:20):
And you know, they're very involved in their own ways
in well let's just say commerce and politics and how
Taiwan plays into all that. So is China going to invade?
I think the answer, unfortunately is yes. So then the
next question is when now.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
There I can tell you this.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
I have spoken to a whole range of experts on
what's going to happen here, and they disagree about basically
everything in terms of when this is going to happen.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Is the invasion going to happen?
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Different experts, and I'm talking about people in the DoD
here in the States, I'm talking about people in the
national security apparatus in Taiwan and outside experts. I get
different answers from everybody on this stuff because nobody can
predict the future, and there's a lot of variables here
for anyone who was wondering, by the way, before I
(03:11):
dive into some of this, this back and forth on
Taiwan something that I think is important. If you're saying, oh,
I don't care, or why does this affect me? If
we wake up and Taiwan Taipei the capital, it's being
pummelines missiles to soften up their defenses in advance of
(03:31):
a blockade of the islands, so ships preventing other ships
from getting the area, and an amphibious invasion with massive
Chinese forces deployed. The stock market is going to crash
like you've never seen. It will be trillions of dollars
of wealth erased overnight. You will see a global supply
chain disruption of the likes of which we have not seen,
(03:54):
I think, worse than what you even saw in the
early days of COVID. It will be an absolute mess
for everybody. If you live in Oklahoma, your iPhone relies
on chips made in Taiwan, and this is the point
that's so critical. They can't be made anywhere else. So
that's why on just a basic day to day level,
this really matters. So I think that everybody should first
(04:18):
put it in that context. I also want to say
my well, I'll get into what I think should happen,
But why do I believe, after talking to all these
advisors and all these different individuals, why do I think
that China is going to invade? Well, for one thing,
they say they're going to do it. I know they've
said that for a long time. But Shi Jinping is
a full blown dictator, is a very scary individual, and
(04:40):
he has set a date for this of twenty twenty seven.
People keep saying he won't do it while Trump's in office,
and to that, I say, well, why, because it's going
to be so much easier under a possible JD vance administration.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
I don't think that's the case.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
So also, is Trump really that favorable toward the defensive
time one, It's not really known where Trump is on
this now. I think that's by design. It's in a
way a continuation of the official US position, which is
strategic ambiguity.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Will we do it? Will we not do it? Well,
we'll see.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
And that's the intentional position. I've never seen this anywhere
else in the US foreign policy, certainly not as explicitly
put out this way. That is the intentional position of
the United States government on this, and it has been
for a long time. Will we won't We we'll see.
But also, China is in no danger when you start
(05:34):
to so that they've said they're going to do it.
China is in no danger of invasion or military class
with any of its neighbors. You know, it's got India
on one side, Russia on the other. They're not they're
not doing anything. Then you have the vast step the
sort of grassland super highway that the Mongols used to
conquer much of the known world, you know, a long
time ago. That's not They're not going to get invaded
(05:56):
by any of the stands. You know, Kazakhstan is not
about to invade China. You know, turkmenis Stan, all these places,
they're not about to So we know that that's not
the end. Japan just wants to do its own thing.
There's no invasion threat of China. Why is it olding
up its military in this massive way, an unprecedented build up,
churning out so many ships, churning out so many missiles.
(06:18):
There's only one goal that this can have because the
country no one would dream of invading, China has a
billion people, all right, It's just it's not even on
the table for anyone. So this is all geared toward
taking Taiwan, and there's a deep seated need. Remember that
the Chinese the CCP of the Chinese Communist Party, and
I really recommend people read Mao. The Untold Story is
(06:41):
the one that I really really love. Jun Chang and
John Halliday, I think, are the authors that it explains
to you that Mao is just the most evil human being,
maybe certainly in modern history. I don't know if anybody
could be more evil in terms of the death and
the sadism and the murderous nature.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Of his policies.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Yeah, I mean Hitler's horrible, Stalin's horrible. Mao has them
all beat in terms of numbers, raw numbers of people
who were killed murdered by the state in what a
lot of times through starvation. It's a really horrible way
to go. So now is an evil SOB and he
is the founder of the CCP, And now Shijin Ping
(07:25):
has that mantle. Hjin Ping has taken over this role.
So there's reason, I think for extremely high levels of
concern right now for an invasion of Taiwan. And I'll
get into how I think that invasion looks here in
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Speaker 1 (08:17):
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(08:43):
so what do I think an invasion looks like? I
had these conversations again with people of all different all
different perspectives, who are very focused on this issue. In
many cases have access to the classified the high side,
whether Taiwanese or American version of it, and everybody has
different answers, so no one knows what the answer is.
(09:03):
But I think it's most likely that if China was
to do this, you would see a combination of blockade
and blitzkrieg. The blockade would probably start with some pretense
of there's an issue that we're solving in the area,
there's some problem that we, the Chinese military, are addressing.
(09:24):
So we're going to do that, and we're not allowing
any other ships in the area. So in a sense,
they'd be daring Taiwan to do something about them. And
then the blitzkrieg would be the missiles, which they're just
going to try to pummel Taiwan with missiles and then
soften things up for the invasion force to land. And
I think their goal would be to finish off this
(09:45):
conflict before the US could even make a realistic effort,
if it would choose to do so, if it would
choose to do so in defense of Taiwan. So they
finish it off, they say, look, we've taken the island. Guys,
this is ours one China policy internal matter. This is
from the CCP perspective, you really want to lose an
aircraft carrier two to our anti ship missiles. Again, from
(10:08):
the Chinese perspective, you really want to lose Americans in
this fight, very very compelling, because we don't want to
lose Americans in somebody else's fight, right, So this you
start to that's their plan, and if they can get there,
if they believe they can get there, I think they're
going to launch an invasion. And as I've said, this
(10:29):
is hugely problematic for the rest of the.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
World for two reasons.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
One, the massive economic hit that.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
This will create, and you're.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Going to have, like I said, the tech economy will
come to a screeching holt.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Now this might go on for weeks.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
This isn't just like a twenty four hour thing, So
the tech economy all of a sudden, you're going to
see real pain and pandemonium around that.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
So that's one part of it.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
And then the other part of it is we can't
allow China to have full control of the fabs, the
manufacturing facilities for the most advanced microchips in the world,
and that's what they would have if they took.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Control of Taiwan.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
The sea CP would without question if they took over.
Now there's questions about would there be intentional destruction of
these facilities by Taiwanese stakeholders. There's a lot of there's
so many variables. This is why everybody has different opinions.
But if the CCP was able to take control and
then run these factories, and you know, in a matter
(11:31):
of time, they probably would be able to figure that out.
They will have a stranglehold on the global tech economy,
which affects all of us. Remember that there's chips. There
are micro chips, semiconductors in your car, in your likely
in your washer dryer, certainly in your smartphone and your
laptop and your television, all of these things reliant chips.
(11:53):
If China controls the chips that the whole world relies on,
think about the leverage that gives them, and think about
the counterintelligence.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Risks that that creates for us.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
So we're all going to be buying our most sensitive chips,
because that's going to include chips used for military application. Everybody,
we're gonna be buying all that from China. So that's
where you see. This is a huge, a huge problem,
a huge challenge, and why I think everybody has to
look at this. I get there's a boy cried wolf feeling.
Oh the South China Sea, the Gray Zone, ships are
(12:27):
ramming each other. They're arguing over the sen Kaku or
the Da Dayu islands. They're arguing over this little island
chain or that you know, fishing rights here or there.
Now that's important stuff for those countries, but we don't
really care, right you're not up late at night, like.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Who's going to be in control of the Senkaku Islands.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
But now it's about going for the big prize, which
is Taiwan. This is now a shift from the Chinese
Commist Party. And one of the reasons, one of the
reasons that we know this is that they have cut
off travel to Taiwan almost all of it, like ninety
percent of travel from mainland China to Taiwan is gone.
(13:06):
That wasn't the case even five six years ago. There
was plenty of tourists coming in from China, and they've
cut off. They have no communication between the governments. None
think about that. Note they're only one hundred miles apart.
No communication from the Taiwanese government to the Chinese government
and vice versa, or the you know CCP Beijing government.
And because there's Republic of there's a Republic of China,
(13:27):
which is Taiwan, and then there's you know, democratic People's
Republic of China or whatever. I mean, there's all these
different or People's Republic of China PRC. Sorry, there's a
Democrats I can't go all sorry, there's Democratic.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Republic, People's Republic of North Korea.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Right, the longer the name and the more claims to
political legitimacy in the name, the less legitimate the regime
always is.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
You know that. So these are these are the factors.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
But they're they're they're setting up to do this and
and I don't know, well, can they be stopped and
what would the US role in that be?
Speaker 1 (14:04):
So what do I think we should do about this?
Speaker 2 (14:05):
I know that's a critical component, right, That's something that
we have to know. I'm not saying we should set
up US military bases in Taiwan. I'm not saying we
should do the fighting for them. They told me very explicitly,
the president of that country and many many other officials
told me they will fight, and they will fight tooth
and nail to defend their sovereignty, to defend their island.
(14:29):
Now there's some skepticism from people in the American policy
intelligency about this.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
I'm just telling.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
You they were as full throated and clear about this
as they could be. They say they will fight, and
I think that for the leadership for a lot of people.
They look at what happened to Hong Kong. Which what
happened to Hong Kong, it's now been consumed by the CCP.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Dragon.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
It is now fully under the thumb of the CCP.
The different system there. Freedom and democracy gone gone hope.
I was told by somebody who's actually tied to a
very prominent dissident who's in prison in Hong Kong now
for writing newspaper. Essentially, I was told that the way
to describe Hong Kong now as hope is just eradicated.
(15:15):
And people see that and they really remember China was saying,
Oh no, it's fine, it's ours, don't worry. This is
an internal matter. It'd be the same thing in Taiwan.
It would be turning that island into a surf a
serfdom of the CCP. And people don't want that. So
I think they are willing to defend themselves, that's my assessment.
(15:39):
How can they, Well, this is where they have to
get asymmetric, and this is where drones and advanced tech
and things like ANDROL technology, which is very much involved
in trying to come up with new ways to use
AI and tech and manufacturing capacity. The Taiwanese are very
good at tech and manufacturing, and they're going to have
to produce and also work with partners to produce an
(16:02):
arsenal of self defense munitions and capabilities that is so
formidable that China just keeps on delaying, delaying, delaying, essentially
create a perpetuation of the status quo with Taiwan by
raising the price so high that it is on indefinite
delay because China is I think the current regime is
(16:25):
never going to say, okay, Taiwan can do its own thing.
That's never gonna happen. You'd have to have a collapse
of the CCP. But you can delay it indefinitely, you know,
you can maybe kick it out ten twenty thirty years
maybe if Taiwan really gets its capabilities in order. In
China realizes that, and of course there's tremendous amounts of
spying and espionage going on, and they're all kinds of
(16:49):
there's a lot of cases actually that the Taiwanese courts
are going.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Through about people who are CCP moles and spies in Taiwan.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
So they have a tremendous amount of intelligence collection going
on against the Taiwanese. So they have a good sense
of capabilities. If they can get their capabilities to a
point where the CCP would risk Chinese Communist Party would
risk disaster with the plan that I laid out of
the of the blockade and blitzkrieg strike. Then I think
(17:20):
that they might be able, They might be okay, they
might be able to continue on and make their chips
and live. It's a wonderful country. I mean, I really
have tremendous respect for the Taiwanese. They are a a friendly, orderly,
law abiding, just just very good, smart, impressive people. It's
(17:42):
a great country of great people, and and I certainly
think it deserves its sovereignty and deserves to just live
in peace. And that's all they want. They just want
to live in peace and make great products for the
rest of the world. But communists have to destroy, and
the CCP, even though they're not traditional you know, Marxist Leninist,
the CCP wants to destroy and to own and to control.
(18:04):
And I hope that we the US, will give give
the Taiwanese the tools to do the job, help them
get the tools to do the job, because I think
that's possible. That's the Taiwan Deep Dive shield time
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Speaker 2 (00:20):
So is China going to invade Taiwan? This is obviously
something that I'm spending a lot of time thinking about
right now because I just got back from a week
in Taiwan. I interviewed the president President Lai and that
now has been picked up by the international media. So
a lot of eyeballs on this issue, which is one
(00:42):
of the main reasons of course I wanted to go.
But I sat down with the Vice President of Taiwan,
the National Security Council, national Security Advisor. I went to
I'm going to answer the question it is trying to
get invade, but first I went to a military basis
either high mars artillery system really more like a rocket system,
but they call it an artillery system. I saw a
(01:05):
drone manufacturing facility. Of course, drones very important in military
applications and all kinds of defense of the future. Quite honestly,
it's going to be tech and AI related. I saw
a boat manufacturing facility that on the one hand makes
traditional all kinds of boats, but traditional navy boats, coastguard vessels,
(01:27):
but not very big ones, I think less than one
hundred feet only. But they are making speedboats that have
an explosive payload, that are autonomous, that are drone speedboats
with a big boom in them, or that will go boom.
That was really interesting. Went to TSMC, which is the
(01:48):
chip manufacturer that plays a huge role not just in
the global economy and artificial intelligence, but plays a very
substantial role in the whole national security situation.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
So I got a very good overview.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
And thank you to my friend Stephen Yates, my buddy
now of almost fifteen years, who set all of this up.
He's at the Heritage Foundation. He was my guru, my
shirpa through all of this. And my two brothers, Mason
and Keats came. They I just wanted them to be
there and see Taiwan and and to be able to
soak up as much of this information as they could.
(02:20):
And you know, they're very involved in their own ways
in well let's just say commerce and politics and how
Taiwan plays into all that. So is China going to invade?
I think the answer, unfortunately is yes. So then the
next question is when now.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
There I can tell you this.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
I have spoken to a whole range of experts on
what's going to happen here, and they disagree about basically
everything in terms of when this is going to happen.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Is the invasion going to happen?
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Different experts, and I'm talking about people in the DoD
here in the States, I'm talking about people in the
national security apparatus in Taiwan and outside experts. I get
different answers from everybody on this stuff because nobody can
predict the future, and there's a lot of variables here
for anyone who was wondering, by the way, before I
(03:11):
dive into some of this, this back and forth on
Taiwan something that I think is important. If you're saying, oh,
I don't care, or why does this affect me? If
we wake up and Taiwan Taipei the capital, it's being
pummelines missiles to soften up their defenses in advance of
(03:31):
a blockade of the islands, so ships preventing other ships
from getting the area, and an amphibious invasion with massive
Chinese forces deployed. The stock market is going to crash
like you've never seen. It will be trillions of dollars
of wealth erased overnight. You will see a global supply
chain disruption of the likes of which we have not seen,
(03:54):
I think, worse than what you even saw in the
early days of COVID. It will be an absolute mess
for everybody. If you live in Oklahoma, your iPhone relies
on chips made in Taiwan, and this is the point
that's so critical. They can't be made anywhere else. So
that's why on just a basic day to day level,
this really matters. So I think that everybody should first
(04:18):
put it in that context. I also want to say
my well, I'll get into what I think should happen,
But why do I believe, after talking to all these
advisors and all these different individuals, why do I think
that China is going to invade? Well, for one thing,
they say they're going to do it. I know they've
said that for a long time. But Shi Jinping is
a full blown dictator, is a very scary individual, and
(04:40):
he has set a date for this of twenty twenty seven.
People keep saying he won't do it while Trump's in office,
and to that, I say, well, why, because it's going
to be so much easier under a possible JD vance administration.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
I don't think that's the case.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
So also, is Trump really that favorable toward the defensive
time one, It's not really known where Trump is on
this now. I think that's by design. It's in a
way a continuation of the official US position, which is
strategic ambiguity.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Will we do it? Will we not do it? Well,
we'll see.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
And that's the intentional position. I've never seen this anywhere
else in the US foreign policy, certainly not as explicitly
put out this way. That is the intentional position of
the United States government on this, and it has been
for a long time. Will we won't We we'll see.
But also, China is in no danger when you start
(05:34):
to so that they've said they're going to do it.
China is in no danger of invasion or military class
with any of its neighbors. You know, it's got India
on one side, Russia on the other. They're not they're
not doing anything. Then you have the vast step the
sort of grassland super highway that the Mongols used to
conquer much of the known world, you know, a long
time ago. That's not They're not going to get invaded
(05:56):
by any of the stands. You know, Kazakhstan is not
about to invade China. You know, turkmenis Stan, all these places,
they're not about to So we know that that's not
the end. Japan just wants to do its own thing.
There's no invasion threat of China. Why is it olding
up its military in this massive way, an unprecedented build up,
churning out so many ships, churning out so many missiles.
(06:18):
There's only one goal that this can have because the
country no one would dream of invading, China has a
billion people, all right, It's just it's not even on
the table for anyone. So this is all geared toward
taking Taiwan, and there's a deep seated need. Remember that
the Chinese the CCP of the Chinese Communist Party, and
I really recommend people read Mao. The Untold Story is
(06:41):
the one that I really really love. Jun Chang and
John Halliday, I think, are the authors that it explains
to you that Mao is just the most evil human being,
maybe certainly in modern history. I don't know if anybody
could be more evil in terms of the death and
the sadism and the murderous nature.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Of his policies.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Yeah, I mean Hitler's horrible, Stalin's horrible. Mao has them
all beat in terms of numbers, raw numbers of people
who were killed murdered by the state in what a
lot of times through starvation. It's a really horrible way
to go. So now is an evil SOB and he
is the founder of the CCP, And now Shijin Ping
(07:25):
has that mantle. Hjin Ping has taken over this role.
So there's reason, I think for extremely high levels of
concern right now for an invasion of Taiwan. And I'll
get into how I think that invasion looks here in
just a second. Our sponsor is Preborn. There's not another
not for profit that does more to save the lives
of unborn children than Preborn. Preborn does incredible work day
(07:48):
in and day out because they introduce mothers who are
in crisis to the baby growing in their womb with
a free ultrasound. So instead of just being pushed towards
some planned parenthood clinic. We all know where that's going,
Preborn says, Hey, to any mom who's having trouble, any
mom who's scared, come into our clinic. We will give
you love and support and a free ultrasound and if
you have that baby, two years years of support, diapers, formula,
(08:13):
job placement, assistance, clothing for the baby, all kinds of stuff,
all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
They just want life to be preserved.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
And that's why Preborn so important. You can donate today.
I please, I ask you to consider it because you'll
be saving babies' lives. Dial pound two five zero, say
the word baby, pound two five zero, say the word baby.
Or you can go to their website at preborn dot com,
slash buck preborn dot com slash b uck sponsored by Preborn. Okay,
(08:43):
so what do I think an invasion looks like? I
had these conversations again with people of all different all
different perspectives, who are very focused on this issue. In
many cases have access to the classified the high side,
whether Taiwanese or American version of it, and everybody has
different answers, so no one knows what the answer is.
(09:03):
But I think it's most likely that if China was
to do this, you would see a combination of blockade
and blitzkrieg. The blockade would probably start with some pretense
of there's an issue that we're solving in the area,
there's some problem that we, the Chinese military, are addressing.
(09:24):
So we're going to do that, and we're not allowing
any other ships in the area. So in a sense,
they'd be daring Taiwan to do something about them. And
then the blitzkrieg would be the missiles, which they're just
going to try to pummel Taiwan with missiles and then
soften things up for the invasion force to land. And
I think their goal would be to finish off this
(09:45):
conflict before the US could even make a realistic effort,
if it would choose to do so, if it would
choose to do so in defense of Taiwan. So they
finish it off, they say, look, we've taken the island. Guys,
this is ours one China policy internal matter. This is
from the CCP perspective, you really want to lose an
aircraft carrier two to our anti ship missiles. Again, from
(10:08):
the Chinese perspective, you really want to lose Americans in
this fight, very very compelling, because we don't want to
lose Americans in somebody else's fight, right, So this you
start to that's their plan, and if they can get there,
if they believe they can get there, I think they're
going to launch an invasion. And as I've said, this
(10:29):
is hugely problematic for the rest of the.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
World for two reasons.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
One, the massive economic hit that.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
This will create, and you're.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Going to have, like I said, the tech economy will
come to a screeching holt.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Now this might go on for weeks.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
This isn't just like a twenty four hour thing, So
the tech economy all of a sudden, you're going to
see real pain and pandemonium around that.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
So that's one part of it.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
And then the other part of it is we can't
allow China to have full control of the fabs, the
manufacturing facilities for the most advanced microchips in the world,
and that's what they would have if they took.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Control of Taiwan.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
The sea CP would without question if they took over.
Now there's questions about would there be intentional destruction of
these facilities by Taiwanese stakeholders. There's a lot of there's
so many variables. This is why everybody has different opinions.
But if the CCP was able to take control and
then run these factories, and you know, in a matter
(11:31):
of time, they probably would be able to figure that out.
They will have a stranglehold on the global tech economy,
which affects all of us. Remember that there's chips. There
are micro chips, semiconductors in your car, in your likely
in your washer dryer, certainly in your smartphone and your
laptop and your television, all of these things reliant chips.
(11:53):
If China controls the chips that the whole world relies on,
think about the leverage that gives them, and think about
the counterintelligence.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Risks that that creates for us.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
So we're all going to be buying our most sensitive chips,
because that's going to include chips used for military application. Everybody,
we're gonna be buying all that from China. So that's
where you see. This is a huge, a huge problem,
a huge challenge, and why I think everybody has to
look at this. I get there's a boy cried wolf feeling.
Oh the South China Sea, the Gray Zone, ships are
(12:27):
ramming each other. They're arguing over the sen Kaku or
the Da Dayu islands. They're arguing over this little island
chain or that you know, fishing rights here or there.
Now that's important stuff for those countries, but we don't
really care, right you're not up late at night, like.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Who's going to be in control of the Senkaku Islands.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
But now it's about going for the big prize, which
is Taiwan. This is now a shift from the Chinese
Commist Party. And one of the reasons, one of the
reasons that we know this is that they have cut
off travel to Taiwan almost all of it, like ninety
percent of travel from mainland China to Taiwan is gone.
(13:06):
That wasn't the case even five six years ago. There
was plenty of tourists coming in from China, and they've
cut off. They have no communication between the governments. None
think about that. Note they're only one hundred miles apart.
No communication from the Taiwanese government to the Chinese government
and vice versa, or the you know CCP Beijing government.
And because there's Republic of there's a Republic of China,
(13:27):
which is Taiwan, and then there's you know, democratic People's
Republic of China or whatever. I mean, there's all these
different or People's Republic of China PRC. Sorry, there's a
Democrats I can't go all sorry, there's Democratic.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Republic, People's Republic of North Korea.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Right, the longer the name and the more claims to
political legitimacy in the name, the less legitimate the regime
always is.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
You know that. So these are these are the factors.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
But they're they're they're setting up to do this and
and I don't know, well, can they be stopped and
what would the US role in that be?
Speaker 1 (14:04):
So what do I think we should do about this?
Speaker 2 (14:05):
I know that's a critical component, right, That's something that
we have to know. I'm not saying we should set
up US military bases in Taiwan. I'm not saying we
should do the fighting for them. They told me very explicitly,
the president of that country and many many other officials
told me they will fight, and they will fight tooth
and nail to defend their sovereignty, to defend their island.
(14:29):
Now there's some skepticism from people in the American policy
intelligency about this.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
I'm just telling.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
You they were as full throated and clear about this
as they could be. They say they will fight, and
I think that for the leadership for a lot of people.
They look at what happened to Hong Kong. Which what
happened to Hong Kong, it's now been consumed by the CCP.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Dragon.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
It is now fully under the thumb of the CCP.
The different system there. Freedom and democracy gone gone hope.
I was told by somebody who's actually tied to a
very prominent dissident who's in prison in Hong Kong now
for writing newspaper. Essentially, I was told that the way
to describe Hong Kong now as hope is just eradicated.
(15:15):
And people see that and they really remember China was saying,
Oh no, it's fine, it's ours, don't worry. This is
an internal matter. It'd be the same thing in Taiwan.
It would be turning that island into a surf a
serfdom of the CCP. And people don't want that. So
I think they are willing to defend themselves, that's my assessment.
(15:39):
How can they, Well, this is where they have to
get asymmetric, and this is where drones and advanced tech
and things like ANDROL technology, which is very much involved
in trying to come up with new ways to use
AI and tech and manufacturing capacity. The Taiwanese are very
good at tech and manufacturing, and they're going to have
to produce and also work with partners to produce an
(16:02):
arsenal of self defense munitions and capabilities that is so
formidable that China just keeps on delaying, delaying, delaying, essentially
create a perpetuation of the status quo with Taiwan by
raising the price so high that it is on indefinite
delay because China is I think the current regime is
(16:25):
never going to say, okay, Taiwan can do its own thing.
That's never gonna happen. You'd have to have a collapse
of the CCP. But you can delay it indefinitely, you know,
you can maybe kick it out ten twenty thirty years
maybe if Taiwan really gets its capabilities in order. In
China realizes that, and of course there's tremendous amounts of
spying and espionage going on, and they're all kinds of
(16:49):
there's a lot of cases actually that the Taiwanese courts
are going.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Through about people who are CCP moles and spies in Taiwan.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
So they have a tremendous amount of intelligence collection going
on against the Taiwanese. So they have a good sense
of capabilities. If they can get their capabilities to a
point where the CCP would risk Chinese Communist Party would
risk disaster with the plan that I laid out of
the of the blockade and blitzkrieg strike. Then I think
(17:20):
that they might be able, They might be okay, they
might be able to continue on and make their chips
and live. It's a wonderful country. I mean, I really
have tremendous respect for the Taiwanese. They are a a friendly, orderly,
law abiding, just just very good, smart, impressive people. It's
(17:42):
a great country of great people, and and I certainly
think it deserves its sovereignty and deserves to just live
in peace. And that's all they want. They just want
to live in peace and make great products for the
rest of the world. But communists have to destroy, and
the CCP, even though they're not traditional you know, Marxist Leninist,
the CCP wants to destroy and to own and to control.
(18:04):
And I hope that we the US, will give give
the Taiwanese the tools to do the job, help them
get the tools to do the job, because I think
that's possible. That's the Taiwan Deep Dive shield time
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Clay Travis
Buck Sexton
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