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This week, after Xiinping welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin to Beijing, the Chinese leader said his country's relationship with Russia had reached quote the highest level in history," unquote. Their meeting came only a few days after a high stakes visit from President Trump to China. I'm joined by Richard Hos, former top State Department official, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, and the writer of a great Substack. uh as well as Kishar Mabulani who is a veteran Singaporean diplomat and a distinguished fellow at the Asia
Research Institute at the National University of Singapore. Um Richard, we now have a kind of interesting dynamic between these three great powers in the world where everyone's getting on a little bit better, I suppose, but the Russians and Chinese do seem to have formed a kind of axis. I'd call it an alignment. It's not quite an alliance. The last I checked, China's aid for Russia is, shall we say, finite. It's limited. It's also very much a relationship between unequals. That to me was the lead part of Mr. Putin's visit, which is how much he's become almost the supplicant,
pushing China to open up this new pipeline almost more for Russia's economic benefit than for China's. So, I don't think it's all that significant. also highlights the difference. China's a multiaceted major power. Russia's pretty limited, pretty one-dimensional. And by the way, the last I checked, it's not winning its war of choice against Ukraine, and it's paying an enormous price for it. So, Russia is going to emerge much weaker as a result of what it's doing. You made this point, Richard, in I think uh on X that Russia and the United States
are both, you know, went to China and as in similar circumstances, they are both losing their wars of choice. One in Ukraine, one in Iran. Yeah. For all the differences between the wars, that's the bottom line. They're both going to emerge worse off as a result. The really interesting point for me fared be interested what Keshawar thinks is what message China takes from that and when Xiinping sees this does he saying hm maybe these wars aren't so uh obvious they don't turn out the way you think so I'm hoping this might be a moment of some sober sobriety if you will for
Xiinping uh Kishure how do you think Xiinping is looking at these two wars of choice uh where the United States and Russia are both floundering well I think Um, from China's point of view, in many ways, things couldn't be better now because the United States very clearly now is stuck in the Gulf. And so, in that every war that the United States fights in the Middle East is a gift to China because it buys time for China to keep growing its economy and to become stronger. And at the end of the day, the Chinese are always playing the long game. They're trying to figure out where
they'll be 10 years from now as a result of the current developments. But when you look at uh when they look at how difficult these wars have been despite Russia's massive uh asymmetrical advantage and is much bigger than Ukraine, the US is much bigger than Iran. Do you think they look at that and draw cautionary lesson about Taiwan? Well, you know, the way the western media describes Taiwan is absolutely wrong. And I say this because everybody thinks that China is just preparing to try and invade Taiwan militarily as quickly as possible and then seeing whether or not the
examples of Iran and Ukraine will apply to Taiwan. And here again, you know, I must emphasize that the Chinese take a very comprehensive long-term view and ask a very simple question on whose side is time on. Is time on Taiwan's side or is time on China's side? And trust me, if the Taiwanese declare independence tomorrow, which is what will cause a war, how many countries are going to recognize Taiwan? When I was in Taiwan a few months ago, I told the Taiwanese people, you're lucky you have a Republic of China passport, which brings you to over 180, 190
countries. You change your passport to Republic of Taiwan. You'll be lucky if five or six countries recognize the Republic of Taiwan passport. So time is on China's side on Taiwan. Obviously, they're going to emphasize that the power they're accumulating is on their favor. They're going to show signals of strength, but they're not in any way dreaming of a military invasion of Taiwan anytime soon. Richard, we were talking about who has the advantage in terms of time, China or Taiwan? Whose side is on? And Kishar makes the point. Uh, of course China's they're
the bigger economy. They will get, you know, larger and larger over time. That's clearly the Beijing strategy. Do you agree? I actually don't. China right now is what 1.3 billion people. By the end of the century, it's projected to be closer to 800 million. The ratio of working age people to people who are elderly is going to move much in the direction of the latter of the elderly. Defense technology is increasingly through drones and anti-ship and anti-aircraft systems moving in favor of defenders. So, I actually think that could help Taiwan if they uh adapt that.
The key variable I think is the United States. I actually agree with to with Khir to a bit. China doesn't want to do an invasion. There's no Chinese soldier who's fought in a war to do a combined arms since the Korean War. If you come if you take Vietnam out of it, which was a very brief war and so they were basically all retired. So, you know, I don't think they what they want to do almost in the principle of Shunsu, they want to subdue their enemy without having to fire a shot. Well, that's really that puts a lot of pressure on us. So the real question coming out of the summit and
that interview that President Trump did with Brett Bearer on Fox is the United States prepared to trade off support for Taiwan for economic access to China's market. If he's willing to do that, then China might get its wish. I've always thought that the real thing deterring uh China uh is not the US military, but it is the fear of losing access to the American market, the European market, the Japanese. You know, they China wants to sell to the world. It's integrated into the world economy. That's why they I tend to agree with you. They're not going to
uh you know, willy-nilly invade Taiwan. That's the deterrent that more than the American military. Let me make two points in response. Okay. The first point is this. What's the big lesson that Iran is teaching us in the Gulf? You don't need superior military weapons to seize control of a choke point. Okay? You don't need the best military in the world. Iran doesn't have the best military in the world. And guess what? It's held up 20% of the world's economy. Now in the case of Taiwan, all the Chinese have to do is to say Taiwan is off limits. Okay? Isolate,
blockade Taiwan. They don't have to fire a shot. Trust me, nobody's going to break a Chinese blockade on Taiwan. I mean, let's get serious about this area. When the if the Chinese declare that they are serious, people will take them seriously. That's my first point. And the second point, your point about selling goods to the world. You know, selling goods to the world is a two-way relationship. This is one statistic everyone should understand. China's share of global manufacturing in the year 2000 was 6%. Now it's close to 30%, by
2030 be 45%. And you know what that means? Chinese products are becoming indispensable to the world. absolutely indispensable. Now the Chinese have created this dependence on China for a very powerful deliberate reason to ensure that no American containment policy of China can succeed. I have a short amount of time. You have a thought. Well, China is also dependent on exports. China has not allowed domestic demand to grow naturally. They've repressed it. Why? So they've got this export-led e economy. So they need access as much as we need their goods. So
I think that's also a constraint on China which is why I tend to think I mean I think is right. It's a two-way street, but for both. And the real deterrent would be if the US and Europe and Japan and Australia would all come together and say, "If you invade Taiwan, it won't be business as usual, which by the way, we could do except that we are quarreling with all our closest allies, levying tariffs on them and making, you know, far from presenting a united front where we have worse relations with Canada now than we have with China." That was the strategic argument
for joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership. We could present a united front. This is the great strategic of advantage of American foreign policy. We wake up in the morning, we have dozens of partners and allies. What have we done? We've undermined our own fundamental strategic advantage. Kishwar Mubani, Richard H. Always a pleasure to talk to you
