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The interview is packed with insightful statements. Eg: I think the strong sanctions from the U.S. have less to do with saving Ukraine. America is more st

The interview is packed with insightful statements. Eg: I think the strong sanctions from the U.S. have less to do with saving Ukraine. America is more strategic than it is emotional. By imposing the sanctions, they want to save Taiwan by showing China the price of an intervention. I wish he'd spoken a little more about Taiwan, though maybe it's outside his area of expertise. America wants China to side against Russia, but it would be convenient for China if there were the precedent of Russia annexing Crimea.

mandeepj 5y ago
> I think the strong sanctions from the U.S. have less to do with saving Ukraine. America is more strategic than it is emotional. By imposing the sanctions, they want to save Taiwan by showing China the price of an intervention. Not really. Here's an insight, if you will What happens now is a straight result of your action. But, what will happen in the future - is an implication of your current action - and that's interpretation of Taiwan invasion for China
pasabagi 5y ago
I think that's a bit common knowledge to anybody watching this space: state department types are basically obsessed with protecting Taiwan, as a subset of the whole China-US rivalry thing (that they are also obsessed with). A big pillar of the neurosis over the issue is that China is reaching the point where the US would have a great deal of difficulty stopping them. So the whole concept of deterring China from military action is not so much about convincing them they would lose, tactically, but rather that the sanctions/global pariah status would be so apocalyptic that they would wish they had lost. Everybody who has entertained that line of thought would see Ukraine as a golden opportunity to prove to an audience of one (Xi Jiping) that trying something with Taiwan would be a terrible idea. Also, while sanctions hurt both sides, Russia is a pretty small global player, so it's way less painful to use them as an object lesson, than to entertain the possibility of doing the same kind of mutual economic bloodletting with China.
- smackeyacky 5y ago
  Taiwan seems entirely different to me. The US isn't reliant on Russian exports for anything. They are reliant on both Taiwan and China continuing to produce pretty much everything. I don't think it's possible for the US to ban imports from China in any meaningful way and any financial sanctions would have too many US companies at risk. It's in the US interest to decrease their direct reliance on Taiwan simply from a risk management sense. You can see this happening now with investments in chip foundries coming back to the US and to a lesser extent Europe. I'm not sure I entirely agree with Trevor Noah's comedy angle that the location and colour of the people involved in Ukraine have elicited a much more emotional response than somewhere like Syria, but there is an element of truth in it.
  - pasabagi 5y ago
    > They are reliant on both Taiwan and China continuing to produce pretty much everything. I think security-apparatus people don't really think like this. A good example is Australia's recent falling out with China. Australia is one of the most China-dependent economies in the world, and the dependency is not particularly reciprocal. Australia exports ores, and China can ultimately pay more for ores from elsewhere without a huge economic hit. Yet, because of the Australian security zeitgeist, we've seen a stream of fairly bellicose and occasionally unwise statements from Australian representatives, which have resulted in the ever-sensitive Chinese going completely ballistic and imposing sanctions. To give an example of how nutty military types will get if you leave them in a room together, I've heard people openly discuss and advocate war with China[0], in order to maintain US hegemony. From a security perspective, economics is for donkeys, and humans are collateral damage - their job is to enhance their state's strategic position. If they take over the state apparatus, well, look at what Russia is doing. Anything can happen. > Trevor Noah's comedy .. location and colour To be honest, I think that was explicit. Look at how the EU is responding to the refugee crisis. [0] https://soundcloud.com/fairbank-center/destined-for-war-can-america-and-china-escape-thucydides-trap-with-graham-allison https://soundcloud.com/fairbank-center/destined-for-war-can-... (this character Oriana Skylar Mastro is both obviously an dangerous imbecile, is regularly publishing in magazines like foreign affairs, and is an employee of the US military).
dirtyid 5y ago
By the accounts I've read, EU were the ones who rallied around harsher sanctions that surprised even US, after getting emotional over Zelensky address. Policy makers forget that they are watching a literal professional performer to the point that west may have escalated themselves into corner that prevents de-escalation. It's... West Wing foreign policy, that may either be strategically sound or disastrous. Here's a recent essay by Tanner Greer, who also writes a lot about Taiwan, on how distinctively non strategic US thinking is, frequently distracted by moral imperatives than well reasoned strategic consequences [0]. EU may be learning this lesson the hard way as well, with increasing sentiment of US unwillingness to goto bat for UKR. Especially among Eastern states that outright wants to send NATO peacekeeping mission in URK in recent days. With respect to Taiwan, if the lesson Xi/PRC learns from this saga is the price of taking Taiwan is eating sanctions as long as she has enough nukes to deter foreign involvement, then PRC would be incredibly pleased. Reality is export as % of GDP has been declining for last decade to the point where PRC is approaching US levels of economic "isolation". PRC losing most western export is ~10% of GDP... a few years of growth. Frankly if you told Xi that's the price for reunifying with TW, he would call it a bargain. Also for PRC, "annexing" Crimea is not a precedent for TW, a renegade Chinese state part of ongoing civil war, there's no international sovereignty violations involved, hence PRC being very vocal how UKR is not TW... West likes to emphasis UKR is not TW as well, but for different reasons. The real lessons will take months/years to unwind, in the meantime PRC is building a lot more nukes and planning for Grozny instead of "special operations". [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/opinion/ukraine-russia-war-nato-iraq-policy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/opinion/ukraine-russia-wa...
- glandium 5y ago
  Honestly, I think the West has significantly more to lose from sanctions on China similar to those currently in place for Russia, than China. And China knows it.
- cuteboy19 5y ago
  At this point the only way Taiwan survives is by quickly and covertly acquiring nuclear weapons. Imperialists everywhere have been emboldened by Putin's actions

mandeepj 5y ago

> I think the strong sanctions from the U.S. have less to do with saving Ukraine. America is more strategic than it is emotional. By imposing the sanctions, they want to save Taiwan by showing China the price of an intervention. Not really. Here's an insight, if you will What happens now is a straight result of your action. But, what will happen in the future - is an implication of your current action - and that's interpretation of Taiwan invasion for China

pasabagi 5y ago

I think that's a bit common knowledge to anybody watching this space: state department types are basically obsessed with protecting Taiwan, as a subset of the whole China-US rivalry thing (that they are also obsessed with). A big pillar of the neurosis over the issue is that China is reaching the point where the US would have a great deal of difficulty stopping them. So the whole concept of deterring China from military action is not so much about convincing them they would lose, tactically, but rather that the sanctions/global pariah status would be so apocalyptic that they would wish they had lost. Everybody who has entertained that line of thought would see Ukraine as a golden opportunity to prove to an audience of one (Xi Jiping) that trying something with Taiwan would be a terrible idea. Also, while sanctions hurt both sides, Russia is a pretty small global player, so it's way less painful to use them as an object lesson, than to entertain the possibility of doing the same kind of mutual economic bloodletting with China.

smackeyacky 5y ago
Taiwan seems entirely different to me. The US isn't reliant on Russian exports for anything. They are reliant on both Taiwan and China continuing to produce pretty much everything. I don't think it's possible for the US to ban imports from China in any meaningful way and any financial sanctions would have too many US companies at risk. It's in the US interest to decrease their direct reliance on Taiwan simply from a risk management sense. You can see this happening now with investments in chip foundries coming back to the US and to a lesser extent Europe. I'm not sure I entirely agree with Trevor Noah's comedy angle that the location and colour of the people involved in Ukraine have elicited a much more emotional response than somewhere like Syria, but there is an element of truth in it.
- pasabagi 5y ago
  > They are reliant on both Taiwan and China continuing to produce pretty much everything. I think security-apparatus people don't really think like this. A good example is Australia's recent falling out with China. Australia is one of the most China-dependent economies in the world, and the dependency is not particularly reciprocal. Australia exports ores, and China can ultimately pay more for ores from elsewhere without a huge economic hit. Yet, because of the Australian security zeitgeist, we've seen a stream of fairly bellicose and occasionally unwise statements from Australian representatives, which have resulted in the ever-sensitive Chinese going completely ballistic and imposing sanctions. To give an example of how nutty military types will get if you leave them in a room together, I've heard people openly discuss and advocate war with China[0], in order to maintain US hegemony. From a security perspective, economics is for donkeys, and humans are collateral damage - their job is to enhance their state's strategic position. If they take over the state apparatus, well, look at what Russia is doing. Anything can happen. > Trevor Noah's comedy .. location and colour To be honest, I think that was explicit. Look at how the EU is responding to the refugee crisis. [0] https://soundcloud.com/fairbank-center/destined-for-war-can-america-and-china-escape-thucydides-trap-with-graham-allison https://soundcloud.com/fairbank-center/destined-for-war-can-... (this character Oriana Skylar Mastro is both obviously an dangerous imbecile, is regularly publishing in magazines like foreign affairs, and is an employee of the US military).

dirtyid 5y ago

By the accounts I've read, EU were the ones who rallied around harsher sanctions that surprised even US, after getting emotional over Zelensky address. Policy makers forget that they are watching a literal professional performer to the point that west may have escalated themselves into corner that prevents de-escalation. It's... West Wing foreign policy, that may either be strategically sound or disastrous. Here's a recent essay by Tanner Greer, who also writes a lot about Taiwan, on how distinctively non strategic US thinking is, frequently distracted by moral imperatives than well reasoned strategic consequences [0]. EU may be learning this lesson the hard way as well, with increasing sentiment of US unwillingness to goto bat for UKR. Especially among Eastern states that outright wants to send NATO peacekeeping mission in URK in recent days. With respect to Taiwan, if the lesson Xi/PRC learns from this saga is the price of taking Taiwan is eating sanctions as long as she has enough nukes to deter foreign involvement, then PRC would be incredibly pleased. Reality is export as % of GDP has been declining for last decade to the point where PRC is approaching US levels of economic "isolation". PRC losing most western export is ~10% of GDP... a few years of growth. Frankly if you told Xi that's the price for reunifying with TW, he would call it a bargain. Also for PRC, "annexing" Crimea is not a precedent for TW, a renegade Chinese state part of ongoing civil war, there's no international sovereignty violations involved, hence PRC being very vocal how UKR is not TW... West likes to emphasis UKR is not TW as well, but for different reasons. The real lessons will take months/years to unwind, in the meantime PRC is building a lot more nukes and planning for Grozny instead of "special operations". [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/opinion/ukraine-russia-war-nato-iraq-policy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/opinion/ukraine-russia-wa...

glandium 5y ago
Honestly, I think the West has significantly more to lose from sanctions on China similar to those currently in place for Russia, than China. And China knows it.
cuteboy19 5y ago
At this point the only way Taiwan survives is by quickly and covertly acquiring nuclear weapons. Imperialists everywhere have been emboldened by Putin's actions