Have Resolve, Show Resolve: Josh Rogin talks with A&G

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Politicians go to Taiwan all the time, and it's just
it's you don't even hear about it because it's not
a thing. But all of a sudden, when the story
that normally you wouldn't pay attention to of Nancy Pelosi
going to Taiwan, China reacted like what, no, you can't
do that. Oh my god, this means war. And everybody's like,
what are you talking about? But well, right, and our

(00:20):
instinct says there's something else going on, maybe several something
else is to discuss. Josh Rogan, global opinions columnists for
The Washington Post, joins us. Josh is the author of
the excellent Chaos Under Heaven Trump she in the Battle
for the twenty one century. Josh, welcome, always great to talk.
How are you glad to be back? In? Your instinct
is right, there is more going on. Okay, Well tell

(00:41):
us what it is. Well, you know, it's sometimes these
things just come down to politicians and their egos. Okay.
And here you have Nancy Pelosi, who's about to be,
you know, displaced as Speaker of the House, likely she's
going to retire, right, and she sees this off to
Taiwan is the capstone of what of her self proclaimed

(01:03):
career as a leader in U S China relations. So
for her, this is a legacy item. That's why she
can't delay it. That's so she went to Tanneman Square
in and she sees this as the other bookend. So
she's building a legacy item. But the guys in the
Wine they don't care about that. Why do they care
about Nancy Pelosi's legacy trip her? It's essentially a vanity trip.

(01:27):
They think she's self promoting what she is. And for them,
right now, they're trying to ramp down tensions in US
China relations for whatever reason, that's their chess move. They're
playing a chess game, their moves to ramp down tensions,
and she's ramping them up. And they're like, hey, can
you not, you know, mess with our strategy please? Uh

(01:47):
because maybe nobody ever asked you to do that, And
she's like, no, I don't care what you say. So
in the end, you've got these these you know, old
politicians Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi frankly, who are stubborn
and neither one of them wants to give in. And
then when the funny part is that this was all
being negotiated behind the scenes, very quietly for weeks. By

(02:07):
the way, weeks they were trying to convince her, they're
pleading with her, showing her military operations that would be
necessary intelligence assessments. The story league, and someone asked Biden
about it, and he confirmed it, and all of a sudden,
the quiet negotiations were over because he blurted it on
in the public and he made it even worse because

(02:30):
then the Chinese really overreacted. And now Fannancy because he
doesn't want to look like she's backing down, So now
she kind of has to go, oh, wow, you you
mentioned the age of the participants. Of course, Nancy and
her husband benefited from the opium Wars, and that's where
they really made their money. So at the same time,
though with all due respect of that, which I find
oddly hilarious, um, the idea that the Chinese would well, okay,

(02:53):
that's that's good to know. But the idea that the
Chinese would get a veto power over any American going
to Taiwan is utterly galling right, And that's the principle
that's important to uphold here. Now, what's funny about that
is that you know from the what the White House
guys says, and they're like, listen, we know that the
Chinese always pitch in bone, and we're not saying that

(03:13):
we should give in, but what we're saying is, according
to our intelligence, they believe that policy is going, you know,
with the President's support. They can't understand our system that
like the President of the United States can't control the
Speaker of the House of his own party. She would
go and tell him to go screw himself. Like in
their system, if you sure by the president you did,
you're gone. You're breaking rocks for twenty years. Your whole

(03:34):
family is finished forever. So they can't they don't believe
the bidens when they say no, no, no, we can't
control Nancy Pelosi and she she just got have to
lump it. So they think it's an escalation, which is
like again the opposite of what they're trying to signal.
And then you know when and then once they sort
of realized that our system was so sort of dysfunctional

(03:54):
and they started to believe, they're like, oh, now we'll
double down and get even nastier and meaner and threatening
her more. And so I mean, there I think, yeah,
of course we can't back down to Chinese bullying, but
we have to also understand that the reason that there's
a risk is because they don't believe anything that we say.
We don't believe anything that they say. And Nancy Plussy
is just sort of injecting herself into that situation without
regard for much of that because again that's she wants

(04:17):
to do what she wants to do, and I was
gonna tell her what not to do, and so the
people were stuck really in the middle of the time
when he's of course, because you know, like for Hume said,
it's not very unlikely that the Chinese is gonna start
World War three over this, right, They're not gonna attack us.
What they do is they attack the weaker party that's
Taiwan needs. So when she leaves, you know, and they
impost some sort of new economic or military aggression on Taiwan. Uh.

(04:42):
She's writing the check, but they're paying the bill. So
do we know what the great chess game is that
the White House is playing. I'm surprised to see the
Secretary of Defense yesterday Mr Austin also making noises about
this isn't exactly the best timing form. I mean, so,
what what do we have going on? What's in the works. Well,
President Biden and General Secretary shi Jingping are on the

(05:05):
phone right now. I mean it's a video conference, but
they're literally talking as we speak, okay, And that's what
that's the that's what they're trying to do. They're trying
to regularize the relationships so that we could at least
talk to one another. And what they stay is the
Biden people, the White House people anyway, where they say
is listen, this relationship is going down okay fast, not

(05:25):
because we want it too, but because the Chinese Communist
Party it's getting worse. They're getting more aggressive, more repressive,
more expansionist, nastier, meaner, acting more like ansters every day.
I think the White House gets that right. But what
they're what they're saying is that we're not we want
to sort of prepare for this struggle carefully. We want
to do it, you know, we don't want to spark

(05:46):
crisis unnecessarily. And when we do have a crisis, we
want it to be on our terms, not on Nancy
Pelosi's terms. So they're just trying to keep things copathetic,
and she's messing with that plan. Now. Overall, do I
think that the Biden administration is doing enough to confront
the Chinese Comments Party? No, but you could understand, just
sort of from an intellectual standpoint, why on one particular

(06:08):
day they might not want Nancy Pelosi to start a
crisis because they're not ready for that. Josh Rogan, global
opinions columnist for the Washington Post on the line, I
believe we have live feed of the video conference right now,
Mr President, you're on mute. Uh the little picture of
the microphone, sir, no touch it that that, No, just
touch it once, sir, you're still on mute. So more

(06:31):
more seriously, Josh, one factor we haven't yet discussed is
the upcoming coronation of j and Ping Is is a
third term leader of slash President for life, with the
economy faltering, the COVID not going away. Um, I understand.
One factor is we don't want to give him an
excuse for acting like the hardass nationalist to rally support

(06:54):
behind him. Right. Well, the two things you've got that
relates to what you just said. One is that you know,
we've got this whole region full of countries and right
we don't want to give him, like any plausible story
as to to claim that we're the aggressives instead of him,
and even if it's not true, we don't want to
give him that chance. But the other thing is that,
like you know, what the White House guys will say

(07:16):
is listen, in these few months, it's pretty dicey before
Jun Thing gets coronated for his third term, because he's
under the microscope blah blah blah. And that presumes something
which I don't think it is true, which is that
after he gets a third term, it's gonna be better.
My assumption is that once he becomes dictator for life
like a Putin or an MBS or Kim Jong un right,

(07:38):
he's actually gonna get worse. He's gonna get nastier. That's
what happens with you know, psychopathic dictators. Their appetite grows
with the eating. And so I don't think there's ever
gonna be a good time for Nancy Pelosi to go
to Taiwan where they're not gonna do some threatened to
do some crazy stuff. That's why I think you might
as well go now, because I don't think it's gonna
get better later this year. Um. But you know, that's

(08:01):
the situation we're in. The Chinese Communist Party is becoming
a totalitarian state, almost a fascist state, and that we're
all gonna have to do. Is well, that sounds awfully
damned if you do, and damned if you don't. It
is because what I was trying to express is that
j and Ping has to have a justification for being
recordnated and with the other stuff floundering. If being the

(08:23):
brave military hero against the West is an excuse, he's
looking for somebody to punch in the face. And we'd
prefer not to give him that excuse for all sorts
of different reasons. But uh, yeah, yeah, no, I think
that's true. But I think he's gonna get coordinated one
way or the other, and he's gonna get nasty or
one way or the other. And if we look at China,
would look at that zero COVID stuff. I mean, it's crazy,

(08:44):
either killing their own economy, they're putting millions of people
into quarantine for two cases of like the you know,
the the various don't even work that way anymore. But
they can't change that. No one can tell the dear
leader that he's wrong. That's what's so scared worry about
it is it doesn't doesn't need any more boogeyman, he
doesn't need any more excuses. He's he's done it. He's

(09:06):
he's assumed total power. And absolute power corrupts absolutely, and
that's why China is a big threat. But it's also
why we can't say that China is going to be
the greatest country in the world, because all of those
systems are essentially corrupt and rotten at the core. Well,
that's actually good news for us. Um uh the yeah,
double edged swords certainly. Um So the final on this

(09:27):
from you, do you think she one has to go
and will go? Yeah? I mean I don't know. I
think if I had to put money on it, yeah,
I think she's gonna go because she's going to Soul,
She's going to Tokyo. So now she doesn't go, everybody
will know she backed down. And you know what the
White House says is, oh, just go after the election.
It be fine after the election, but she won't. She'll

(09:48):
be speaker, but should be a lame duck. It won't
be the same thing. And I don't think she wants
to take that chance. So you know, if you know
I think at the end of next week Nancy posting
in a delegation in Atlanta, Taiwan, And like I said,
the Chinese are just gonna have to lump it. And
you know, if fiddlet you know, if they do do
something really crazy and provocative, then the Biden administrations should
support Pelosi, not the Chinese. Yeah, and you know, and

(10:10):
if they do something crazy, that was if they do
something crazy that was gonna happen over something else. I mean,
if they're willing to go to war over Nancy Pelosi
visiting Taiwan, which is a completely normal thing to do, well,
then there's something else was gonna happen anyway. And when
the CCP challenges are resolved, what we should do is
we should show resolved. How about that? Amen to that, brother,

(10:31):
Josh Rogan of the Washington Post. You should read them.
Is the most recent pieces posted at Armstrong and getty
dot com. Josh, we always appreciate the time well done anytime.
I love how fired up he is about this topic
because everybody should be are strong and