Debating Public Policy Series: What To Do About China? Taiwan and the Future of US-China Relations

good evening welcome welcome panelists signing on right now and welcome everyone watching at home to tonight's event what to do about china taiwan and the future of u.s china relations i'm kevin marinelli executive director of the program for public discourse as you know the past couple weeks have been marked by horrific violence and fraught with geopolitical tensions that make tonight's debate all the more timely and important so it's an honor to have such an esteemed panel of experts to help walk us through some of these challenging topics and questions that we have before us but before i turn it over to them i do want to bring your attention to a few things first i want to let you know that we want to hear from you as well so we encourage you to put your questions into the q a and we'll do our best to get to as many audience questions as we can before the evening is through we also want to let you know that this event will be posted on our youtube channel so we encourage you to watch it again or recommend it to anyone who isn't able to attend tonight and finally there'll be a very brief survey toward the end of tonight's event that we encourage you to take to let you know or let us know how we're doing so now i'd like to introduce our panelists [Music] june toefl dreyer is professor of political science at the university of miami formerly the senior fiery specialist at the library of congress dr dreyer has also served as asia policy advisor to the chief of naval operations and as commissioner of the united states china economic and security review commission established by the u.s congress professor dreyer has published widely on china-taiwan relations eric youtua huang is the kuomintang representative in washington dc and formerly served as the party's spokesperson and deputy director of international affairs huang joined the kmt party headquarters in 2014 and served as the international spokesperson for the kmt's presidential candidate during 20 uh taiwan's 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns shelley rigger is brown professor of political science at davidson college her current research studies the effects of cross straight economic interactions on taiwan's people's perceptions of mainland china dr rigger's monograph taiwan's rising rationalism generations politics and taiwan nationalism was published by the east west center in washington and finally our moderator tonight klaus lars is richard m krasnow distinguished professor at unc he is an expert on security policies toward the transatlantic world china and southeast asia dr lars writes in lectures on post-cold war geopolitics u.s foreign policy european integration and the complex interactions that shape the u.s eu-germany-china triangle and with that i will hand it over to our moderator klaus lars to moderate the evening thank you thank you kevin it's a pleasure to be here i would like to welcome you the audience i would like to welcome all our distinguished panelists i'm joining you tonight from washington dc and we are a very international audience i noticed tonight with many people who have joined us across the world and of course our panelists have joined us from different parts of the united states i would like to welcome everyone to our event on what to do about china taiwan and the future of u.s china relations of course we will also talk about the terrible war in ukraine and china's position toward russia and the war our event tonight is organized by the unc program for public discourse and the carolina asia center and of course by the krustner global event series which have been running since 2012. and i noticed quite a few loyal followers of the christmas global event series have joined us tonight initially uh incidentally our next crust event is on april the 19th when the representative of northern ireland in washington dc will join us tonight we have three outstanding experts professor joond toeval dreyer of the university of miami and professor shelly riegel of davidson college in north carolina and eric youtuber hung of washington d.c we will ask and try to answer many of the crucial questions in connections with u.s china relations and the taiwan question for example we will ask is the war in ukraine a wake-up call for taiwan how did democracy develop in taiwan and how did taiwan become such an economic powerhouse which it is today is taiwan likely to declare independence will china take over taiwan forcefully and how would the united states react and there are of course many other questions we will ask and you hopefully you the audience will ask as well to remind everyone briefly you may remember that the nixon administration's so-called opening to china in the early 1970s led to the diplomatic recognition of the people's republic of china on the chinese mainland by the carter administration in 1979. taiwan lost its formal recognition by the united states and soon also by many other countries and also its u.n seat since then u.s taiwanese relations have been defined by the taiwan relations act enacted by the u.s congress in 1979 and since 2018 also by the taiwan travel act also the so-called six assurances of 1982 by the reagan administration expressed u.s support for tavan despite the cutting off of formal diplomatic relations in 1979. in particular the military cooperation between the united states and taiwan has been and still is controversial both within the united states and of course in beijing the nature of u.s policy toward taiwan has been characterized as strategic ambiguity the 1979 taiwan relations act states and i quote that the united states will make available to y to taiwan such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable taiwan to maintain sufficient self-defense capabilities however this is very vague and what this means precisely and in practice is entirely unclear in fact the act states that it is the decision of the president and the congress to decide the nature and the quantity of defense services that the united states will provide to taiwan washington's policy of strategic ambiguity is meant to dissuade taiwan from declaring independence and it is meant to dissuade beijing from trying to unify taiwan and mainland china by force of course we will elaborate much more on this a very brief summary of the current state of the problem regarding taiwan and u.s and the u.s relations with beijing we will begin our event tonight with short five-minute presentations on the current state of taiwan and u.s chinese relations by each of our distinguished speakers i will then pepper them with a few questions and interrogate our speakers a little bit we will then turn to questions from you the audience please submit your questions in writing by using the chat function at the bottom of your zoom screen kevin will be so kind as to select the questions and read them out aloud needless to say we will not be able to answer all your questions but hopefully as many as possible welcome again to our event tonight what to do about china taiwan and the future of u.s chinese relations i would like to ask our first speaker professor shelly rigger of davidson college to make her initial opening remarks over to you shelley thank you very much it's a real pleasure to be here i want to thank the organizers and also the other participants the question as it was presented to us for the purpose of a debate is what to do about china taiwan and the future of u.s china relations and this question i think implies that taiwan should be a consideration in u.s china policy so in good debater form i will start by rejecting the premise of the question itself instead i will argue that the u.s should have a taiwan policy that recognizes its implications for u.s prc relations and a policy toward the people's republic of china that is made in that same frame u.s foreign policy reflects america's interests and values these are the same whether we're talking about taiwan the prc russia ukraine or any other country or international institution my time is short so i will speak to two interests and one value number one the u.s has an interest in peace and stability especially for itself and for its allies and partners number two the u.s has an interest in a global economy in which americans and others can flourish and prosper in a sustainable and non-predatory way and number three the us values democracy and human rights including the right of peoples to establish and defend self-determination under many although not all circumstances so how should those interests and values inform u.s policy toward the prc regarding its interest in peace the u.s should maintain the capacity and resolve to deter and if necessary to counter violations of its allies and partners sovereignty and freedom of action by the prc as for its economic interests the u.s should provide global public goods to support well-functioning markets including high-quality trade agreements that protect labor the environment and state's ability to collect revenue and in terms of its values the u.s should speak out forcefully on behalf of human rights in the prc and it should defend democracy sovereignty and freedom of action for the prc's neighbors okay so how should those interests and values inform u.s policy toward taiwan to defend peace and stability the u.s should continue its efforts to help taiwan maintain a credible defense including holding open the possibility of u.s military intervention in the event of an unprovoked attack in this regard taiwan is different from ukraine which the u.s has never identified as a state it might defend with direct military force the u.s has never committed itself unconditionally to taiwan's defense but it also has never ruled out the possibility of defending taiwan directly economically the u.s should encourage international agreements that include taiwan whenever possible and taiwan companies when it's not possible to include taiwan as a country and that includes agreement sorry that includes agreements like the trans-pacific partnership or tpp the u.s itself should be a good trading partner by for example refraining from pressuring taiwan to import american products that don't meet global standards to be consistent with its values america's taiwan policy must allow taiwanese people to decide for themselves what their future relationship with china in general and the prc in particular should be it must respect taiwanese people enough to be honest about the risks of certain actions and the limitations of u.s power so far nothing i've said is very controversial i think so to put a point on this debate i will say a little bit about what i am not for as usprc tensions escalate the us must not slip into viewing taiwan as a strategic asset to be used against the prc the 24 million people living on taiwan are not a weapon and they do not belong to us they should make their own decisions that is not to say that the u.s should make an unconditional guarantee of taiwan's security washington should be honest with taiwan's leaders and people about what it can and cannot deliver so that they can make decisions with complete information the us should not press or encourage taiwan to provoke the prc former secretary of state mike pompeo came perilously close to that with his statement that the u.s should support taiwan independence whether that statement was motivated by vanity or hatred of the prc i don't know but it was dangerous because it implied a promise that the u.s may not be able to keep as we are seeing in ukraine war is the worst case scenario for taiwanese as for the people of ukraine there is no defense that can prevent massive suffering and destruction in war and that would be true even if the u.s intervenes and taiwan ultimately succeeds in defending itself so that's my statement i thank you very much for your attention and look forward to the discussion thanks very much shelley that was most interesting tell me and perhaps you can clarify that a little bit what is your standpoint on the one china policy and the two china policy because some of your remarks initially particularly at the beginning seem to go towards a two china standpoint while towards the end you seem to kind of roll that back perhaps you can explain that to us so the us has a one china policy it has had a one china policy since 1972 really with the shanghai communique in which we said you know all you chinese people agree that there's one china and taiwan is part of it we are not going to challenge that position so the us position is that there is apparently one china that that is the the stated view of the governments on both sides at the moment when um the us made that statement however it is clear that the relationship between whether they are parts of one china or whether they are parts of an entity which has in the past imagined itself to be one china and is in a transition or flux towards something else today the reality that we face is that the two sides of the taiwan strait are governed separately and so the u.s has relationships officially with the prc and unofficially but very importantly with taiwan so what i would say is that the one china policy has allowed the u.s to sustain its relations with mainland china without actually abandoning taiwan and without creating a dynamic in which taiwan is sort of fatally at odds with the government in beijing thank you so if taiwan for some reason or uh whatsoever were inclined to go for independence u.s should do its best to prevent that i think that the danger of taiwan going for independence is is slim i've been watching taiwan public opinion closely since the early 1980s and really closely since the early 1990s and i don't see evidence that uh taiwan would make a move for independence because taiwanese well understand the risk associated with such a move what troubles me sometimes is more statements or actions by governments or actors sometimes non-governmental actors in the us that seem to apply that imply that the us is moving away from a one china policy even when taiwan is working hard to maintain some kind of flexibility or ambiguity on that front okay thank you very much more i'm sure about that later in our discussion our next speaker is uh eric youtuber juan he is a representative of the kuomintang in washington dc and of course the kwamin tang is a nationalist party on taiwan and the largest opposition party over to you eric thank you thank you for the introduction and i'm i'm truly honored to be here today with this very um established group of panelists so um though this is a debate forum but i feel like i agree with almost everything charlie just said um so let me um attack this issue uh from a taiwan's perspective and how um you know some discussions has changed in taiwan in recent years giving the evolving nature of u.s china relations so um you're absolutely right um the kmt though some might argue that we are a pro-china party but we are 100 pro taiwan party but given our history historical history we used to be the chinese nationalist party and that is part of the f word world's effort of fighting communism so um when the kmt retreated to taiwan uh we were defeated by the chinese communist party and now we rule taiwan and for a a big part um until 1980 early 1980s when um you know after nixon opened the doors for china you know taiwan was the defender of free china and we largely tried to hold the line of the first island chain against the chinese and so after this uh opening real porsche mall with the chinese taiwan began his business activities with mainland china um and that that went on and that went on thriving and i think that helped both the chinese and taiwan's economy in the 90s early 1990s 2000 and things has changed in the recent years for my observation though i can be wrong i think there are a number of reasons for that change uh one is obviously what i just mentioned ideologies democracy versus authoritarian regime second it could be security since if uh the nature of ccp chinese communist party they might have security ambitions in the region and that in that implicates taiwan to a large extent and thirdly it's obvious economy right um so taiwan stands in the middle of all three of these um right in the middle actually so if if um for for the for the americans to pivot to asia and if its mass security concern becomes mainland china taiwan is facing a choice to make and i think some of the taiwanese people in recent elections are framing the issue in that direction uh the 2020 election being a big example even though i might disagree with some of the voters decisions but the main topic is about how which candidate can provide better security for taiwan in phase of beijing's threat and so make no mistake we do see this as a threat and we have to manage this threat and reduce this problem as we go along so um american comes in the picture as one of our um if not the most important strategic ally and security provider so taiwan um with our geo geopolitical location um and with our history we work very closely with mainland china in terms of business we have over 1.5 million people living there doing business every day and it is our biggest export partner but nevertheless we share the same value with americans we are a democracy and we do not want to be forcefully taken over by beijing and beijing hasn't given up that option on the table um so um two events recently has prom the discussion of taiwan's future and how we can be more self-reliant on our security number one is what charlie mentioned former secretary pompeo's visit where he uh raised a very interesting discussion whether or not us sure formally officially recognized republic china taiwan um as a diplomatic outlet second is the issue of ukraine which i'm sure we will go to the discussion a bit later um so the the the ukraine has prompted the discussion of a how can taiwanese defend our country better whether or not we should go back to conscription or this should should we have a better reserve mechanisms where people can be mobilized more quickly in the event of this happened though uh kmt's position on this is taiwan should never have to really think about you know going to a warfare we should stop uh warfare at any cost that is peaceful restraint so we need to be better prepared for how we can defend ourselves so the second um discussion uh prom by this is whether or not the u.s will come to taiwan's aid in such an event i think charlie did a great job to characterize that in the event of unprovoked by taiwan the u.s will come to some kind of aid but i think in this discussion especially in the frame of strategic ambiguity this helps the taiwanese people better to understand we need to be self-reliant and then if americans come to our a we can see that as a plus so these are good discussions i think for taiwanese nowadays and i'll just um very quickly from the interest of time i think um in terms of economy um you know taiwanese are making a choice as well whether or not people will see uh mainland china still the first option as a business partner i think things has been changing um i'll give you one interesting example uh you know in referendum uh last year december of last year um the taiwanese went to the balance to vote on rectopane port imported from the rest of the world and the united states every major every every poll has suggests the majority of taiwanese are against such an import but i think on the ruling party dpp did a great job of framing this issue as a national security problem with america so i think that has stopped the voter turnout somewhat so in uh as a result this referendum did not take to its effect because he didn't pass the threat of 25 percent of the voters so i think these are examples of you know discussions in taiwan although i'm not as optimistic as shali that um taiwanese people will not pursue independence um did your independence thank you very much thank you can i just answer you and follow up on that what about the domestic demographic situation in taiwan apparently younger people are much less interested in the relations with the chinese mainland than with western countries while older taiwanese people still have a greater nostalgia for mainland china can you confirm that um yeah yes i think that's a great question i i i think that first of all the generational gap is is a reality uh it exists however i i think i think the problem is more complicated than how we are tackling this issue i think quite frankly i'll give you an example i think william live vice president william lie in the reason remark um he said basically that you know taiwan needs to have a good business partnership with beijing so the these this nationalistic feelings about uh beijing is changing among young people this is you know what we call a national identity development progression an older generation uh especially the ones who came with the the wilmington in 1949 um you know ethnically they we identify with uh china but it's not to say we align with the ccp the chinese communist party so the younger generation um having a harder time to understand i think the concept is close to the west philly nation of building so having a hard time to understand though we might as some people might not have identified as you know culturally chinese um it doesn't mean that you know taiwan uh has to be part of ccp it doesn't mean that you know we we have a same way of life right i think um another debate in taiwan is what's taiwan's um responsibility to democratize mainland china and i think this is a topic that kmt would like to raise in the future um so this this generational gap is real in taiwan and i think the younger generation as you described it just really want to mine our own way of life and in terms of cross-relations i think even though they know it's important but they look they view it in a different lens thank you thanks very much indeed now we come to our third speaker that is june toyota breyer um of the university of uh uh from miami and um june will give us her initial opening remarks about the situation in uh uh in us chinese relations particularly regarding tehran you're muted could you unmute yourself here hello now you can hear me yes that's much better thank you for that nice introduction and it's my great pleasure to be here with you all now eric was was uh saying he knew it was going to be a debate but he really didn't have any disagreements with with shelley and so i think it's incumbent on me to start some debate absolutely uh let me just start out by saying that i thought that 1972 consensus was a disaster and uh that it is one with severe consequences for not only u.s china relations today but also for the people of taiwan and i think that the idea of one china was always a sham and as uh john holdridge who is at that time assistant secretary of state for east asia and the pacific said but what about the people of taiwan they don't he understood that there were a lot of people on taiwan who did not consider themselves chinese and they just kind of got ignored and it's very interesting and if any of you have access to academic journals i would commend this to your attention nancy bernkov tucker um the late nancy bernkoff tucker was able to examine all the declassified documents relevant to the 1972 quote consensus and she came to the conclusion that it did not need to happen if the wording did not need to be the way it was so somehow we are we regard the idea of one china as some is more sacred than the sacred cow uh i don't think it is and i don't think it should be regarded that way what was a bad idea in 1972 is an even worse idea now that taiwan has become a democracy and now that our hopes which certainly seemed plausible not in 72 but certainly in 1979 that china would become a democracy it's just not happening uh i would also like to see an end of this will taiwan declare independence and thank you eric for clarifying that that's degree independence that you're talking about because in fact taiwan has no need to declare independence it's already independent and we have to get rid of some of these some of these ambiguities are convenient many of them are not and i know shelley said we should encourage taiwan's participation in uh the cptp and the icao and the world health organization and so on where possible well it's not possible so what do we do then curl up and say it's not possible so we're not going to try and so i have objections to that and to me the real trick going forward with chinese american relations is how can we extricate ourselves from this sham of a one china policy without totally repudiating it and i think the answer there can be seen in the way the japanese operate they they signed on to article five of a constitution which for uh which forbade the use of the military they now have a self-defense force you see what i'm seeing you can change things they also had a self-imposed moratorium they couldn't sell arms abroad they have changed that and i think in i'm not saying okay one china policy is at an end i am not saying that i am saying that we need to change our attitude and in many ways we have been we do not formally recognize the republic of china on taiwan but de facto we treat it as an independent country okay we make certain concessions the marine guard at the u.s non-embassy in taipei does not wear uniforms and we uh call shall be kim the representative except for those of us who call her the ambassador and she does not object um and so that's what i'm talking about the gradual moving away from trying to observe the uh what i call the improper spirit of the 72 shanghai communique and the reality that is today and let us we've been talking about sino-american relations i know american taiwan relations but let's not forget there are other countries involved in this too and one of them is japan and that most vitally for japan since if china were to take over de facto taiwan its territorial waters would bump right against japan's southernmost island japan's island of yoneguni there is no way they want that and people in taiwan have many of them remember fondly the japanese and i they you can be very supportive i a couple of years ago went with a retired japanese diplomat to taiwan and uh he wanted to see falun gong so we went to the jankaishek memorial and he i asked because he didn't speak any chinese he speaks arabic and english and lots of other things so i asked in chinese where we can find tiana um and he and his entourage meanwhile are speaking in japanese and the guy i talked to his face lit up it was like an electric bulb and he started speaking to okazaki's son in japanese he says let me take you to falun gong and darn it they didn't all speak japanese as well and i mean this is the kind of rapport and you see this in morris uh john the taiwan semiconductor manufacturing company now setting up a plant in kumamoto and uh the this is in a way or insurance policy for taiwan's computer chip industry setting up that plant and uh we need to act on this a couple of days ago the japanese uh former prime minister abe said it's really time we started talking about nuclear arms for japan and to my shock nihon nihon ishii no kai's president said no we really should now he was slapped down two days later on that one but obvious still continues so let's be honest we got a bad deal in 1972. in 79 we got the d recognition of the republic of china on taiwan um but at least in carter's defense it looked at that point as if china would democratize you now have the exact opposite situation thank you thank you yeah thank you very much i fully understand what you're saying you're not in favor of what happened in the 1970s but we have committed the united states legally for the last 50 years to a one china policy and whether you like it or not if we now go back what various american governments have done for the last 50 years couldn't that be called dishonest couldn't that be called not reliable you enter into a legal commitment and if you don't like it anymore a few decades later you decide to tear it up and go back this is not what legal reliability is all about in international affairs is it i would argue that uh this is uh that a communique is not illegal no but the the independence uh sorry the diplomatic recognition in 1979 definitely is this is an international treaty with everything which belongs with it and also you know what i mean i don't need to explain that to you so we have entered into legal commitments of a one china policy and of course we can agree whether that's great or whether that was a mistake but we cannot just go back and undo it can we you know then we could tear up all sorts of legal treaties i am not arguing that we should undo it right legally i am saying we should move away from treating it as the sacred cow and you know it's true there isn't a one title or perhaps i could modify that there is a one china and there is a taiwan doesn't mean i think as we're moving away from commitment uh if we had an hour and a half i could give you a list of commitments that have been moved away from for example china when it was angry with the soviet union supported japan's right to the return of the four northern territory islands [Music] whether they're legal or not when they're no longer convenient i would call this diplomacy no well but you have to understand that the other side whoever it is whether it's china or european country would not be impressed by that but let's open your question too why do we care if they're impressed or not uh president xi jinping let me bring in the other discussions okay how would you respond to what june just suggested i would say uh we have to i agree that the origins of the shanghai communique and the position that the u.s took is really problematic and less because of the position we took in the shanghai communique or that the u.s leaders took then th because the shanghai communique was really the best of what went on between kissinger joe and lai um and nixon and mao um you know we know that thanks to uh nancy bernkoff tucker's work that june mentioned a moment ago we know that um especially henry kissinger the national security adviser reassured joe and ly and other prc leaders that you know things would work out for them with taiwan he he never said we'll hand it over but he let them know that the us was not committed to the defense of taiwan so it's against that backdrop that agreeing not to challenge the stated position of at that time both governments taiwan and the prc is actually you know it's a whole lot better than the way the direction things were headed when those interactions first began however it shapes our relationship with the prc to this day and the us to retreat significantly from those commitments would be offering the prc an opportunity also to retreat from its commitments and to abandon the kind of of framework that has held the u.s and the prc in some kind of stable and to a significant extent over time cooperative relationship so you know i think it's it's a it's an attractive thought but i think there would be consequences for us china relations and there would be huge consequences for taiwan and that's really what i would want to call attention to is you know um the us needs to consider that the ramifications of its actions for taiwan if it is taiwa on taiwan's behalf that we claim to be making these changes thank you very much we have so many things to cover and our audience i know wants to know also about whether or not there is a parallel between taiwan and ukraine or ukraine and taiwan has the war in ukraine made taiwan less secure or more secure does china conclude from the war in ukraine that any forceful action against for for example taiwan would not be wise or would it come to the opposite conclusion or something in between can you help us uh regarding this question uh maybe june again and then we come to eric well um actually the prc itself has said that there is not a connection between taiwan and what goes on in the ukraine i uh it was very very critical of peter dutton the australian defense minister and uh of scott morrison the prime minister for making a comparison and it uh it said the comparison with taiwan is deliberately equalizing two very different affairs with ulterior motives and it didn't say what those ulterior motives were but uh it is trying to i think what what the this the speaker which is this firebrand ex editor of the uh uh global times had in mind was that this is going to be used by the united states to form a coalition against the people's republic of china right right and uh as any number of people have pointed out the situation with ukraine is totally different because you could kind of melt the russian army across the borders and there's a lot of water in the way right with it so i don't see the parallels but i think that it is useful to bring up the issue of is china going to attack taiwan okay let's ask eric about it let's see eric has got to say about it well i i i think the first observation has to go to how the chinese react to this situation in ukraine um do they try to come in to be a more mediator or do they try to work with the russians or with the western allies and i think so far they have tried to stay on the side as much as possible and i think if if i was xi jinping i will very soon realize that putin isn't a very reliable partner in any sense um so from this flowing from this um coming to my second point i think this uh somehow makes taiwan uh more secure in the international community because chinese now realizes everybody's watching i think those economic sanctions do work on the invader of in any event and second is the support beijing can have a sense of the support taiwan will get or how this will tarnish its reputation in the event if unprovokedly beijing star military conflict with taiwan and thirdly just what i mentioned earlier i think now taiwan taiwanese people have this conscience of being a self-reliance we we know you know we have been in years to talk about how we need to beef up our defense spend more money talk about conscriptions and it just was just a non-debate discussion but now people realize that this can happen so i think you know um it just you go back to the default position everybody should be more reasonable on taiwan street and though nobody wants war to happen but i think this is a good reminder that it could happen quick follow-up question do you think that beijing could be a good mediator in the conflict between you russia and ukraine as the chinese foreign minister has suggested or is this totally uh totally unrealistic i i i don't think um they will be a good one but they realize they're in position to be one i think to be to to be the mediator first of all both sides have to you know somehow respect their reputation their weight and i think other than the western countries today china is one of the biggest countries and they have existing pre-existing relations with russia and somehow if this can happen my hope is maybe the chinese and the americans can better their relations and this is obviously better uh a good thing for cross-regulations as well um i think this is a long shot but let me bring shelley in on this question as well and then we open it up to questions from the audience please surely yeah i think um it's been really interesting to see how observers have reacted on this question of ukraine versus taiwan because there are those who look at it and say wow you know russia has opened the box naked aggression is back and so china's going to try it and then there are those who say uh this naked aggression is not working out for russia and everything about this the way this war has unfolded i think it has been surprising to nearly everyone i don't i don't know anyone who predicted one that russia would actually invade two that the ukrainians would mount a credible defense three that the rest of the world would would come together and forget about all the stuff that we were fighting over you know two weeks ago and four that economic sanctions would actually tank the russian economy in short order so while i think it is still possible for russia to win in some kind of very localized and specific way perhaps by capturing the capital or even heaven forbid the leadership of ukraine i think the long-term consequences of this invasion are unlikely to be anything but overwhelmingly negative for russia and it's my observation of the prc leadership that they are very smart and very risk averse much more risk adverse than than putin whom i agree with eric is turning out to be a really bad friend if you're china um so you know i it it seems to me that unless things turn radically in the next few weeks or months that the lesson that prc leaders are likely to take away is that this is not as easy as it looks and we better be careful and will gigi ping drop putin as a bad friend you know i think he's trying to walk the line i think he's a friend of me right now little friend little enemy thanks very much let's open it up to questions kevin i'm sure has selected quite a few interesting questions kevin thank you klaus yes building on these connections we're making to russia and ukraine one person wants to know do you believe that the taiwan people are committed to their national defense and are willing to defend their island and make the necessary sacrifices as per the ukrainians and the resistance to the russian invasion this is a question for eric but briefly please the short answer is yes that's a brief answer thank you but sure the short answer is yes but i i think you know as a public servant i think this is our job um to inform people what is the price and i think it is also our job um to tell people how to avoid that any uh before we we actually have to go to that event right so it's stopping it before it happening and in the event of you know a conflict what's the price to pay because a lot of times you know citizens are willing to do whatever defend the country they don't really know you know what are this you know the the price they have to pay and what are actually will happen so as we can see now in ukraine which is a very high price yeah thank you very much can we have another question please yes if china would invade taiwan what would be the biggest economic sanction that the u.s could impose on china do you have an answer for that no uh because uh in in a way china is already being punished by the sanctions that are on russia all right yeah okay shelley you have an idea yeah you know um it's a whole lot easier for the u.s to sanction russia economically than to sanction china our economies are very much intertwined of course but it may be that for that very reason economic sanctions you know reduction in trade or even cessation of trade that kind of sanction would be very high impact for china precisely because china is so trade dependent and its trade is diverse across sectors and products as well as across countries and you know the us has done economic sanctions against china in the previous administration there were significant tariffs on chinese goods and i think you know it cost the chinese economy something even if it didn't change the prc's behavior didn't it also cost the american consumer an awful lot and will the american consumer be prepared to pay an even steeper price for new sanctions yeah i don't know um you know the whole point of sanctions is that they cost everybody well you know again i think sanctions is the wrong the wrong idea here because taiwan as everyone has pointed out and ukraine are very different and a chinese invasion of taiwan would be over very quickly missiles and so on and so at that point what good would sanctions do can the united states says could could they possibly say we will cut off your access to x y and z unless you withdraw from taiwan you see what i mean the situations are so different that the questions of sanction doesn't really isn't really applicable let me ask a different question away from warfare and sanctions which are all of course negative parts of the international tools we have at our disposal what can actually be done to de-escalate the situation at the moment we know tension in the south china sea in the straits is actually increasing almost by the week which is not a good idea so how can we de-escalate how can both sides de-escalate or what is the solution here to bring a little bit more stability into the situation shall we what i think would be helpful would be and and actually i think this is happening i mean i i think there has been some de-escalation if if not in the you know i i don't keep track of the number of pla flights into taiwan's air defense identification zone in the way that some others including probably june do but it it seems to me that the overall temperature in u.s china relations has diminished a little bit recently and that is partly because uh the other problems in the world have reminded leaders that you know gratuitous conflict just to see what might happen can be very costly when some unexpected event occurs and suddenly you have to respond to that so it seems to me that one thing that the u.s has been doing especially in my view under the biden administration the blind administration has not been uh pro-china you know that we haven't returned to the sort of status quo ante of the obama era in terms of our china policy but our officials have been somewhat more restrained or cautious or at least coordinated in the statements that they make such that i think p the prc leadership feels slightly less unstable about what the u.s might do and i think that's positive because i think a lot of the prc's activity is aimed at demonstrating resolve and actions that they are afraid could happen and so if we can lower the temperature then the need for that deterrence may also diminish thank you eric what is taiwan's uh contribution to lowering the temperature is that one um you know for lowering temperature you know dialogue is always the way to go but uh you know it's hard uh given um you know the stance xi jinping currently is taken and um we don't know whether he will be more aggressive or not after the 20th party congress but nevertheless i think taiwan what we could do now is continue to dialogue and strengthen our security with western allies at the same time we could be a gateway for the western allies in communication with beijing but nevertheless i think um you know um june has mentioned it you know republic of china is already an independent country so maybe um politically if we stay this way maintaining the status quo is a starter and then i think democratizing men and china is always a good way to mitigate peace and maintain our way of life well let's let's let that stand as it is and ask the next question instead of discussing that further which we easily could maybe we can do that in connection with the next question kevin please how secure is the production of semiconductors in taiwan um it's very secure but if there should be an invasion it's not going to be and this would be disastrous not only for taiwan but for the people's republic of china and for much of the rest of the world that relies on those ships and i think the companies are doing what they can i mentioned this the plant being set up in kumamoto uh there is going to be another one being set up in texas i'm sorry arizona and uh so [Music] i know someone suggested that china could carry out a surgical strike against taiwan without damaging the semiconductor industry and to that i say poppycock it can't be done okay and so that is something that would definitely harm china as much as anybody else and therefore that's going to be a deterrent now i also understand that the highest the research on the highest of the high-end ships is done in taiwan so in other words computer chips are manufactured in china as a matter of fact some of them and some of them elsewhere but the high end the real cutting edge stuff is done in taiwan and that would be gone and it would take something like five years to recoup any of that not just the factories but the expertise thank you very much thank you very much let me uh ask for the next question we are running out of time so i need to rush a year a bit yeah that's okay no rush at all uh but but building on that the next uh person wants to know that if the growing threat of china warrants more collective security in the asia specific or asia pacific region um such as a asian nato sito reboot shelley would you like to answer that yeah i you know on the one hand we are seeing an increase in collective security arrangements so the aucus uh organization the quad these are um these are definitely or aimed at showing common resolve among the us japan australia uh uk you know variously configured india toward china the southeast asian nations are a bit of a harder nut to crack because they have close political and economic ties to mainland china and they have worked very hard to avoid taking sides or being too closely identified with one or the other and you know china has done a lot to make that hard for them you know interfering in their territorial waters in the south china sea and um you know again china's not a very good friend either but when you're indonesia malaysia vietnam thailand burma cambodia et cetera you're really not in a strong position to push the prc away so i think the kind of more euro-american allied and japan have an easier time um one interesting player that we haven't mentioned tonight is south korea where uh the the government has really tried to avoid again taking too strong of a side despite being a military ally of the us it continues to you know try to preserve a good relationship with beijing not least because it's a huge economic partner to korea but public opinion in korea as in japan has become has turned really sharply against china and the um crazy political situation as manifested in today's presidential election in korea i think could make public opinion a bigger driver of korean foreign policy so it really depends on who you're talking about i would say thank you when i listen to the conversation tonight it's uh it's easy to receive the impression that we are moving towards a world divided into two you know a chinese sphere of influence and an american sphere of influence with countries in the middle weighing to and fro and often of course towards the united states but it's that sort of divided world which of course reminds us to some extent of the traditional cold war but is that sort of divided world really the future is that what we really want and would that avoid conflict and we know during the cold war we almost came close to nuclear war so is the likelihood of a huge nuclear scenario in such a newly divided world not not high so what do we what can we do about it june you have said is that what we want and definitely it is not what we want how can we avoid it i predict that what will happen in the future is managed hostilities in other words we are not going to go nuclear uh we are not going to start wars uh we are just going to argue a lot and there will be moments of feeling of crisis but they will not spin out of hand now unfortunately any situation is always at the mercy of uh clause of its uh friction something you cannot predict is going to happen and the united states china and russia are not the only nuclear powers you also have iran with the potential to act very dangerously as israel is constantly reminding us and uh then there's we have to adjourn with all respect we have to clarify that iran is not yet nuclear powers but israel and india and pakistan and north korea are these are the countries which we should mention above all you know we are trying to avoid iran going nuclear i think that is what the current debate is all about but let me ask uh eric about uh the division of the world is that where we're going to head to you know i i think what what we want is we want to avoid you know the situation you just described i think the world is much more interconnected today than doing during the cold war era and i i think um today a lot of issues that we are viewing are um you know domestic reflected in the international realm um so i think this is true for america this is true uh for men in china right i think um in my opinion um i think some might disagree with me i think after xi jinping takes the throne i think the pressure will be taken off for him a little bit so he will have some room to actually stir beijing back to a normal course though um this the opposite might happen but nevertheless i think um you know in taiwan um we are looking at what you the situation you described happening in our domestic politics i think today uh this uh anti-china campaign is real in taiwan and this is taking the majority opinion in taiwan so i think uh we we want to do everything to avoid this and think every it takes everybody's wisdom to go over it thank you can i ask this one yeah you know i think there's a way of viewing the ukraine war as uh sort of starting something you know russia's taking the lid off and and and um we're back but another way to look at this is russia is an outlier among countries uh i think putin is a desperate leader who is uh seeking to restore greatness to a failing state in a uh there's you know the russian economy is bad uh russian society faces all kinds of pathologies and really tragic circumstances which have a lot to do with the fact that putin is their leader the people's republic of china is not like that right the people's republic of china is a country that is in ascendant in ascendant mode i don't think it's overtaking the us i don't you know i've never bought the idea that china's gdp is going to surpass the us in a few years i don't think china's gdp per capita will ever uh surpass the us but china is a country that feels hopeful and imagines its own situation improving and leaders in countries like that don't take life or death risks in order to make a point very often and so you know i i think that uh i totally agree with eric sorry there's too much agreement between me and eric um for a debate but i agree with eric that uh we are too intertwined and entangled for it to be easy for most countries to act the way russia is acting now it is because of its isolation and disconnection that russia was in a position to risk everything for then wouldn't be wouldn't the lesson be that despite all the current tension and difficulties with uh beijing one should still engage in order to prevent that isolation i think we should engage and i think we are engaged we can't not engage because you know half the things i own or made in china you know i am engaged with china in multiple ways throughout my daily life and our government is engaged with china as well but that doesn't mean that we have to say everything you do is great right it doesn't mean we have to um excuse for example the xinjiang catastrophe um absolutely yeah absolutely let's take one final question and then i would like uh you when you answer the question to connect that perhaps with some concluding remarks how we can um deal with taiwan without it leading to any sort of unfortunate ds escalation and try to perhaps keep the status quo with which we have lived for so long which was somehow has you know suited as well despite all tension but the status quo is apparently not a bad one kevin do you have one final question we do i don't know if it serves as the culminating question that you're looking for but i think it's an interesting one uh does the the chinese treatment of its uyghur population uh labeling it a genocide does that is that useful and productive for the relationship we're trying to cultivate with china well i'll leave it to eric to find the connection between this question and concluding remarks on taiwan the winger situation shouldn't have any other political considerations and just call it what it is you know what's happening there we need to describe it you know as a reality and then connecting this to taiwan um i think i i kind of agree that status maintaining status quo is the best option right now as i describe it i think we call it this infinite game we want to continue the situation until we know the atmosphere has changed i think this is the best for everybody to fit in the weather uh some might want to quit the game or end the game i think that might quickly result in military conflicts so you practice everybody's wisdom and until things are changed in all players involved western allies men in china and taiwan maintaining status quo the way it is is the best though it is evolving and progressing status quo thank you very much indeed thank you uh june would you agree with that uh to a large extent but i think we should keep in mind that the status quo is not static and it will be okay for us to say we would like to maintain the status quo but china may not want to maintain the status quo so it's kind of like watching this this uh game that loggers play where they're on a lodge in the middle of a lake and it's turning and you have to keep doing footwork and so china wants to change the status quo the united states doesn't want to change the state escrow and maintaining a static position is going to be very very hard thank you very much uh shelley how would uh what do you say about that yeah you know the link i would make between the tragedy and xinjiang and the situation in in taiwan is that there is still the possibility of some kind of reconciliation i think between taiwan and and something called china maybe not the people's republic of china but you know taiwanese people still acknowledge that they have their roots that most of them have their roots in china that they are culturally and ancestrally chinese i think the biggest problem with cross-strait relations is the communist party the chinese communist party leadership and the kind of society and polity that it has created in mainland china is absolutely repulsive to everyone that i know in taiwan and nearly everyone who lives in taiwan so the uyghur situation taiwanese look at that and they say yeah this is why even if we have chinese blood as our chinese across the strait always tell us even if we do have chinese blood we do not want to be part of the chinese state that does things like this similarly hong kong so i i think that the prc will not make much progress in persuading taiwanese people to imagine a different future between the two sides as long as it is an authoritarian or worse state capable of actions like the extreme crimes against the weaker people thank you very much indeed these were good concluding remarks they've tried to pull the discussion a little bit together but there are many questions we could still address many issues we could still talk about maybe we should have a sequel in a few weeks time for now for now i would like to thank our large audience for a large online audience for sticking with us for almost an hour and a half just under thank you very much for doing that and in particular i would of course like to thank shelly rigger and june toyville dreyer and eric youtuber wong for uh joining us tonight and for being such good and interesting and uh uh lively candidates and panelists thank you very much indeed uh i would like to point out to you before we go that there is a survey push popping up on your screen and the organizers would very much like you to fill in that survey that seems to be the fashion these days then that we do have a youtube channel you can see our debate again and again and again if you can't get enough on our youtube channel um and uh well have a good night and thank you for joining us tonight and thank you also of course for uh to kevin for asking uh the questions and for jonathan for overlooking our technical capabilities and making sure everything runs smoothly so everyone good night and thank you very much for joining us tonight bye you

Channel: UNC Program for Public Discourse

Views: 9,979

Keywords: June Teufel Dreyer, Shelley Rigger, Eric Yu-Chua Huang, Kuomintang, Klaus Larres, UNC PPD, Krasno Events

Id: mdIXwV-UWcg

Length: 74min 45sec (4485 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 11 2022