China rising, America in decline? The Trump-Xi summit

0:00Hello and welcome back to Independent Thinking, the weekly podcast from Chatham House. I'm Bronwyn Maddox. This week, Xi Jinping is in Washington to meet Donald Trump. It's been four months since Trump's state visit to Beijing, even in that short time, the dynamic between the two countries has continued to shift. Gone are the days when the United States was the unchallenged superpower and China the supplicant. Today, President Xi and Trump meet as equals. At least I'm going to suggest that to our guests. China is the rising power, industrially, militarily, economically, while President Trump's struggles in Iran, the war he chose to fight, and his possible looming rebuffs in the mid-term elections indicate the setbacks of his administration and the weaknesses that America is showing

1:03some would argue have been going on for many decades, but that he possibly has accelerated. There are many immediate issues between the two leaders. Trump's tariffs, two different approaches to artificial intelligence, warnings about the risks of that frontier technology, and then how to handle Russia and, of course, Taiwan. But overall of them looms one big question who will come to dominate the 21st century. So we're going to talk about that, and we're going to talk about what each wants from the discussions between them at the moment, what they're going to try and get, and then what the longer-term picture might look like. To discuss all this, I've got a trio of esteemed experts from our Asia Pacific program here at Chatham House. First, we've got Program Director Ben Blanc, great to have you here, Ben. Thanks for having me. Also with us is Senior Research Fellow on China, Dr. Yu Jia. Good to see you again. Lovely to see you again. And completing the panel, it's Associate Fellow Dr. Bill Hayden. Hi, Bill. How are you? Let's start with where they are now, and I was saying in the introduction, look, this

2:07is a point when they seem to be equal. We had that moment last year when they met and President Trump was all full of tariffs he might put on China, and President Xi said, no, you've forgotten how much of the world's critical minerals that China controls, how about rethinking those tariffs, and that is what happened. How would you see their relative influence at this point, Ben? The analyst's answer would be, you know, depends on what you're looking to measure, right? So you can look at a whole different range of factors. If you're thinking about finance, the dollar, that's clearly America out on top. If you're thinking about manufacturing, China is clearly winning that game. I guess the jury's out. Our colleague James King would say China has won already or is winning. I guess some in the US front-to-tack companies would argue about that. But what's interesting to me is if you take a step back and look at the mood music of how Trump has handled Xi Jinping, he's wanted to make himself look great and America look great. But in the process, I think he's given a kind of equivalence to China, which I think

3:07will go down very well for Xi Jinping back at home. I can see exactly the points you're making, but isn't that equivalence there in reality? Well, surely it's equivalence in reality, imbeging as well, well-being talking about mood music. I mean, I was just reading the Chinese state media this morning. It seems to me the entire state media just want to branded this as if something Xi Jinping achieved the equalist was a US president ever since the founding of the country. So that's the tones and mood was imbeging. And also the fact that since 1962, Donald Trump broke tradition and picked up a Chinese president at airport. I mean, for the Chinese, a country that concerns so much about protocol and procedure and this something of why it's important. That's a big deal. But are you agreeing with Ben that they're a big, okay, not the dollar. That's a really important point. But big areas of industrial technological proficiency we're trying is equal overhead. Industrial capacity, yes. But I think on technology is a debatable and also business surface.

4:11A bigger question is who determine the next route of the world order? And what China is trying to do is try and give a very clear answer. At the end of the day, United States is not the only one that is able to determine the world order and China is now drawing that giving either an helpful hand or helping hand. Because this is the essential point. I wanted to get on to about who is shaping the world order. Bill, how would you answer this question? Well, I think we're now in the collective nothicism stage, which audiences are these leaders trying to appeal to? And for Donald Trump, it just seems like he's appealing to a domestic audience. He's almost sort of, it seems, given up on trying to appeal to a global audience. It's clear that he is reaching out as the voice of, say, the global south, being an alternative poll in the world at a time when the US is busy destroying its own brand in Iran and other places. And then here you have a confidence he taking to the stage, presenting his global initiatives of various kinds. And Trump looking like he's a supplicant going to the airport.

5:15So in terms of, I think, image and self-portrayal, China's winning. And what about the actual influence? China spent a long time trying to get, if not friends, even allies, but partners and trading partners and trading relationships across the world. It does have a degree of influence helping Russia considerably in Russia's war Ukraine by buying its oil and by giving it all kinds of technology. Would you say that China's influence around the world is rising at this point? For sure. Before he arrived at DC at this moment, he made a flurry of foreign travels in September, Bishrekak, Carol, and New Delhi. A place that US President probably really does not really pay attention to. And what China is trying to do is try to go to those places and try to tell the rest of the world that it's not just the United States, but it's actually China a willing and also have the power to decide how the world should be organized. And that world in Xi Jinping's eyes is run by multi-polarity, not by unipolarity.

6:20I think there's also a question about what kind of power China wields and what kind of power it wants to and is willing to wield. And I think the world that China's building is much more about economic power first. So it's something quite different from the US world order we've seen, which was yes, partly about rules and principles and institutions, but backstopped by a global military with bases and operational capabilities and the willingness to intervene repeatedly as we've seen this year all around the world. And China, I think, for now, wants to build something else. So it's economics first. I think the other point is there's quite a lot of risk of version from China's perspective. So yes, you can say compared to 10, 20, 30 years ago, Xi Jinping is more assertive on the international stage, but he still doesn't really want to get dragged into foreign conflicts. He's not willing to put China's diplomatic reputation on the line to try and resolve even conflicts like the Iran government, which has direct impacts on the Chinese economy. There's a sense of sort of passivity in the world that there's a lot of chaos.

7:23China doesn't actually have the capabilities or the desire to solve these problems. So yes, we want to boost our influence, but we don't want to get sucked into these problems. So I think you can see the power rising, but it's really primarily in the economic domain. And while there's a lot of talk about reshaping the global order, a greater voice for the global South, China's not really willing to put much risk capital behind that. I think in addition, apart from economic power, it's those so here as come in as the technology power, Beijing using technology as a source of power and influence, that attracting the non-western world using Chinese technology. And as soon as or later, I think this is a sense of power and influence, perhaps more long-lasting density, for example, structured and static military alliances. What about diplomatic power? Someone deep in the UN system, lifelong, was telling me as all these people gather at the United Nations General Assembly at the moment that China spent years getting its officials, its diplomats at all kinds of levels of the UN system. And it's going to see the fruits of this in the coming years. And we should be braced for China to start saying,

8:27look, how about moving some of these UN agencies to China? Is that your view of what? Well, I think we're going to see the first one. There's a vote coming up on the maritime areas beyond the National jurisdiction, which looks like it's going to go to Shaman. So maybe that'll be the first one to come up in the near future. But yes, I think broadly, I mean, just look across the whole range of institutions. And the Chinese advance has been paralleled by the American withdrawal. Yeah, I think it'll less be about the UN because I think that the challenges with the UN and the international system are kind of irreparable. I think once you start to unwind these things, it's very hard to prop them up. And I think that's why we've seen China also launching its own initiatives, you know, global development initiative, global civilizations initiative, the global security initiative, the Asian infrastructure investment bank. There's the BRICS and the Shanghai Corporation organization. So I think China is in a phase of experimentation. But if you look at all these things, they require quite low levels of financial and political commitment from China. So what worries me actually is not that China comes in and rebalances everything in its favor, but actually that China won't really be willing to fill a lot of the

9:30vacumes left by the US vacating the global system. And its vision of a global order is much more about protecting a narrower set of what it views as core interests for China. You've just talked about the US vacating the international system and Bill's touch on this a couple of times. Bill, I wanted to ask you how long you think this has been going on? If you like a decrease in American influence relative to China and whether Donald Trump has accelerated that? Well, I suppose you would have to start it with the global financial crisis and everything that flowed from that. But I mean, if you look at nature, I'd like to start before whether Rakhon, Afghanistan, I don't know. As well, you know, you could say the destruction of the Saddam regime was the high point and everything has been down else instead. But I think it was the financial crisis. And I think up until that point, you know, Chinese officials had looked at the US as being a sort of model to emulate not not politically, but in terms of unleashing the forces of the economy. And at that point, I think I began to think the model had feat of clay. So we actually, even before Trump was elected the first time, things started to change, I think, in terms of

10:34the promotion of global goods and the end of that unipolar moment when everything appeared to be going in a sort of, you know, a liberal with a small, out direction. What do the two of you think about whether Donald Trump has taken steps and his administration and his assorted senior people that have, if you like, surrendered American influence? Because, you know, his slogan is make America great again. And yet we've seen various things like retreat from clean technology, the Iran conflict from which he cannot extricate himself, offending all kinds of allies with tariffs and so on. We've seen various ways in which he asserts that he's improving America's position, but others would not always agree. I would see him as an accelerant, but not the cause of what's happening. And I think we have to look to the US public that's voted him in twice, but you could even see, look back to Barack Obama and even George W. Bush before 9-11 who'd sort of envisaged a smaller role for the US in the world. So I think there's something deeper happening there. But of course, the fact that the Trump administration in its second term is explicitly opposed to the idea of international

11:39rules based order has made things really difficult for allies in particular. I think for non-aligned countries in Asia, they would look at this and say, well, what's changed? Right? America always did whatever it want and put some nice fancy words and institutions around it. So I think in a sense, it's less shocking for independent countries that aren't allies of the US. But what I would say is it will mean that if future administrations come back in and say, now we're going to take our partners seriously and we want to work together to challenge China or challenge Russia, it'll be very, very hard to convince anyone that it's worth putting more eggs in the US basket. So I think the damage has been quite serious. When it comes to China policy, one of the interesting things is the kind of core tenets of US deterrence in Asia, they haven't really shifted. There's been a lot of questioning of the US commitments to Taiwan, to Japan and South Korea to a lesser extent. But the US military is still forward deployed in the places it has been. But I do think the rhetoric matters, right? And especially the fact that Trump has taught down China as a threat,

12:41that even within the United States, it's opened up a bigger debate about actually is China a big challenge? Is it really worth multi-generational investments of trillions of dollars to compete with China? And both on the left and the right of US politics, you now see voices emerging saying, actually, China isn't really our problem. We're far away. We have these two oceans protecting us, we have Mexico and Canada. Yes, there's some economic competitiveness issues. But beyond that, protecting Asia is not our problem. The first island chain is it's called the Second Island chain. That's ultimately irrelevant for America. And I think one of the things that Trump has done, he's given license to those voices, where in the past, I think it'd almost be unsayable in Washington to come out and say China isn't actually that serious a challenge. So I think, what do you think, Ben? Do you think they're right or not? If from America's point of view, if I take a step back, I think some of the critics are probably right. I think China doesn't represent the kind of challenge to the US, but the Soviet Union did. For a number of reasons, right? If you think about the Soviet Union, they had communist party and communist agitators active within the US. So this kind of internal threat, they had missiles,

13:46deployed to Cuba on America's border. And there was actually like a clear ideological contest between capitalism and communism, but the Soviet Union and its allies were pushing and the US was opposing. China is not really promoting its ideology in any clear sense. Of course, there's meddling in the US, but they don't have sort of a hard core of Chinese advocates within the US. And China doesn't have its military deployed on the borders of the US. So I think it is quite a different threat, but on the economics, of course, and the technology, as you were saying, the threat is much more significant, but that doesn't lend itself necessarily to such a zero-sum game, because the interconnections economically and technologically are so deep. All right. There's quite a challenge to what, actually, a lot of European countries would say, is look, first China's actually fueling this war on Eastern border, Ukraine's cost by keeping its fingerprints off the actual weapons, if you like, but also it's about to annihilate our industries and make us dependent. And those who do things, I'm thinking of the Japanese Prime

14:49Minister, Takaichi, saying Japan would stand by Taiwan and promptly getting all kinds of weaponized supply chains of critical minerals turned off. So there is a lot of countries not feeling quite as relaxed as you sketched it from what might be the American point of view. What do you think of what Ben's just said? And then I want to get into this question of what China wants, because that is absolutely essential to judging how countries should react to it. I mean, partially what Ben said was right, and really on the sense of how much United States should care about Asia security, how much United States should care about Asia allies, and for me, judging from current Trump's policy, I found very confused as a policy analyst. So secondly, what China really wants? I think that's exactly what China wants. Have United States that less attached to Asia and leave China a bit more space within the closest neighborhood, and that China would be able to extend this influence, and also to some extent, curb its long-term archiviral Japan, and less so, South Korea and

15:50Philippine, so the US allies. So that's one thing. Now secondly, I think what China want is, given the retreat of United States, and China now began to introduce this so-called new vocabulary of what order a new vocabulary of international relations, how it should be organized, you know, on the notion of sovereignty, on the notion of development, on the notion of human rights, and so on so forth. And none of these vocabularies has been represented through the so-called liberal international order, but instead it is something that China by using its own domestic development path, by making an argument that even without Western values, even without the enshrined wood, the West is advocated, there's a past of modernity, and the China has proved itself, managed that. So I think that's perhaps the most powerful narrative that Beijing is presenting right now. You know, that pathway to modernity without having all this Western so-called liberal internationalism. But, you know, China is making the world safe for autocracy, that's what's going on quite

16:51quietly, and we can say maybe Donald Trump is, you know, helping in that, but the Communist Party of China has an agenda, and it is not liberalism. It's not freedom of speech, it's not autonomy, you know, and in Asia. I mean, the US, you know, might be able to think of where safe between, you know, two giant oceans, but I mean, countries in Asia do not think this is a great idea, hence, you know, all this attention on Taiwan, because Taiwan, you know, it may just be 25 million people the same as the population of Shanghai, but it's the totem, I guess. And also, I think, for the US, a military establishment for whom the whole purpose in Asia has been to keep control of what's called the first island chain that Ben mentioned, you know, which is Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, all the way down to Singapore. Are they going to overturn, you know, 70 years of practice, you know, and sort of say, ah, but yeah, we're kind of relaxed about Asia now, we can retreat as far as Hawaii. I think there's sort of cause a huge fight within American policy making circle. But I think it's important to say, look, it's one thing I agree that China is a challenge, I don't disagree with that, it's what's oil and say, are people in the US in Europe willing to

17:53pay the price of competition with China? And so far, the answer has been no, right? On the EG. I'm not sure that's right. In the US, probably. But in Europe, no, you're seeing Europe waking up arm slowly, but to this really existential threat to dozens of industries and saying we've really got to try and get our act together and China is saying, or any possible measures are protectionism, but Europe is saying some of this is justified. These are Chinese companies running it a big loss selling into our markets. We're going to lose our entire industries if we allow all this to happen. And I think they're waking up to the military threat, which is not as distant as talk of Asia-Pacific islands might make it seem. And then when you get to other countries, I mean, it was not just about the US and Europe, Japan and many other countries near China. So this is really getting very uncomfortable. We don't have freedom of passage in the seas. That is challenge. We've got China intruding on our airspace, a maritime space. And if I'm going back to the Japanese example,

18:55we say anything they don't like, there is retaliation using the now very formidable control of critical minerals and supply chains. So that's part of what I was thinking when I was sitting listening to you, Bill. Well, yeah, under knock-on effects. I mean, if the US withdraws from Asia and then Japan and South Korea start thinking, well, we're on our own, where do they go? Do they then think we've got to have nuclear weapons? Do we then see a whole kind of proliferation breaking out in Asia and then spilling from Asia to other parts of the globe as well? So, you know, we've all spent a long time bashing the Americans, but we're going to miss them when they're gone. Is there anything countries can do about getting rid of the chokehold that China has on critical minerals? Well, yes, there is, but it's just going to take a very long time to do it. So there are already initiatives in Japan, Australia, the US and other countries talking to each other. But it's simply the question of scale and having them manufacturing and processing capability to do something about it. So China's chokehold on this is going to last for, you know, maybe a decade

19:57regardless of what anybody else does. It's not just contracts and minerals, it's also the refining ability. And it's also to do with the environmental standards. If United States and Europe has a very stringent environment standards and this will not fit into the facility that is able to processing those critical minerals. Let's pick up two of the more difficult topics we've touched on already. One is AI, one is Taiwan, one is start with AI. Where do you think they are in this race? Interesting enough. I mean, American companies and also the US administration have been talking to you successfully about setting guardrails on this AI competition. And so far responses from Beijing is quite muted, basically by saying, we want to do all thing and you can do your own thing. So at end of the day, I think I remember what she's been talking about, so called constructive strategic stability. It is only one takeaway. I want to take by the end of the Friday. And what are you going to talk about? Are we going to seriously have a guardrail on AI? If they have a tiny little bit co-management on AI, and I would actually

21:01consider this visit as a very limited success. But I think for now, Beijing's interest on having this co-management on joint guardrail on AI is not there. But I think the relative discussions about AI and the risks and the opportunities in China and the US actually get to the heart of this wider debate we've been having about how the US and we in the Western general approach things and how China does. And we like these big conversations about are we all going to be wiped out? What are the deep systemic risks to the world? Is it going to cure all cancers within three years? These very hypothetical arguments, well, at a practical level, many of us as individuals and companies struggling with how to use these tools. China has taken the complete opposite approach. There's almost no debate about the world being wiped out. They're talking about how can we use AI practically to increase the efficiency of our companies, our applications, our manufacturing industry, whatever is right. I think that tells us something about the two systems that we're really interested in. Systemic big risks that we don't actually have to address and spend money on. And China is much more focused on the sort of day-to-day quated in work of making improvements

22:04to its economy and its society. The old cliche of crossing the river by feeling the stones could be rolled out here, I think. So do we think there's any chance of an agreement between the two or really that the competition between the countries and the competition between the companies that that is really going to triumph? I mean, if you take the view that this is actually about technological supremacy, why should I, the Cypians, just didn't guard rails? I mean, they may say one thing in public, but at the end of the day, I mean, there's plenty of incentives. I mean, these companies take on staggering amounts of debt. They want to make sure that their models win out. And for the US at a national level, they have the same incentive. I mean, so I can't see why either state would seriously think about guard rails at this point. If you talk to the industry, think as in China, whether it's AI or nuclear weapons or it's trade issues, they will often say, well, guard rails are what the more powerful country uses to keep the weaker partner down. But I do think eventually if China gets to parity on certain technologies

23:09or defense platforms, I think there probably will be more interest at a later date in some sort of managed competition. But I think coming back to the earlier question about it, has China caught up with the US? I think in China, there isn't enough of a sense that they have yet, but I think once they feel much more parity, hopefully there will be a more sensible conversation across sort of systemic risks about how these two countries can work together. But for now, I think China feels that's just a framework that the US might use to keep their progress down. I tend to agree that the competition is going to win out over cooperation at this point. Bill, Taiwan, if the US won't defend it, can it be defended? I mean, it's a difficult place to invade. I mean, there aren't that many beaches and it's quite mountainous. So in that sense, but it's a fairly easy place to blockade and to prevent ships and planes getting into its place where China can mass huge amounts of not just military ships, but civilian ships. All the rest of it, it could, for example, demand that countries recognize

24:10that Taiwan as a part of China won't let their ships go through the sea. There's all kinds of things it could do to sort of put pressure on other countries which fall well short of invasion. And I'm pretty sure that Xi Jinping would like this to be in his legacy before he steps down. Whether that means an actual shooting war, I don't think at this point, but a shooting war would depend on America wanting to shoot back. Absolutely. And we don't know whether that is the case. And in discussions with Japanese analysts, there were basically saying that for them, if the US becomes involved, then Japan gets involved. But if the US doesn't get involved, then why would Japan take the risk at that point? So I think it must be quite lonely to be a Taiwanese politician right now in this sense. But I don't get the sense that the debate in Taiwan has caught up with this. There's a sort of sense in Taiwan that everybody wants the same thing. I the status quo, but they are sort of aware that China has a kind of ratchet approach that everything goes forward. It might stay the same for a bit, but it never goes backwards. And that's attempting

25:14ultimately to incorporate Taiwan into the PRC. Then we were hearing this in a discussion last night, the musing that if China blocked the state of Taiwan, the effect of economic disruption would be far, far greater than the disruption to the state of hallmouse. Yeah, if there was some sort of uncontrolled situation, a spiral to military conflict, or a military blockade, which I think is technically considered an act of war in international law, yeah, the consulments would be devastating given how much trade flows through. I think the challenge for China, as Bill was talking about, is what can it do to increase pressure on Taiwan that doesn't lead to those sorts of devastating economic consequences, which would also hit China, given that so much of the trade that's going through the waters around Taiwan is coming to or from China. It's raw materials coming into China and the goods that they're selling around the world fueling their economy. So I think they would have interests in using, as Bill said, this kind of ratchets approach, trying to make sure that

26:16they can squeeze Taiwan without those sorts of effects. But I do think there's a lot that we in Europe and in the rest of the world can do to support Taiwan, perhaps less so in the case of a D-Day style invasion if that were to happen, but given that China is using these kinds of grey zone pressures, I think there's a lot of the governments in Europe can do to talk to our companies, to prepare them for the sorts of pressures they might face from the People's Republic of China, and to do what we can to encourage our companies to keep doing business with Taiwan to maintain those linkages to resist some of the pressures that they'll inevitably face from Beijing to cut those ties with Taiwan. This is not something that we've done in the past. So when, for example, airlines, hotel companies have been told, you know, change the menu of countries on your website to say, you know, Taiwan brackets, China, companies have just done that. I don't think governments in Europe have ever spoken to them and said maybe don't do that. I mean, one thing, it's very confusing. If you're a tourist trying to find Taiwan in the PRC because it doesn't exist, it's a separately governed country with its own passport control and everything else. So I do think at the margins

27:18there's things we can do so that the sense of Taiwan's separateness and their voice in the world is a bit better known. I think at the margins that would push back on some of China's efforts to erase the sense that Taiwan is, in fact, de facto independent. Interesting enough. I mean, before Xi Jinping stave his it to United States, I mean, the one of the precondition and Beijing late very clearly is that is to say Trump administration could not go through this massive arm sales towards Taiwan. One of the watching point for this stave is it would be firstly, is the Taiwan going to be raised? I'm sure they were going to be raised. And whether this will be up here on the joint statement. And also secondly, how much delay that Trump administration will manage on arms towards Taiwan and that would actually show the real attitudes on what President Trump himself, but also the administration on the attitudes towards Taiwan and also what do you want to do about it. So I think the arm sale for now is one of the key watchpoints on this. If you were presidency, would you wait until John Trump has left the White House, given how unpredictable he is?

28:22Well, judging from the comments Xi Jinping made, in May, basically by saying he hoped that in the next three years or so, that's going to be a very stable bilateral relationship between Beijing and Washington. So I think that implies. Just when I had something quite important about Taiwan's agency here, which is often overlooked in any conversation about Taiwan and to me is the most important point firstly, because I care about the 25 million people of Taiwan. And secondly, because we live in a world where if you want to protect yourself, you have to look after yourself. You know, we're not living in a world anymore where you can rely on others to protect you. You can try. You can have that hope that the US might defend your Europe, might help you in some ways. But ultimately, Taiwan's position largely is going to be determined by what Beijing's willing to do and what the Taiwanese people and government are willing to do in response. And over the last years, they have made steps to increase their defense spending, to increase public awareness about the risks of various threats from invasion to information campaigns from China. So if anything, what Ukraine and other recent conflict shots, even Iran, actually a lot of it will come down to the

29:26willingness of a people to defend their homeland when they're under pressure from an external actor. And we have seen various examples of just how vigorous that defense can be. Let's just, as we come towards the end of this, look at how this might play out in the longer term. Both countries have, as well as enormous strengths, have weaknesses. The US has debt rising very steeply, are at the moment attracting more attention from the world's lenders. China has not only a declining population, but running many of its companies at a loss, propped up by state banks. So questions about both of their models. When I was asked the other day, for a note of optimism, I said, well, in all the backdrop, we've been talking about all kinds of problems in the world. I said, broadly, we don't think that the US and China are going to go for a hot war. But then I wondered whether I guess think that is right. The American analyst Robert Kaplan wrote in the New York Times very recently that the US is blundering towards war with China. And he was not of that optimistic cast of mind. Bill, where do you

30:32stand on this? Well, I guess you'd have to think about where it might break out. And I suppose Taiwan South China's Asia Pacific is the place that it's most likely to happen. But you're right, the pressure on China's economy, one level it's taking over the world and the other level it's collapsing. It's one of the four countries in the world that have over 300% of GDP in total debt. But does that really matter if you have a state controlled economy? But back to the question of whether I thought... Are economists, would say, yes. So how long do you wait? Are there some people in the US who are really sitting back and thinking that China will just implode under its own domestic debt levels? I think that's a very optimistic way forward. I think there's plenty of things that will happen before that comes to pass. So I suppose I'm probably a hostage to the current path. And so assuming that everybody would agree that war is a completely irrational outcome. It would be catastrophic for the world. Yes, yeah. And so therefore hoping that the good nature of everybody involved will lead us against that. But we're now at a stage where both sides

31:33might see the struggle for dominance as existential and so therefore the calculations would change. What I disagree with you, I think I did of today is not really about the leaders and what leaders want to do. And ultimately if you're asking American people and if you're asking Chinese people, are they really willing to fight on this war for the sake of the war order and for the sake of dominance? And perhaps the clear answer is no. So I think I did of a day what can really hinder or prevent Xi Jinping to do something crazy. And it's not that Elise around him, but it's actually the population already enjoyed the benefit of economic prosperity in the past decades or so. And then that is something that they do not want to repeat in the past. Would you have seen back to a culture revolution before 1949? So I think Americans would have to start it. I would not say the American have to start it. But basically I'm saying I think most of the both Americans and the Chinese are largely precipiced. There's no reason of that two countries and fighting something that is

32:34absolutely unnecessary. Then I think if you look at it rationally like you're saying yes it doesn't seem to make sense and there doesn't seem to be the stomach for it in the US. I mean obviously the Chinese people don't get a vote and I would worry more perhaps in China about these feedback loops between very heightened nationalist rhetoric from the government, heightened public expectations and no channels for independent feedback. But if you look at it rationally it wouldn't seem to make sense but so many wars have been started by accidental cycles of escalation, mistrust etc. And we know there's not much trust between these two countries at all. So that worries me I would say. And also that we're moving into a world where war is being normalized as a continuation of politics by other means. And that's not just about the US but we see that in other places too. So I think it's kind of scary right. But yeah the rational calculations economically and politically would say not but yeah I would still have that concern so long as especially around Taiwan I would say

33:34more than the South China Sea China refuses publicly to renounce the use of force to take back Taiwan and the US still has some kind of defense guarantees to Taiwan unclear exactly if they'll be upheld. I think it is still quite concerning. So really important that we still continue to have these conversations we talk to all sides and try and think about what could happen in the worst possible situation because it would be devastating. I can feel like economics team sort of hovering over this conversation saying no you haven't given off a way to the way that debt might determine all this but I think we have rightly anchored this in you know what these leaders with all the potential for miscalculations may do with the very highly charged situation that they are now in. I'm going to take that as a kind of optimism at the end of this conversation. Take what you can. Of course. heavily qualified but draw it to a close there. So a huge thank you to my guest Ben Blande.

34:36Thanks Bromand. You do. Thank you so much. Bill Hayden. We hope we've cheered everybody up. It doesn't always happen on the podcast but we do try. Thank you all for joining us for today's podcast and we're out every Friday so don't forget to follow us on your favorite app and do look at the show notes for links to some of our latest work. There is a lot of it. You can always find our work at chatamhouse.org. I'm Bromand Maddox. We'll be back next week. Good bye to you then.