WION Global Summit: China's Military | Power, Provocations and Propaganda | Session Two

the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting these are the words of the ancient chinese strategist and this seems to be the strategy of the ruler of modern

china

xi jinping from the taiwan strait in the south

china

sea to the border of ladakh and the indian ocean the chinese regime is picking fights on all fronts it wants to subdue its neighbors without fighting them what is the strategy behind china's increasing brinkmanship its

power

its

provocations

and its

propaganda

in this

session

of the

global

summit

Beyond that we will decode China's

military

and joining me is a distinguished panel of guests, each of them bringing their experience in the

military

and in dealing with the Chinese.

My first guest is someone who served in the US Navy, a former US deputy secretary of defense, a former advisor to Reagan Bush. election committee currently senior fellow at the center for american progress mr lawrence corp joined us from delaware in the usa our second guest is a historian, academic and former army officer. He has extensive experience in the intelligence community in 1999, he served as director. Intelligence officer of the Australian brigade in East Timor, he was Australian defense attaché in Thailand and Myanmar and is currently a professor of intelligence and international security studies at the Australian National University.

Mr. John Blacksland and our third guest join us from Canberra. He has been part of the Indian Army for 42 years. He is a member of the national security advisory board. He has trained a large number of officers in military tactics and strategy. He has written extensively about the plan, its modernization and military strategy. His Twitter bio is interesting. reads a military professional with interest in anything related to China. Lieutenant General Sl ner Simon joins us from New Delhi. It's an honor to have you all with us at Beyonce. Let me start with you, John Blacksland. Part of the Chinese dream is to modernize the system.

The military will make it world class by 2050. Would you rate the Chinese military as one of the best in the world, if not the best? Well, it's a very good question. The thing is, it's an untested military and it's definitely modernizing and it's definitely employing some. of the latest technology and he is doing it skillfully, but it is unproven, the last time he was involved in a conflict he had a bad nosebleed, apart from the skirmishes on the Himalayan front, the real fight on the Vietnam border in 1979 saw China really take some serious hits and of course since then they have studied very, very closely the lessons of the Gulf War in 1991 and of course the war in Iraq and Afghanistan following it, including the concept of union, the idea. of the armed forces, army, navy, air force, special forces, all collaborating effectively to achieve the only desired unified effect which is, in this case, of course, the complete dominance of China in its domain, in its environment in the first Himalayan island chain and on its trade routes.

Those trade routes, of course, cross the Indian Ocean around the southern tip of India, across the western Bay of Bengal and across to the Persian Gulf, and that's a very ambitious goal, but they've been very, very good. in building towards and they are at the stage now without really a world class force an unproven but a world class anyway unproven but world class lawrence cope china spends a lot on the military but expensive weapons alone can use lethal force what is your assessment of the pla? Well, there is no doubt about the fact that the Chinese military, as my colleague just said in the paper, is very, very formidable, they are taking advantage of the latest technologies, they are increasing their defense spending by about seven percent a year, for example their budget over the last decade on defense has basically doubled so I think they hope to be able to achieve their goals just with a show of force rather than an actual confrontation and the Chinese want to be recognized as a great

power

and are taking advantage right now of the fact that we are so concerned with the covert pandemic of '19 to try to be more aggressive, even on the border with India and basically with its The feeling is that we, the United States, are now going to focus more in our own problems than in that part of the world where the United States is trying to show that that is not the case.

We have deployed two uh aircraft carriers in the region to send a signal to the Chinese that if they become more aggressive we are not going to just be left with the overall arsenal in a recent Belford study challenges the conventional wisdom or should I say the conventional assessment that the Chinese army may have an advantage. about India just because it is believed to be more technologically advanced, the study questions that they do not necessarily not only have better experience, but they are not necessarily better equipped, do you agree with this? No, you shouldn't just look at what weapons they have. and what technology they have, what you have to consider is how they can apply it and how much they can apply, that is much more important than how much they have, so if you look at that, even the same study mentioned that the Indian armed forces may have some kind of influence over, I mean, some kind of advantage over the Chinese military in mountain warfare, if I remember correctly, that's what they mentioned, so the entire border between India and China is mountainous and high altitude in many places, which creates a much more different dimension than the type of equipment they can actually use against us, so if you put that in perspective, I think we are in a favorable position right now so that, if something could go wrong, I just hope so.

It's not like that and as things stand, I don't think it's going to happen that way. I think the de-escalation is something that is underway and I think we will get through it correctly. The de-escalation that we all hope is underway. john blacksland China of course is spending as most countries prepare their armies, but the Chinese leader keeps telling the PLA to prepare for war, why is that what explains China's aggression, even hostility towards some of your neighbors? I think the proof is in the pudding and I mean, if I may say that they have been very successful in using intimidation by investing heavily in military capabilities and then by huffing and puffing, they have managed so far to get concessions and when they haven't obtained concessions, they have managed to obtain at least the acquiescence of neighboring states and potential adversaries, but what is very interesting is that this has come at a price because China has very few allies and Pakistan and North Korea could probably be counted among themselves, but very, really, very few realistic friends. managed to buy some regimes in Africa and you have countries that are a little scared, but it hasn't really been effective in appealing to soft power which has been something that the United States has been. very good for many decades until at least recently and if you look for example, interestingly, you know and it is understandable that India focuses on the Himalayas, but if you extend to the South China Sea and see what is happening there, Rodrigo. duterte, the president of the philippines four years ago extended a hand of friendship to china just after he and his predecessor secured an agreement from the arbitral tribunal ruling that the united nations convention on the law of the sea was uh to stop and that the nine-dashed line that China claimed over the South China Sea was completely invalid.

Now Rodrigo Duterte, you know, in a move that he thought he was smart, maybe too smart by half, tried to gain Chinese goodwill, really went out of his way to accommodate. Chinese wishes, but then the Chinese couldn't help but poke him in the eye and have since made life very, very difficult for Duterte to the point where he effectively admitted that he will not walk away from the alliance with the United States and that actually had to turn his back on president g to some extent because president xi and the chinese regime have been very aggressive towards the philippines so this kind of assertiveness is actually me, they managed to get some concessions. reluctantly from some countries, but they have actually managed to make most of them silent, very few of them are being very openly declarative positive about China and then there are countries like the Philippines, who were positive about China, who are now really positive.

They don't know how to advance relations with China because they have been very scathing and Lawrence Cobb is very difficult to work with. China is usually called a dragon, but here we have made an analogy with the big bad wolf, so is this the strategy? so, dealing with this wolf like John Blacksland has given the example of the Philippines. Should countries learn from the third little pig and make sure they stand up to the bully? Yes, there is no doubt about the fact that the Chinese have overplayed their hand not only with the Philippines who basically at that time were trying to expel US forces from the Philippine Islands, the Japanese are starting to rearm, they just to buy a bunch of F-35cs, which is the most advanced fighter jet in the world. world of us and the Japanese are not happy about them taking over the senkaku uh you know, I'm trying to take over that and our allies in Australia are also joining us, I think under a more traditional American president, unlike of President Trump, we would.

We will be working with all of these allies to present the united front, we had the transpacific partnership that we could have used economically and then move what we know President Trump got out of that and has focused primarily on the economy with China ignoring their Their military, uh , pushes our military uniform, however, is taking a different point of view, particularly the navy, and even with the coronavirus problems on the aircraft carriers, they put two aircraft carriers there to send a signal to the Chinese that you know, don't try take advantage of this particular situation, so I think assuming President Trump is not re-elected, we have a more traditional American president, we will go back to all the countries in the region to send a signal to China, don't exaggerate. your hand because if you do it will be a disaster for you I like how you keep saying a more traditional president that's one way to describe it but general simon uh uh is this what would you say?

It is a mistake for lack of a better word that Delhi could have created by accommodating China, accommodating China is a bad idea. You have to say it when you have to. uh, first of all, I'll add. I would like to add what my co-panelists said. Recently, China respects strength, there is no doubt about that, you show weakness, obviously, they will, if you take advantage, they will take great advantage if you show weakness, that is something that is taken for granted, having said that I am not sure That we haven't called China? Please look at the Prime Minister's statement when he made it late.

I don't think we've come to a compromise with any of the conversations we've had so far, so I think we've got it down very well. Confronting China is the way to deal with it and that is the way we are dealing with it, it is something we must understand as Chinese over weakness and in fact respect strength, that is something we must take into account . uh lawrence kob, how do you assess the fact that the Chinese president, this Chinese president, would say that he is using the military as a foreign policy tool? Yes, I think so, because it has tried to increase its capabilities at least on paper and it is important to note that our national defense strategy that was made in 2018 basically says that the main threat to the United States is our strategic competitors and they list china first in other words, stop focusing so much on the so called

global

war on terrorism and I think they were able to do that because of Xi Jinping's aggressive behavior since he took power and he is basically trying to return China to where it was before began, at least on paper, to liberalize its internal policy. and and away and foreign policies, so I think we basically recognize that we are going to have to face it and that you should not overplay your hand, general simon, should india then expect more

provocations

at the border and why only the border the line of real control is only part of the challenges posed by china uh china's plans in the indian ocean create a worrying pattern the military base in djibouti is being modernized there are reports that china is building a submarine base in bangladesh's cox's bazaar in expansion of artificial islands in Maldives, also in a bid to militarize Gwadar port in Pakistan, there are many theatres, total strategic encirclement feared, what kind of power projection should India undertake to reduce Chinese presence?

His question is very interesting and very correct. I would say let me finish with the land border first and then I can move on to other issues. As I said earlier, we do not have an agreed boundary between India and China. We know that. it happened in galwan and pan kung soand in sikkim nakula still, this boundary is somehow at least understood by both sides as a particular line, it will have to be, it will have to be expected that such things will happen in the future as well and we must be prepared for it and we must ensure that such provocations do not turn into what happened on June 15 in the Galwan Valley, i.e.

One thing we must be very clear about is that we must increase our vigilance, we must be careful on the line of actual control and we must ensure that that we expect things like these to happen in the future also until such time as this loophole is established. marked in one way or another in your question about djibouti gwadar in some way hambantota in some way situate or throw some this is something that has been going on for a while uh the indian navy and the india have been investigating it closely and until now al At least the countries with which these types of agreements have been made, apart from Pakistan, have assured or have assured that they will not allow military activities to be carried out, but we must be careful so that the Indian Ocean region, the geography the advantage for India and for them and in the Indian Ocean the Indian Navy is powerful and can, in fact, can extract influence in the Indian Ocean region.

We need to maintain that capacity. We need to create more strengths in terms of, for example, the Andaman Nicobar Islands. and on the west coast we need to build our capabilities to ensure that the Chinese naval forces when they come into the Indian Ocean region are taken care of and the influence stays with us, so this is something that we are monitoring and I am sure the powers that be in Delhi They are really looking into it and building the necessary capabilities to take on the Chinese navy, and when it comes, even now there are almost 8 to 11 ships almost there every time in the Indian Ocean region and they are closely monitored. and I hope it continues to do so john blackson the united states maintains a strong presence in the asia and pacific region china's neighbors are on alert especially after what we have seen in recent weeks but so far it seems that each country is there for itself same, right?

I think regional security cooperation will be needed to stop China. Yeah, I think that's probably wrong. What we are seeing is that it is already beginning to emerge with efforts towards a quadrilateral agreement between Japan, the United States, India and Australia. Um, and that's a pretty loose deal right now, but look, there's also a lot of other countries in between and we saw Bangladesh mentioned before, where I know Southeast Asian countries, a couple of them, are actually still treated with the United States. allies thailand and the philippines others, like the singaporeans, are not formal treaty allies, but host us forces on singapore soil others work happily with the us armed forces and australia here i am thinking of malaysia, indonesia and vietnam, curiously once you know The enemy of Australia and the United States is now seeking to be much more aligned with the United States and with Australia, Japan and others, from what we are seeing even dare I say Taiwan, you know, there is an alignment taking place where , while most of us don't. formally recognizing Taiwan as a separate state there is a de facto recognition of the importance of Taiwan and making an effort to create a space for the Taiwanese economy to prosper and it is a strategic space that must be strengthened, so the combination is very interesting .

Australia's foreign policy if we had a defence, a white paper on foreign policy a couple of years ago and it was about that, it emphasized the alliance with the United States, but it also emphasized ties with everyone else, particularly India, Japan, Indonesia and other southern countries. East Asian neighbors because what we're finding is when you know there's a saying that there's strength in unity uh and the corporate capabilities of these powers are these nations actually have consequences, they're considerable and it's certainly something that China is not comfortable with that, they are quite concerned, I dare say, even fear the prospect of all these countries working in harmony to deter further Chinese aggression and that is a key point now, one of the things here for a small to medium power like Australia.

We depend a lot on the good will of others and on the order, the so-called rules-based global order, of which the United States has been the great benefactor and the great supporter of much of which really depends on the American initiatives of the 1940s We are all beneficiaries to this day, but the concerns are real, we need to reinforce that and we also need to find a way without trying to corner and humiliate China out of this equation, so it is very easy for us. We talk about strengthening our ties, but in reality we want to avoid war and this is a really important point, so how do we do it right?

I think it is very important that Australia has announced a new defense white paper. We are strengthening our defense capabilities. We are promoting. our defense spending um and that's really designed to increase the deterrent effect and that's one of the reasons why we're looking to collaborate more closely with India, Japan and the United States. I'm sure the quad question is very interesting. It has been talked about for over a decade now it takes a backseat and then comes back into focus. There is no doubt about the fact that given China's aggressive stance and Xi Jinping assumed that it is pushing the United States to work with the countries in the region, I don't have to tell you that India and the United States are now much closer militarily than we have been, I think, forever in history.

We now call our command there Indo-Pacific Command. It used to be Pacific Command. Our ships paid a visit to Vietnam. Again, this is the first time you know that. That's happened, so I think they've overreached and they're basically driving and I think your analogy is very good: NATO in the Pacific against China, the same way we had NATO against the former Soviet Union. The Soviet Union and I believe that if this is managed well it will send the signal to China. We just delivered very sophisticated air defense equipment to Taiwan, which made the Chinese very upset because this would make it very difficult for them to attack Taiwan.

If they were dumb enough to try to do that, I think they basically know where we are and if we continue as we are, it's going to be very difficult for China to do anything dumb or expand its influence beyond what you know, what it legitimately should be overall. , let's talk about PLA and what role it plays, if any, in decision making. what kind of political influence does the PLA have and have a say in Beijing's national security and foreign affairs, it definitely is before we get into that, let me talk about the ASEAN we talked about.

Come? The type of behavior that we see, the aggressive behavior that we see in the South China Sea, although it can. be related to greed, but I would like to remind you in August, when they went to Vietnam with that young master, several, I mean that service, and then they created problems there, so aggressive behavior is something that we have been able to see. over a period of time and mainly four countries come to mind: the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia, these are the four companies, four countries that have been under pressure from China and this is something that is going to create some kind of problem in China's ASEAN. and also on the draft single negotiating text that they are currently negotiating on the code of conduct for the South China Sea, this is something that we must keep in mind and ASEAN is something that is going to be very important in future Indo-Pacific interactions and everything else on the issue of pla definitely have a say in political decision making and don't forget that pla is the party's army and not the country's army and xi jinping is also the chairman of the central military commission.

He is also the president of the country and he definitely has a role, however, over a period of time, if we look at the representation in the central committee of the national people's congress, in the alternative committee and also in the politburo, we find that PLA representation numbers are slowly declining. but that doesn't mean you don't have a voice, although that happens on the political side, on the military side, on the decision making side, I think they have an important role to play in the decision making, um, John. Blacksland, the PLA has also seen a major purge since Xi Jinping took office.

Is the army still loyal to the political leadership? Is there a division given that they are, as General Simon said, serving the interests of a political party and not a nation, does it affect their morale? I ask you because you have served in the infantry, fighting for a party is not the same as fighting for a country, no, that's true, I bet we do know, uh, the political dimension of the people's liberation army. It is still a very important dimension and one that is closely linked to the Chinese Communist Party, but we also know that it is a fairly opaque organization, in reality we do not have much visibility into the inner workings of the minds of high-ranking figures in the PLA. regional commanders and the various formation and division commanders, so these are questions that we don't really have answers to, but obviously there are growing indications that rumors are emerging of some dissent and that the xi presidency uh doesn't have the control of power that some would like to have um and that the circumstances are perhaps more precarious but going back to the previous point we let them know that the people's liberation army is an untested force um and yes yes It has been very interesting for us from afar look at what happened on the Line of Actual Control last month and the indications that the PLA's activity is not very noble and not very brave and not very willful and determined, and that's right.

There are some indicators that maybe the Pla doesn't have the backbone, the resolve, the stamina and the stamina, if you like to take a serious fight, but just in the serious fight there is an important qualification that I think we should make. Returning to the point about the quad, we must be very realistic about what we can expect from the quad, the four countries involved have very different orientations, expectations and capabilities. India is understandable, of course, and I am speaking preaching to the choir. Everyone here knows that India has a huge army, much bigger than the Australian army or even probably the US army, but it has important land borders with Pakistan, China and other countries, but they are the main ones by which they are concerned and that they require substantial investment in land force capabilities and that is not something that Australia has much to offer to help and the same goes for Japan, conversely, at sea, you know, the Indian navy and this navy Real Australians are now looking to collaborate more effectively than ever.

We have collaborated very effectively for a long time, we are very closely connected with the US navy and we are increasingly connected with the Japanese navy, so perhaps the seafront is where there is more prospect of collaboration between the four countries and that can be do. relatively in a fairly direct manner through activities and exercises taking place in the Indian Ocean and elsewhere, we have all argued the point about lack of combat experience, but since we are talking about Lawrence Corp's weaknesses, the other issue is the corruption. a corrupt army they say is their worst enemy and in the case of the dish it is riddled with corruption, there have been many cases of it being involved in commercial activities without proper supervision and several senior officers are being investigated for negligence, how does this affect? the strength of a military force, well basically what happened is that there is some kind of corrupt agreement between the PLA and the leadership, they keep increasing their military spending, you know significantly, as I mentioned, it is increasing and basically it increased and double digits until the economy slowed down, slowed down.

You have the Chinese, for example, they just signed an agreement with Iran to obtain oil in exchange for providing them assistance and working with their military. You mentioned they are in Djibouti. In fact, we are economically beginning to have relations with countries in our own hemisphere in Latin America, but I think it is important to keep in mind that we do not want to do that if on paper their armed forces look pretty good, but we do not want to overestimate it because if you When you get into a military conflict it's really the morale and the capabilities of the forces' loyalty and right now with corruption the people at the top are taking care of themselves and not worrying so much about the other people who are on the front, the other topic, general simon, are the internal challenges for china, xinjiang, east tibet, inner mongolia, are they fighting with taiwan or at least making a stance there, there is hong kong, uh, south china sea, east china sea, the in theborder with India, Xi Jinping has overextended himself.

I think I think he's done it before that, about the dissent and the pla that was talked about and the party army and the corruption part. Please let him understand two things, one is in the last six. Over the years through an anti-corruption campaign, most of the people who were not actually affiliated with the party and xi jinping as commander in chief and the body have generally been replaced over a period of time, so that's something we need to do. The second thing to keep in mind is thisThe anti-corruption campaign has also led people to ensure that they do not fall into something like this.

They are actually now moving towards, at least in the mid-ranks and lower ranks, not making decisions that could put them in trouble. Later, this is something that I think has been driven by this anti-corruption campaign. Having said that sinchian right, you mentioned all the places that are right and I mentioned before also that China has opened too many fronts. US-China relations are probably at the lowest right now since 1972, you've got the trade dispute with us, you've got the other issues of the Belt and Road Initiative and you find out how many pushbacks are coming in, he went and announced the rescheduling of loans.

For 72 77 countries and the South China Sea, the East China Sea, internal issues. I have a feeling that I think you have more than your hands full and therefore you have the feeling that China has probably bitten off more than it can chew at this point. The time I accept it, I accept that assessment of yours of John Blacksland. According to you, Beijing has the bandwidth to fight a real war, given all the challenges. We know that China's internal security budget is larger than its military budget. many problems at home, yes, well, this is the multi-million dollar question, of course, we do not have a concrete answer to that question, but we do know that perception is reality to some extent and the Chinese authorities have been very effective in portraying the invincibility and inevitability, uh, and that has cowed many of the neighboring states, the states that have become very, very silent or acquiescent towards the aspirations of the People's Republic of China, take for example Malaysia, which has arrived, has territorial claims. in the South China Sea that overlaps with China, China has been very, very aggressive towards Malaysia in recent months and yet recently the Malaysian Foreign Minister apparently came out saying, "Oh, there's nothing to see here, folks, it's a little like you know the scene." from the movie casablanca is that the police are not looking, they are looking the other way as if by being nice to china that will go away and everything will be fine, but what we do see is that rodrigo Duterte's experience in the Philippines says that I think that It is a very important indicator of what the future holds if we continue to acquiesce and make concessions.

I think what's really interesting is how effective I think American freedom is. of the navigation operations have been in the south china sea, these continue with a very important principle of not granting china's claims, uh, as legitimate, it is very important that this continues, australia supports, i know that other countries, the united kingdom is supporting it, france has supported canada, japan and others have also actively supported this and that is something that, while the president, i'm pretty sure, believes strongly in sun tzu's principle that the top of the skill is to defeat your opponent. without fighting, I also don't think he has the confidence that he could achieve it if he crossed the threshold, the kinetic threshold, if you will, he has actually declared war, I think it would be catastrophic, it would be catastrophic for China. and this is something that most people forget, China is extremely dependent on international trade, it is the country most dependent on oil, iron ore, mineral resources for food, particularly through the South China Sea , particularly through the Strait of Malacca, and particularly through the Indian Ocean.

What's really interesting here is that the countries that China has been effectively trying to bully in recent years have reached the point where they realize that they actually have quite a bit of leverage to push back without crossing that threshold. but without making the concessions that china wants except war and that is something we must remember lawrence cobb when countries face an internal decline the card to turn to is the foreign hand do you think that the instability in tibet or xinjiang also deepens the Chinese suspicion of alleged anti-Chinese forces abroad and do these internal challenges have any impact on its foreign policy?

Well I think so and I might add another dimension here that is important to keep in mind, don't forget that China is a rising nuclear power and the United States is trying to include them in the nuclear talks that we are having with Russia, China has built a great number of intermediate nuclear forces that have basically made it impossible for Russia to come back into compliance with the infantry treaty that we have. them, but I think, as my colleagues have pointed out, that the Chinese may be overreacting and we saw that very recently, for example, when the British refused to allow Huawei into the country because economically they need to be able to do so.

This is because they are very dependent on the international trade system, so there are many ways we can deal with this other than a show of military force and I think at some point if the Chinese recognize that this is hurting them economically, They are not going to be as aggressive militarily, a certain General Simon, if I could dwell on the Tibet issue, the more Delhi has aligned its stance on Tibet with Beijing's position, the more it seems that China has upped the ante. to the extent of calling arunachal pradesh southern tibet, should or can india reopen tibet as a pending issue now?

We need to go back in history to answer that question. We know how, apart from how the Dalai Lama came to India, we also know. how we reached an agreement in 54 and in 65 and beyond we have always maintained that the tibetan autonomous region was part of china, that is, something that was given before for some time, you would have realized that you know that even in the agreement joint communication, the one China policy was also mentioned beyond 2010, that police statement hasn't been mentioned at all, so it seems like there is something already in the thinking, but I'm not sure how the government is taking over the situation in Tibet. as something that is very sensitive and there is one of China's red lines, so we have to be extremely careful when approaching this particular situation.

I'm sure people in the government are looking into it and I'm sure as their wisdom emerges, they'll take their stance on this as they decide to do so, so you're speaking like a diplomat. I have to say that John Waxland in the last two months, there has not been a single day when Chinese state media has not published army videos that we call

propaganda

videos. You can't win a war with videos, and yet they seem to have an impact. How do you decode what China calls psychological warfare psyche? Yes, it is a very good question, psychological warfare is an art that Western countries, India and others practiced in the second world war, we felt it for a long time, I think we have abandoned it and I think we are realizing that if the game is coming back and we really need to get involved in that as well if we want them to be serious competitors in this space, but I think there is a complementary aspect to what is happening here and that is the concept of wolf warrior diplomacy, which is a very assertive form and aggressive diplomacy that threatens, cajoles, insults, degrades and basically tries to intimidate and is aimed primarily in democracies like ours at ordinary people, basically, to make them think and influence the kind of public opinion about what is at stake. and in australia there has been a big debate about whether or not we should bother taking on china, whether or not we should just give in and back off and retreat into a shell, of course this is exactly psyops. we were talking about and and we need to be aware that this is actually happening and that we need to counter it and we need to be very aware of the risks associated with just allowing that to happen now in Australia, there have been some authors. and a couple of controversial topics, a guy called Clive Hamilton, has been a very brave man who has written extensively, some have been very, very critical of what he has written, basically exposing China's actions, particularly with the department of united front work, with the various uh establishes Confucius Institutes that have operated on university campuses and the uh the effect of uh using third parties uh to influence high-level businessmen, public figures uh university figures and others to cajole governments to to back down and make concessions to china, so what are we The scale of the challenge we face is something we haven't seen since probably World War II in terms of the complexity and the breadth of the institutional push to make us give in, to make us counter , to get us to allow China to have what it wants and I think what is happening is very sobering and there has been quite an interesting discussion in Australia in recent months, particularly the coronavirus crisis has perhaps crystallized this in the minds of some people and that is the feeling that this is quite serious. the game is quite serious, the challenges are great, the stakes are high and we really need to come together internationally and within our nations to resist this type of united front labor department activity that seeks to resist and limit in a collegial, respectful manner but firm and discreet, and limit inappropriate Chinese. behavior lawrence cobb, I'm sure the US administration is not confronting or fighting with the issues the Australians have between Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo, they are more than a match for China's wolf warriors, but the US is one of the biggest recipients . or on the receiving end of Chinese propaganda videos, all militaries rely on propaganda, it seems the Chinese are more so, is it just for the external audience or is it also aimed at their domestic constituency?

I think there's no doubt about the fact that with China it's targeting its domestic constituency, the United States, for example, we know that the Chinese, for example, have hacked into a lot of our systems, they're just trying to take advantage of this, you know, a new dimension and the war in the United States is more open. partnership with, you know, Facebook, for example, Twitter, all of that, we've had and we've been kicking out Chinese journalists, they've been kicking out ours, so we have that going on as well and I think what's interesting about the Chinese point of view, if they hadn't been so aggressive in doing a lot of these things, they would have gotten President Trump, who wanted to get closer to China, if you remember his first days in office, and basically they would have been able to get it. much more from the United States and maybe even from us to reduce our military presence in the Pacific, but they exaggerated, they used propaganda and now the president and Secretary Pompeo, in fact, are giving speeches right now basically criticizing. the Chinese and our military, as I mentioned, have made them the main focus of the military buildup that has occurred under Trump, don't forget, since Trump took office, we have added a hundred billion dollars to the budget that he inherited from Obama and a lot of that is to develop capabilities to deal with the situation in the Pacific.

They are talking about getting an armada of 355 ships out of the 290 he inherited and those would go mainly to the Pacific. Going back to the propaganda video, some of the videos we have seen at least are samples of bad acting. I can't describe them any other way, like soldiers who wouldn't part with their weapons or board a plane without weapons or helmets. We call it the video game army in this newsroom, what do these videos tell you? The videos usually tell me what they are. They are trying to fool people. Please understand, even in 2017 during the heyday of dholam they released some artillery firing training videos. the plateau etc., if you look at those videos, it's not the way any professional army would shoot, even now, recently, they said that the airborne division had mobilized and they reached a particular place in eight hours and then they started doing it . exercises, you analyze it, you find China Eastern Airlines planes, there are people sitting inside, you find out that the tanks are being assembled, trained and taken, which airborne division is moving like this and they also say that the y20 plane landed in Scardo.

You look at the painting of the The plane is not in the place of the painting of the air force, so for the professionals who analyze these things, we see through these videos and we know that they are intended only for propaganda and psychological value, it has a role in transmitting this.message that the PLA is invincible for the local audience that you mentioned, which is very right, they also sell it to the people inside to say that the PLA is invincible, so I think that when we see these videos we should analyze them properly and so we also need to understand it and take it with a pinch of salt, and having said that, I think I will mention one thing now about Fourier world diplomacy that my fellow panelists initially talked about when this greed occurred. and so on, let's say at the beginning of the year there was a series of foreign diplomacy statements from this world that emerged in the last two three months, if you look at it, it has decreased, I think it is understood that if they continue with this, you will . losing a lot of social capital, so I think they are also changing the way they approach this, so that is something we have to take into account as well.

Very interesting. They tell me we're out of time, but I have to thank everyone and maybe. we should have these conversations to end the propaganda that we just discussed uh thank you john blackslin lawrence cobb general simon thank you very much for being with us at the global

summit

beyond thank you thank you very much