Latest Breaking News On - Kevin stryker - Page 1 : vimarsana.com
this is about 90 minutes. >> director of the china project and senior fellow at the center of international studies. they for joining us -- thank you for joining us this morning. nancy pelosi's recent visit to taiwan because escalated tension in around the taiwan straight. the chinese conducted a large-scale surrounding the island after her visit. chinese missile test splashed down time once territory waters. >> we gathered together to analyze the military's efforts for speaker pelosi's visit. last but not least we also have the associate professor in the department of national security affairs at the naval postgraduate school. i want to thank all of our panelists and experts were joining me today. we hope to have three rounds of questions for each of the panelists and i will weave in questions from the audience. from those of you listening in, submit your questions via the link on the webpage. let me start us off with the first round of questions. looking at what actually happened militarily around the taiwan strait. could you start us off by discussing what you saw as the most significant mentions of the chinese military activity, and why should we care? >> i think you are muted. >> thank you for convening this event. it is great to be here with such distinguished colleagues. by way of background, the exercises lasted for seven days from late in the evening on the second of august through the 10th. the live fire portion was from the fourth of august to the seventh. it is important to note the exercises overall were longer in duration than the live fire portion. four elements are particularly noteworthy. the first is location. the military exercises, especially the live fire portion occurred in areas where they had never occurred before. and in greater numbers than ever before. there were zones targeting it from the north, the south, the east, and the west. the north, targets included type a and a main port. also a main port in the south. exercises really were targeting taiwan generally occurred along the coast. with the exception of some missile closure areas in 1995 and 1996. so the number of zones, the location of zones, some areas they were within 10 nautical miles. they are really sort of unprecedented. if you look at a map you can see in essence how much of taiwan was and sometimes surrounded and encircled by exercises. the activities themselves, we are going to hear much more on this dimension. in essence it was a combination of firepower strikes either against maritime targets or land targets that could be used in a blockade or in an invasion scenario as well as a more -- as more in-depth drills that would relate to how china or the pla might blockade taiwan in the future. the precise number that flew over taiwan in the atmosphere is not quite certain to me. i have seen anywhere from one to four. regardless missiles were fired from the mainland of china into three closure areas. one was on the east coast of taiwan. that is psychologically -- it has quite a powerful effect or could have a powerful effect. nevertheless, it was an unprecedented and noteworthy aspect of these exercises. an element of flag would be these are probably or maybe one of the largest more complex exercises that have taken place since the 2015 reforms were put in place for the pla which created these five theater commands which have responsibility for operation in different strategic directions. these exercises were overseen by the eastern theater command. that is an opportunity to test the command and control capacities of this new organizational. or generally, the pla ability to conduct with they describe as joint operations. clearly all of the services were described as being involved as well as the strategic force. i believe a joint logistics force. this command element is very important to separate from specific activities themselves. just to wrap up, i think in the process of all of this, lots of different norms were broken. previous patterns of behavior were shattered. the most noteworthy i think is the crossing of the centerline by air and naval assets. this is a line that is roughly halfway between taiwan and the mainland. it was sort of the crisis management mechanism to keep military aircraft and vessels on their respective sides of the strait. chinese aircraft have certainly crossed the median line at multiple points in the southwest of taiwan, in the north of taiwan, sometimes in the center. that i think does create a new normal of military activity in the area that could raise the possibility of escalation for the future. we have seen -- the other norm, the fired missiles over taiwan, that was complete lay shattered. there was discussion very early in 1996, 1 missile might have overflown the tip of the island but i believe that is not accurate. finally i think having the exercises so close to taiwan and so many live fire zones close to taiwan is another norm that has been shattered. i expect we are going to see more exercises in the future. i will end on this point and we are looking forward to the rest of the discussion. thank you. >> let me turn to kryst to cover more on the naval site of the operation -- the naval side of the operation. >> thank you for organizing this. let me give my own personal thoughts, not speaking for the navy school or the navy itself. i think taylor really laid down the foundation really well. let me emphasize a couple of different aspects. one, my sense is the naval midline violations are an attempt to kind of set a new normal practice for the pla to allow future deployments across that midline to be routinized and expected as a way to increase chinese political and diplomatic pressure. more so than their military operational relevance. . one of the other precedents that was overturned in the missile launches was the landing of several missiles in japanese eb z's in a way that certainly china would have been aware of and could well have been a signal to japan. in terms of the size of the navy operations, they are somewhat larger. the navy for an extended time now has the ability to deplore certain action groups that great distance from china's actions sure. there isn't anything grossly different in this area. as taylor noted, although the eastern theater command took the lead, there was some activity from other fleets as well. although it seems fairly modest. this gets back to the key question that taylor raised, how much joint and integrated operations across the different services were even within the maritime service. how much interaction was there between maritime air assets and submarines and service vessels? my sense has been from the very limited report coming out of chinese media that that was fairly sparse in terms of that kind of cross service integration. that has been a real challenge for the pla. it is what the reforms were 2015 centered on, improving the basis of that. we have major developments to report from the basis of this set of exercises. it is worth noting the pelosi visit came in the middle of exercise season. to some extent the pla was able to make use of previously played exercises. to some extent, the missiles and the midline violations were not part of the replant, but some other -- the preplanned, but other activities may have been. two final points and then i'm going to turn it over. this set of exercises bears very little resemblance to the way the pla would conduct either a blockade operation or an amphibious assault. you would not use missiles dropping into large boxes to enforce a blockade. there were no visit boards. search and seizure activities, or careful air patrols that were integrated with naval follow-ups. at least not that were reported publicly that would have been part of a blockade surrounding the island on a sustained basis, tracking ships going in and out, checking with they are carrying, seeing if they are bound for japan or chinese waters, stopping those that would go through. the way to think about both of the maritime but also the broader set of exercises is really as a political signal. it certainly has some military utility in terms of large-scale operation and shaking the kinks out of command and control capabilities that were developed in the wake of the 2015 reforms. but this is not either a were her soul or a prelude -- a rehearsal or a prelude to out right invasion and was mainly a signal of political displeasure and at the taiwanese and american authorities. why don't i stop there? >> thanks, chris. rod, over to you. if you could focus on the air side, it would be greatly appreciated. >> sure. thank you for hosting this wonderful event. really looking at the airside, the activities should not come as a surprise or certainly things we have seen before, we have seen an increase in the number of flights around the taiwan area in terms of fighters and bombers. certainly the midline crosses. but in terms of scale the october 2021, there was one day there where it spiked up above 50 aircraft. that was a high point still. nothing we have seen the past couple days has been like that but the pattern of sustained flights has been greater. in scale, it has not been much greater than what we have seen in the past. the uav overflights. that brings us to the utility on the airside, getting to chris and taylor's point, there is a large component to this i would argue, the main focus of these military activities are to message what they would classify as military deterrence activities. the really useful part about airpower is you can dial your presence up and down in a quantitative and qualitative sense in a pretty rapid fashion. e overflight areas -- the vast major focus of these military activities are the message of what they would classify as military activities. you can kind of dial your presence up and down both in quantitative and qualitative since, in a pretty rapid fashion. you can adjust the number of flights you are doing each day. adjust where they are flying, how they are flying. you could say i'm going to put out 30 aircraft today and 32 tomorrow and maybe tomorrow --. that shows a pretty clear message. taiwan is giving you -- to pass all that information. we have seen them use it over the past two years around taiwan. it looks like the most recent military activity are unlocking options. we are starting to demonstrate a lot more confidence here. i would like to highlight two factors. although we didn't see it, based on our understanding of missiles assigned to the eastern theater command, they fall under -- called base 51. i am fairly certain -- we didn't see them publicly, they didn't show video footage of it. it is important to note that not everything is intended for public consumption. another angle on the missile side worth highlighting is it is not a missile per se, we did see army drop their military fires out of the 72nd military army. one of those three group armies assigned to a taiwan mission --. if we are talking about some indications to join us after the reforms, i want to highlight, and chris already mentioned this, the activities we are seeing are very much intended for messaging and deterrence purposes. although they are a scale, we do see relatively large-scale in other areas. the air force conducts annual -- the number of aircraft involved is probably greater than what we are seeing right now. all of this leads towards a better hermit. a large-scale summer exercise will get them a lot more bang for their buck. i want to really hammer home on the air and -- is very much for messaging. the training is nice to have. >> great. thank you very much, rod. on that note, let me turn to christina. from your perspective, as you look at the chinese military activities and in thailand, maybe they have not been that significant on the airside, and how do you differentiate these current activities from typical chinese gray zone activities? given your research, how would you speak to that? >> i will speak to that. if you want me to cover u.s. response as well, i can do that also. what we are seeing is broadly consistent with china's gray zone approaches. in the sense of combining military and nonmilitary activities in the region against its neighbors. we see china's gray zone approach. leveraging all national resources available. that could include diplomatic, economic, financial or any type of form of coercion. we have seen this against japan, india, vietnam, philippines, many in the region, as well as taiwan. during these exercises we also saw diplomatic statements by china going towards any allied partner who raises concern about u.s. behavior. the drones, that rotted mentioned, probing various locations, trade measures, imports and banning some exports. this information and cyber attacks. second, we have seen china increasing its -- overtime against taiwan in conjunction with building up these lower military activities each summer. in july and august 2019, -- in the south china sea and the east china sea. in 2020, we saw simultaneous military on north and south of taiwan. we have seen this major ramp up over the past year and used by aircraft across the median line. we have also seen a growth and cyber capabilities try to manipulate the environment and attacked chinese government and other websites. other activity is not typical. the amount of live fire, multiple missiles potentially fight -- essentially flying over taiwan --. what this conveys, based on some research poking -- some research recently published, -- against taiwan in the region. combining with this geopolitical pressure. seeing that continue as we go forward with these grassroots efforts to shape the opinion in taiwan society. >> if you could really touch on what you saw as the initial u.s. response and we could follow-up on this more in round two. >> absolutely. i will highlight three areas. plans for a maritime transit over subsequent weeks. we haven't yet seen one of those announcements. they are typically announced after they occur. the last was july 19, four the exercises began in early august. we could potentially see this again coming up soon. second we saw the secretary of defense with kevin stryker to carry in the east of taiwan. along with -- we know from zone scenes that we saw ronald reagan depart. cerda, we also saw washington take some plans to postpone -- missile test. the message was to avoid potential miscalculation. this was the behavior of response of nuclear power. >> great. thank you very much, christina. let me turn to catherine to ask for your thoughts on how did you see taiwan's's response to this. what did you see as the main taiwan military or military response? >> sure. taiwan's response was heavy on the nonmilitary side. the taiwan government also sees this. as an operation that has political aims from the chinese side. taiwan's military did, with regard to the chinese aaron, naval -- saying they did something they hadn't done before, which is sending taiwanese naval vessels close to the chinese ones. especially on the median line. playing a little bit of cat and mouse and trying to prevent the chinese from crossing the line. on the other side of the island, in the east, also staying close and making sure -- this back-and-forth was weighing the pal -- the pla -- from the nonmilitary side, from the chinese military, they had two goals i think they were pursuing. one is the domestic audience. ensuring that no panic would occur. and that public morale wouldn't take a blow. they are strong, they are prepared. they do not shy away from fighting. but they certainly are not itching for a fight. they kept repeating this every day, maybe twice a day to reassure the public. that clearly worked. on the other hand, there was messaging to the national community in the person of the foreign minister. and described him as an attempt to try to change the status quo and appeal to the as far as what is going on now, the taiwanese government hasn't really made a very clear cut they have adopted a wait-and-see attitude. as far as i know, the administration is conducting the review of declared exercises and the pla's movement since then. what i heard was that not considered -- there are doubts as to how to respond if this happens again. they want to discuss this with you is. how to quickly create or build up --. >> thank you very much, catherine. we appreciate you for bringing out the nonmilitary responses. that was a critical component. let me turn this into a second round of questions. i want to get out -- i want to get at, is this a crisis? we are seeing both thingy the united states and in some places, taiwan. it continues to execute and taiwan has decreased. let me start off by turning to chris. i know you have a piece just published on the war in ironic. why don't we start with how this is a crisis in how you see this moving forward? >> i hope i am wrong. i hope that piece of the title is shown to be false going forward. i suspect that is not the case. this is likely the early stages of a crisis that is going to continue to percolate for months. if you look at the historic presidents in 1954, 95, 96, those went on for about eight months. 1950 one was over a. of three months it developed. some of the reasons are just highlighted. the u.s. is talking about transits of the straight. about flying. wherever international allows. is it going to be important for us to send signals to our allies, as well as china? that we are not being deterred by these exercises. that response is going to be provocative to the chinese. they are going to need to show their own population that they have a response to the u.s.'s response to their exercises. if one source of continuing pressure is more broadly the surging of forces that the u.s. engaged in to beef up the seven fleets in terms of its overall numbers, putting it to see a marine site desk during its earlier stages of the crisis, there are other stages to. other delegation have passed through. the japanese is going to send delegation to taiwan. all of these occur in normal times. the heightened salience means all those sorts of video -- all those sorts of visits get more attention going forward. fundamentally, we shouldn't look at this crisis solely as a response to speaker pelosi's visit, but more broadly from the chinese perspective. there has been a series of salami slicing tech made against the traditional u.s. one chinese policy that treats the taiwan situation as somewhat a normal list. provides taiwan with a different sort of political and diplomatic status than countries that have normal complete diplomatic normal -- normalization. they need to draw some clear, bright red line to communicate to the united states, taiwan and to others that further erosion of our china one policy is not going to be acceptable to the chinese. that is likely to put additional pressure on china to communicate, communicating -- to communicate to ensure further erosion of the way taiwan is treated as a second-class citizen in the international community doesn't occur. those broader causes as well as some of the narrower operations, they started off talking about reasons i suspect this crisis is going to continue to work late and develop over a. of months. >> thank you, chris. christina, do you agree with chris that this is a crisis? and from the perspective of u.s. partners. do they view this as a crisis and how have they responded? >> going back to the gray zone operations, this transition pressure we put on -- we could see more potential flashpoints. there were multiple decision point from washington over that time. we will see how -- is reacting and how washington is framing this going forward. we have seen a number of activities by partners. statements of others with the g7 and other high representatives. china responded very negatively to that saying the g 70 is the eight powered forces. there is also a trilateral statement between the u.s. showing japan firing missiles. we also saw -- france called sharing concerns about china's actions. focusing on the live fire and ballistic missiles. japan and kind of more muted statements from the nato chief. we have also seen some messaging by the u.s. involving military operations of the u.s. and other countries. the u.s. has already planned a very large scale. this is an indonesian lead exercise with the u.s. army and a dozen other allies and partners involved. that took place from august 3 to 14. there was some subtle messaging by the u.s.. in our operability and our unity of nations focused on a -- maintaining our rules. we also saw missile-defense exercise with australia, canada, japan, republic of u.s. forces. it wrapping up in hawaii around the same time. the u.s. also message air drill with japan, aerosol defense force. august 9. that is when exercises were still being taken place near okinawa. we do see some interference by the u.s. to resolve unity with allies in areas that are operationally relevant for those activities. >> what you are saying is, this is a manufactured crisis in our allies are feeling this, even if they are not using the word manufactured crisis in terms of the strength of their response? >> many of these are preplanned exercises like the large-scale ones. rather the united states or others take more direct -- that are messaging this, we will have to see it as time moves forward. >> rod, over to you. we have a question you can hopefully read. as you look at china's framing, i believe they are calling in a crisis. what do they gain by calling it a crisis? particularly if most of what china has done on their in and was preplanned. what are your thoughts on this? >> i first want to highlight where they are calling a crisis, what information environment they are calling a crisis. if you look at where they are talking about it, it is mostly calling this a taiwan crisis. mostly coming out of p.r.c., through their spokesperson in press conferences or through individual press releases or eventually held by efforts. that is one avenue. the other avenue where they are really hammering home that it is a crisis is in the english media outlets that various taiwan state run outlets control. all of the state run media outlets -- western consumption component, they are really hammering home that this is a crisis. more specifically that this is a political crisis created by the united states to contain china. the question of what do they have to gain, there is two ways to look at this. an internal component and external. looking internally, we first have to your address do they believe internally this is even a political crisis. my intuitive answer is probably yes. they probably mean this is a political crisis. i am sure somebody in audience is thinking, you keep punching around the question. is this a crisis, it is not a crisis? how do you define a crisis? i am one to take the cheat way out and say if you look at the way the trc military talk about crisis, they don't have a standardized way of talking about a crisis. you know it if you see it. my intuition is internally they see a crisis politically. to chris's point, this isn't just about pelosi's visit. this is a sea of u.s. events around taiwan. generally strong political rhetoric. and then you have lots of military activity in the background as well. this is a culminating event of u.s. efforts to contain china through this taiwan problem set. so there is this historical river -- this historical red -- historical evidence. they also have the tendency to manufacture a crisis for their own gain. in 2020 addition of the academy very -- the academy of military science, there is an article about how they talk about how often the united states uses crises to its advantage. it is very much in their mindset that the u.s. would create such an incident to advance national security. how does this help them though? it gets to the psychological component of internal procedure as well. psychologically, the chinese communist party tends to operate better under this idea of struggle. communist revolutions are perpetual struggles. if you look at the way that we talk about the ccp's response to covid back in early 2020, they tried to time, they called it a crisis and they started using this jargon that is really associated with wartime work and wartime struggle. they started calling temporary party -- there is this mental shift that occurs internally that galvanizes ccp efforts in way that normal day-to-day operations won't. calling it a crisis helps on that side internally with the ccp. there is also a procedural component as well where there are things done differently when it is a crisis as opposed to routine day-to-day operations. that is on the internal side. on the external side, this really helps trying to build -- very overused in my view but very standard line that the pac uses. this points up a long-standing issue with the u.s.. in destabilizing global security and stability. here is another example of them doing it. we see some p.r.c. embassies driving towards this narrative by hosting these local events where the ambassador will make a speech about how the u.s. is creating this manufacture crisis and then invite local academics or local speakers that will reiterate that narrative about how the u.s. is in fact manufacturing these crisis. the u.s. all does these -- the u.s. always does these types of things and this is the u.s.'s fault. setting that initiative that the u.s. started it but now i need to regain an initiative. one great way is to talk about how the u.s. is destabilizing the world war. there is both utility internally and externally. internally is to galvanize ccp efforts. externally, you are setting -- for that dominant narrative. >> thank you, rod. my understanding is china has been more reluctant to call this a crisis. as you described, maybe like rod was suggesting, maybe there are multiple channels. using different channels based on who they are communicating with. catherine, over to you. >> i have been very reluctant to work crisis. especially when they are talking to their own people. that is not surprising. you have a population that is in general, used to this threat of military force from china hanging in the background. the goal is to engage more, get in more visitors of democracy. trying to strengthen the backing one has. talk about crisis that grew out of one of these visits, that is one of the reasons also. but then you have other politicians that although -- the main opposition party has been a bit careful during the hard phase of the exercise is not to appear too critical or putting the blame on the entire administration too much. people who identify -- tend to be more critical and more willing to call the system and coupled with the argument, why don't you let us help you communicate and let some adults tried to do the job? but when the military activity was still ongoing. there is a split there. >> is there a recognition or any consensus about how this is going to move forward or have they decided a one off? >> i don't think so. i think the government here views this as a further step in what they have already identified as quite dangerous increase in use of military pressure by china. this didn't come as a surprise. very much echoing u.s. government language on this, i have been hearing from several government officials that they think china planned this since april when this planned visit came up. they had also been picking up chinese warnings of some kind of military reaction months ago. before the resurrection of the visit and the planned date became public again. they put this in the context and they see this as one phase in development that has been a gradual escalation of tension over the last several years, particularly since 2020. >> great, thank you. taylor, over to you. you view this as a crisis? and even if you don't define it as a crisis, is this still a point that afterwards we wait -- afterwards we may see something different from the chinese moving forward? >> i agree with chris that it is the start, most likely of a crisis that could go on for a very long time. i think about definitions. i call the definition of crisis a high danger or high instability, high tensions. two people don't have to recognize they are in a for there to be one. it is enough for one person to believe there in a crisis, or one country. putting on my political science professor had, the theory definition of a crisis was either the military different niche the military use of force or to war. we may be in the political phase of a crisis. creating conditions for greater military escalation down the road. it is still very much the initial political phase. especially in light of an approach by the biden administration to make the point , the talking point it is a manufactured crisis, not a real crisis. that it is totally normal and precedented, nothing to see here, let's move on and get back to the way things were. i guess i want to make two more points here. i do generally see the situation the way that chris does. it is a manufactured crisis and china is over react might make a military phase more likely if china feels it is not being heard, or the stakes are even greater when the united states does take military action, whether it is an exercise near taiwan, giving the increase of forces in the east water. i think, as chris mentioned, or as christina mentioned, we have not seen much of a military response. the longer this goes on, the greater incentives china might feel to do something in response once it actually happens is they are defending on the administration's view that china is overreacting, there is no crisis and they don't need to do minor -- to do more. to pair privates -- to paraphrase john ride, it is too soon to tell. i hope i am wrong. but we are in. where china has come to the conclusion that the u.s. needs to re-communicate its resolved to the u.s.. in october, when -- began talking about the fake china policy. talking points about the --. those gop points are concerns. china can find ways of addressing them. we are leaving into a tense moment. various political calendars in the united states. local efforts in taiwan where they made be incentives down the road and demonstrations of other --. that can take us to the point of where we are in congressional theory and may be where we are august 22. we are the middle of something that is changing. it can be hard to necessarily -- to necessarily know. i hope it does not escalate. but the potential has increased or the probability has increased. >> let me follow up with two really quick questions. the first is the current biden initiative of china's response as a mini crisis, your worry is that is not giving enough attention to the fact china may respond significantly moving forward. but then you also couple that with the point of saying maybe we should be moving more or doing more now. i thought i was getting two different messages. >> on the one hand, china is undertaking a pretty significant display, broken lots of norms and we haven't really seen a corresponding u.s. military response yet. although i think we will see something down the road. it does raise intention with the fact, if you believe china is signaling trying to get the u.s. attention, when the u.s. does respond, china might feel a slightly greater incentive. especially given the fact that the u.s. talking point is to portray china as a child. they shouldn't be doing this, there is no reason for it, and so on and so forth. excuse the barking dog. i think there is a lot of dynamic going on at the moment. that itself should be a cause of some concern that we are not necessarily in a stable situation where we don't really expect further escalation down the road. >> thank you, taylor. let me move to a third round of questions where want to go around to everyone to ask how do you move forward from here? and what are you most concerned of in terms of what china may do next or if you are concerned that the u.s. or taiwan may take other actions? and also, how should the united states and taiwan prepare moving forward? let me turn to captain first and then to taylor. >> what happens next? what i am most concerned about right now is links to what taylor rapp do with. that we have not seen a u.s. response. i am concerned about the potential reasons behind that. i am concerned there might be a lack of understanding or a lack of options as to how deterrence can work with china. as taylor pointed out, china had broken norms. china may be establishing a new normal. do they end up with no reaction at all or not being deterred from taking the next step? that is certainly a concern or a fear that is present right now. what i see on the u.s. in -- escalation, and rightly so. that is the only concern. the question about how do you make sure that china doesn't move forward in that direction that they are going now, if that remains an open question, then we have got a problem. that is my foremost concern. then, what other options are there? taiwan is clearly not where it should be with its defenses. even in the current situation, i don't see the kind of determination and pays and change in pays that would be necessary to maybe turn this thing around. what i am picking up at the moment is a further deepening of the disconnect between taiwan and the u.s., overall how they view the situation is may be how they view the threat. the taiwan military and the natural defense havoc for a long time already said they think they need a full range of capabilities and they think the main threat comes from pla brazen operations. they are reluctant to focus only on and prioritize only the fright the night capabilities. the u.s. has increasingly in the course of this year tried to push taiwan in that direction. this recent episode has strengthened the belief in taiwan. even in the presidential office, which was previously break -- previously being swayed, in this situation, escalation risks and lack of options about deterrence, we have a disagreement between taiwan and the u.s.. that really worries me quite a bit. about your third question, what might china do next, i don't know. it would be natural for the pla, over the course of time, maybe not tomorrow, but over weeks and months, to continue doing what they have been doing to expand the range of where aircraft and naval vessels go. increasing frequency in growing numbers and let us not forget there is a whole range of forces they haven't even started using it. what about the coast guard. what about the militia? in other operations. if we see >> thank you. i did want to follow up with one question, because you and other panelists also tensioned that at least from the public perspective, it seems that the u.s. has not done enough. but i think the flip side of it is we have not seen it too much action on the taiwan side, to push back against the chinese. is there a discussion now in taiwan going forward how much taiwan should be more willing to escalate? because in some respects, even though the escalation dynamics might be quite risky, they are the main target of china's military pressure. >> yes, well, during the week of the exercises, people were sometimes making fun of the taiwanese military and the ministry of national defense, because they basically kept repeating the same races. do not worry, as long as we are here, you are safe. but that opinion is clearly not shared by the public. if you look at polls that have been conducted repeatedly, i think it is only a minority believes that the taiwan military is up to the task, if china were to invade. so, i think that there might be -- at some point, might have been some public pressure for the military to at least put on a better show or be more present. i think people know that there are not many options. so i do not see either the government or the military itching to escalate. the only clear step we have seen in terms of a more muscular response from the taiwanese side is really having some of their ships out there, trying to hinder the pla navy in getting across the line. >> thank you. so taylor, over to you. how do we basically look at this very difficult dynamic, in which the united states is concerned to some extent about escalation? and seems to be also concerned that china may be trying to normalize a new site of operations? a more regular set of operations against taiwan. how do we move forward from here, what do you recommend? >> i think it is a very delicate situation. i mean, my assessment is that we have seen a step change in sort of the pla presence. so unfortunately, one in which they are not likely to move back from, which is why this new normal is sometimes used. the intensity level of the presence can vary over time and i suspect we will see variation in that, but i do not think in other words that the genie can be put back in the bottle, so to speak. the question is do these activities, and a relatively peaceful poor peacetime setting, do they disrupt commercial traffic? do they disrupt air traffic? you know, is there an imperative to ensure that sort of access to the -- remains unimpeded and so on and so forth? and then i think getting to the more military which can include transits by the united states or other countries. at this point in time, i would be surprised if an ally or partner country didn't. a different view on this, but i still think it is a pretty -- it is a pretty delicate situation. i guess what i worry about a bit more is what happens when the next incident happens in china feels like they have crossed the redlined yet again. the talking point is nothing has changed in u.s. policy, but i suspect there will be continued changes in the implementation of the policy. then there is the wildcard of what the president might say at the next public town hall and if there is one scheduled in the next few months. and then what china -- how china interprets that and the new attention it has drawn to its concerns. and what does the united states do against china if they repeat something like they did in august 2 a response -- august to a response. i believe one shoe will drop because we are in a political crisis. we are not in the high end military phase of one and i think something is likely to happen. and then there is the question of if the u.s. might feel greater pressure to respond to that, either for political reasons or because of -- they were unable to deter china from doing it again. and so on and so forth. i am repeating myself. i just think we are under unstable and tense moments. it is hard to look out and see exactly what will happen, but it is unstable. i think on the one hand, what the u.s. could do and other experts have mentioned this, right? a very senior member of the administration gave a speech or detailed remarks on what the u.s. china policy is and is not, what it does include, what it does not include. what it means. the three sentences that have appeared in antony blinken's speech are all positive, but clearly, since this seems to be the elements -- one element of concern, more clarity might be helpful. and might reassure china on one hand and also underscore on the other hand, the steps that the united states will undertake to help support and defend taiwan, if it comes to that. and through the one china policy, historically, it has asserted that role. , both reassuring to some degree and also aiding taiwan to another degree. so, there is an important element of communication that needs to happen. maybe it is happening in private channels, i do not know. but there does not seem to be much in public channel. in parting, i worry a little bit about this talking point of being a manufactured crisis and overreacting, because that means there is nothing to talk about. right? i think there is probably something to talk about. and so, that is very important. and more generally, i think this underscores a much broader sense, the importance of taiwan doing more to defend itself. right? you know, taiwan is a country facing an existential threat. in terms of its defense policy, like many countries face existential threats, finland, south korea, to some extent, israel. right? and so, taiwan has to think really hard about, you know, being more sort of committed -- a set of policies for its own defense. counter from what the united states might do. taiwan has to -- you know, there is a power of reactions. on the one hand, i think it is positive that there was sort of a, you know, a lot more domestic political instability. on the other hand, i think there is a real thing here. i do wonder and worry of taiwan is going to be in a position to defend itself robustly when it will need to do so. and so, i will stop there. thanks. >> thank you, taylor. chris, let me bring you in here. maybe just to follow on to the point that taylor raises. so he mentioned that another shoe will likely drop in the future, in terms of what china perceives as u.s. or taiwan provocations. as we move forward, do you think china will respond more strongly moving forward because of what it has demonstrated in the last month? and if it does, -- so we are likely not going to see speaker pelosi go back to taiwan anytime soon, but if it was something close to that, would try not respond much more forcefully than what we saw in august? basically, what should be expect moving forward? >> yeah, i mean, i think the way i think about it is there is something of a ratchet effect here. taylor talked about a step function, but you know, different ways of coming at the same idea. the next time that there is a provocation that china views as needing some response, the baseline to some extent is going to be what they did over the last couple of weeks. and if you would to signal even more resolution, to deter the next provocation, then it you are going to have to do more. so i think that is pretty worrisome. more missiles over taiwan, more missiles coming closer to taiwan. i think another way to think about the potential for escalation, you know, is the creation of a new status quo with ships and aircraft routinely violating the middle line. so when there is another provocation, do you get closer, do you violate territorial waters of the main island? right? so i think to some extent, what you are going to see is a competition in kind of displays of resolved by the two sides. and, you know, as was talked about earlier, the u.s. is going to need to show some response to this over time, right? and whether those are just transits or other, new planned exercises that are flagging that sort of commitment is hard to predict. but i just feel very confident that the navy is going to want to show that it is not being deterred and that is to taylor's point of then china is going to need to feel -- feel the need to respond because they are try to send the signal that this is not acceptable. it's not the next policy visit, but if you are china looking out at the u.s. one china policy, over the last several years you have seen public discussion of u.s. know terry forces on the ground in taiwan. three statements from president biden eroding strategic ambiguity, changing lang which on the state department website with regard to taiwan's status -- changing language on the state department website with regard to taiwan status. talking about taiwan as a strategic asset. any one of those in the future might be grounds for china to want to send another signal and again, there is this challenge of the baseline of today being something that you need to escalate from. and so, that is what i worry about. and when we talk about -- just to other quick points before i hand over the mike, when we talk about what taiwan can do, you know, as things continue to percolate, or if they re-escalate, i think there is a lot of different steps that taiwan can take. radar illuminations, buzzing chinese ships with aircraft or helicopters, none of which should lead to outright war, one hopes. but all of which would further militarize the security element in the competition that over time i think we will flagged as kind of worrisome. and the last point i would note, the crisis that we have had so far was one that china saw coming for a long time, right? a couple of co-panelists here have noted. so pretty clear since april that some pelosi-like visit was going to occur and so china created an impressive set of government responses, from the release of the new white paper, the diplomatic economic sanctions, all done pretty quickly. , in response. but now we are in a more fluid phase of the crisis. and so the precise nature of the u.s. response, the japanese response, i actually will expect additional transits, not just from the united states, maybe not immediately, but over time from allies and partners. in china is going to have to respond to those a bit more on-the-fly than they have been able to thus far. and all of those to me kind of create a worrisome dynamic to be aware of. thank you. >> thank you, chris. christina, do you want to wait in here on either what china might do next or how the u.s. or allies and partners might respond? four could act in the near future? >> sure. i wanted to highlight maybe two concerns. one is there are some parallels to the third parliamentary crisis. we did not get to delve into that too much, but one i think that is interesting is at that time, as the pla began its initial reactions in the summer of 1995, washington had a bit of leverage over beijing that i do not think we see in this current situation. that is that china was seeking to hold a presidential level summit between johnson and president clinton. so even as some of these initial exercises and the initial ballistic missile test launches were happening, both sides were entering into negotiations. you know, potentially washington felt that this was a point of leverage to not alter its stance, because china really wanted to have this high level engagement discussion. if anything, we have seen the reverse at this point. china has been cutting off communication and cooperation in various areas. you know, things like climate change initiatives. trying to put more leverage onto the u.s., you know. washington is behaving in a way that you fundamentally disapprove of and we are seeking to come and their multiple channels. and i think that, you know, building on taylor's and other points as well, it seemed like beijing felt that washington's -- washington did not hear its message. and going into the latter half of 1995, so in early 1996 as we are approaching march 1996 elections, this is the first time that a president is going to be democratically elected in taiwan. but then china began a larger scale exercises. so some of those were greater than what we have seen to date. over 40 naval vessels, 250 aircraft at one time in 100,000 troops mobilized. so the question is does china need, to everyone else's points, convey a larger scale of activities in a closer to china's shores in 1996. that was 20 to 30 miles off the coast, but still much closer than in 1995 so that they again up the ante? so my second area of concerns is does that pla conference from these surges or possible new normal, does it feel increasingly capable undertaking a high end campaign? now, to others points, planning for maybe four months for the specific series of activities in a week or so in august is really different than wartime cape abilities. so do we start to see this cycle that they feel they are seizing the information in other initiatives, to demonstrate the strength read and then they feel more victorious in these limited objectives that are successful. how is that different compared to the really expensive requirements for a joint campaign, to seize taiwan >> did they start to feel potentially confident or overconfident. i think i will stop there. >> thank you, christina. here is an excellent question and then i do want to leave a couple of minutes for other folks to answer in addition. we will posit this question to you, but how do we basically get out of here? how do we get out of the current situation? it seems like what all five of you are highlighting so far as we are in an escalation spiral, but not one in which we do have immediately one after another, but more prolonged over an extended time. and i think christina, what you are highlighting is that you do not necessarily see how we would initially get out of there, but maybe taylor, what you suggest earlier is the u.s. has to clarify our one china policy. i'm not sure that will get us out of the spiral. let me turn this difficult question to you, rod. whatever else you wanted to add before opening it up act other folks on the panel. >> yeah, so, i don't want to, too much about u.s. policy, but i think china right now is kind of leaning into the united states, to see if the u.s. wants to actually go along that spiral. penalty really touched on yet, but at the end of the day, the military response to pelosi's visit was still constrained. as tiller pointed out, this was mostly -- as taylor pointed out this was managed by eastern theater command. chris highlighted that yes, there were some naval assets that came out of the theater, but most of them were still using theater. the number of flights has decreased and the number of naval vessels around taiwan has decreased. so i think -- if you actually look at the way the pla is probably putting out what it is doing right now, this is -- this appears to be resuming back to normal. in fact, this appears to be normal in most of the pla outside of the eastern theater in the week immediately after it closed its visit. in this case, it is really eating into the united states about whether that united states needs to respond militarily or not. and i do not know the answer to that. and so, perhaps, i am less convinced than the rest of my fellow panelists that we are in an inevitable spiral. i think it is more up to the united states on whether it wants to respond or not. my concerns probably get more towards longer-term what happens after this series of connected -- whether it is weeks or months with taiwan's trade crisis, if you will. what happens next time? my concern on that front is if the pla decides that it wants to maintain a larger naval presence and they decided that they want to engage and overfly over the offshore islands with unmanned or manned aircraft more frequently, then this all sets the bar higher in terms of military activities. and, assuming the pla is not able to carve out more space if you will in terms of escalatory options. not saying that will not happen, because historically, the pla has been able to carve out more options on an escalation ladder if you will on the military deterrent side, but if it does not do that or if the rate at which it unlocks options, if you will, is slower than the rate at which it burns escalation options, then there are fewer and fewer military options that the ccp has at its disposal that do not look even more escalatory. if you look at textbook options for military deterrence activities, really, you're looking at large-scale at this point or some really provocative activities, like shifting certain parts of the country to wartime or partially wartime posture. or notating demonstrated strikes against targets in taiwan, possibly targets in the united states. and i think that is sort of what they are driving towards if china does not feel like it has additional options. and what i think the focus on the u.s. and taiwan side is what happens -- and i think we sort of touched on this, what happens when the pla marks next time around on anymore provocative activities. what happens when there is a manned flight. what happens if china begins to use some of these military deterrence activities, all of these are very taiwan focus. what's what happens on we start seeing missile impacts near alaska? for if we see bomber flights near alaska or a naval presence? these are all sort of entering the vein of available options for the ccp and i do not know how much we were thinking about how we do or do not respond to those activities, alongside more provocative activities. basically, taiwan. let's say more escalatory network attacks that are not just taking down certain websites, but targeting infrastructure and power grids. so thing about what happens if china has fewer military options, and begins exercising those options in the coming decades, what is the response there? the last thing i want to kind of highlight is we really need to watch long-term how the prc and pla diagnoses this current crisis. we will not see -- or i do not think we will see a real diagnosis internally until at least months, if not years down the line. but i think that determines whether they think what they did now or in the past couple of weeks was useful. because i think they look back to 95, 96 and from my reading of the literature, it looks like they thought that went pretty well for them. that leads to them saying if that went well, maybe i should do that again. if there diagnosis of everything went well this time around in august of 2022, we feel like we deterred the united states, we feel like we deterred taiwan, then maybe that leads them further down the escalatory paths saying well, i need to ratchet up what i've been doing, because clearly it works. so that diagnosis is what i am interested in. seeing how they internally perceive if what they did work or not. so i will wrap it up. >> one quick question, from your perspective. how do you think the pla would respond? what they be as restrained against taiwan. >> that's a good question. i expected -- i think we are in unexplored, somewhat unescorted territory right now. because historically, even during taiwan's trade crisis, the military capabilities between the mainland and taiwan was not as yawning of a chasm as it is now. and so an aggressive taiwan response might in some ways, because the prc has the luxury of restraining itself, because at the end of the day, they can demonstrate capability's and some other way, i think there are mechanisms that would allow for greater prc restraint. i think another plausible angle that the prc might attempt to go for is a lot of the targeting that we are seeing this time around is that this is not necessarily taiwan's fault. if you look at the way the coded the first, second, and third taiwan straight crises, although they largely attribute them to the u.s. is a major player and have been somewhat responsible, they still view them as third party. they intervened and took advantage of the situation. if though to begin to coded this particular child -- taiwan straight crisis is the u.s. is beginning it, it then becomes easy for the taiwan to response -- to respond in a way that is more restrained. because they can reach out and publicly voice that, at the end of the day, their concern is not taiwan or is not the taiwanese people. their big issue really is the u.s. using taiwan as one of many different leverage points against containing china. and that is why getting to my previous point, that is why i am a little concerned about military deterrence activity oriented toward the u.s.. because that, i think, is much more with the narrative is shifting toward nowadays, not just about issues on taiwan proper i know that is not a super satisfying answer, but. >> no, that's great, thank you. we have a couple of minutes. i wanted to leave time for any folks he wanted to jump in, to weigh in on any of the points made recently or if you have any additional points that you want to bring into the conversation. >> let me just make one comment, kind of building on rods. i thought great list of possible escalatory steps that the chinese might take, right? i think there is a lot of room for what do you call them? gray zone or military steps that are well below the threshold of provoking war, but nevertheless are going to be highly escalatory and are going to demand some u.s. response, to show that we are being deterred by unannounced closure zone near guam, for instance. or chinese missile tests. 200 miles off. so i think those sorts of provocations, there is just a lot of different options. and it is that sort of escalatory spiral that stops short of work, but nevertheless intensifies the military aspec whether he's running for president in 2024, saying he was focused on supporting candidates in the 2022 middle terms. >> you don't need any introduction. i'm going to introduce vice president pence to the iowa state fair, the greatest of all the state fairs. but he doesn't need an introduction to that because he's been here and he knows how great our state fair is but i want to thank him and compliment him because he's come to events
AustraliaTaiwanJapanPhilippinesUnited-statesAlaskaVietnamRepublic-ofBeijingChinaIndonesiaWashington to taiwan and whether china could direct military exercises towards the u.s.. this is about 90 minutes. >> director of the china project and senior fellow at the center of international studies. they for joining us -- thank you for joining us this morning. nancy pelosi's recent visit to taiwan because escalated tension in around the taiwan straight. the chinese conducted a large-scale surrounding the island after her visit. chinese missile test splashed down time once territory waters. >> we gathered together to analyze the military's efforts for speaker pelosi's visit. what does behavior mean for the future? joining me today to shed light on these pressing military issues is our five military scholars. i will introduce them in ever medical order. the first is dr. taylor for apple. he is the author and professor of political science at mic. next we have christina --. she is a researcher. next we have jaclyn hill. we have dr. rodrick lee. cassie at ayres university and last but not least, associate professor at nasa security affairs at the naval postgraduate school. we want to thank all of our panelists and experts were joining us today. we hope to have three rounds of questions for each of the panelists and i will weave in question from the audience. for those of you missing the -- you have the link on the page. let me start us off with the first round of questions. what happened militarily around the taiwan straight? can you discuss what you saw over the most significant mentions of the china -- and why should we care? >> it is great to be here with such distinguished colleagues. late in the evening through the second of august, through the 10th. from the fourth of august, to the 10. the exercises overall were longer in duration. the first is location. the military exercises, especially the live fire portion occurred in areas where they never occurred before. and a greater set of numbers than ever before. in the north, targets included a main port in the north and also a main port in the south. targeting taiwan generally happened along the coast, with the exception of submittal theirs. instant medical miles, on taiwan are really unprecedented. you can see how much a final one surrounding circles. we are going to hear much more from rod and chris and others on this dimension. a combination of firepower strikes either against maritime targets that can be used in blockade or an invasion scenario that would will great -- that would relate. we also had missiles flying over taiwan. the number flying over the art with fear is not quite certain to be one to four missiles were fired into 300 areas. one of those areas was on the east coast of taiwan. that psychologically has a powerful effect or could have a more powerful effect. that was a noteworthy aspect of these exercises. a third would be what is really being exercised. we will get more into this. these are maybe one of the largest or more complex of the 2016 reforms that were put into place for pla which created these five theater commands. these exercises were overseen by the main scenario or contingency. there is an opportunity to test --. how integrated and how joint these exercises were remains an open question. i don't necessarily have enough to answer. they describe being involved and i believe a joint logistics force. this separates from specific activities. to wrap up, in the process, lots of different norms were broken, were previous patterns of behaviors were shattered. it is noteworthy here because of the crossing of the central line. this is a line roughly halfway between taiwan. it was a crisis management mechanism to keep military aircraft on their respective sides of the street and with the start of these exercises continuing daily until today. chinese aircraft across multiple points in the south, west of taiwan, in the north of taiwan, sometimes in the center. it does create a new normal military activity in the area that could raise the possibility of escalation in the future. for the other norm is firing missiles. that was completely shattered. there was some discussion in 1996. one missile may have overflown the tip. that is not an accurate report. this would be the first time we have seen that norm being shattered as well. finally, having exercise so close to taiwan, clearly another norm that has been shattered. clearly expect we are going to see more in the future. really looking forward to the rest of the discussion. thank you. >> thank you very much. let me turn to chris now to cover more on the naval side of the operations. >> thanks, bonnie for organizing this and the ci -- this csis. my own personal thoughts, not speaking for the navy school or the navy itself. i think taylor really late down the foundation pretty well. let me emphasize a couple of different aspects. one, my sense is the naval midline violations are an attempt to kind of set a new normal practice for the pla to allow future deployments across that midline to be routinized and expected -- political pressure. more so than their military operation or relevance. one of the other precedents that was overturned in the missile launches was the landing of several missiles in japanese eb z's in way that certainly china would have been aware of and could well have been a signal to japan. in terms of the size of the navy operations, they are somewhat larger. the navy for an extended -- for an extended time now has the ability to deplore certain action groups that great distance from china's actions sure. there isn't anything grossly different in this area. although the eastern theater command took the lead, there was some activity from other fleets as well. although it seems fairly modest. this gets back to the key question that taylor raised, how much joint and integrated operations across the different services were even within the maritime service was there interaction between maritime and submarine service vessels? my sins has been from the very limited report coming out of the chinese news media that that was fairly sparse in terms of that cross service integration. that has been a real challenge for the pla. it is what the 2015 refer -- 2015 reforms were centered on for the basis of that. it is worth noted the pelosi -- came from some extent. to some extent, missiles and the straight midline violations were not a part of the preplanned, but some of the other activities may have been. two final points and i'm going to turn it over to -- for his thoughts. there is very little resemblance to how the pill -- the poa would conduct an assault. you wouldn't use missiles dropping into large boxes to enforce a blockade. there are no visit boards, search and seizure activities dbs as. or careful air patrols that were integrated with naval follow-ups. nothing reported publicly that would have been a part of a blockade. surrounding the island on a same basis. checking ships going in and out. checking what they are carrying, see if they are bound for chinese or japanese waters. the way to think about both the maritime -- is a political signal. the personal or a prelude to outright invasion and was primarily a political signal of displeasure aimed at the highways -- aimed at the american authorities. why don't i stop there? >> thanks, chris. >> looking at the airside, things we have seen before. we have seen an increase in the number of flights around the taiwan area in terms of the fighters and bombers. the midlife crossings are a new scale. that was a high point scale. nothing we have seen in the past couple of days has exceeded that. on that side, the air presence has been more sustained. the scale has not seen much greater than anything past. the overflight areas -- the vast major focus of these military activities are theessage of what they would classify as military activities. you can kind of dial your presence up and down both in quantitative and qualitative since, in a pretty rapid fashion. you can adjust the number of flights you are doing each day. adjust where they are flying, how they are flying. you could say i'm going to put out 30 aircraft today and 32 tomorrow and maybe tomorrow --. that shows a pretty clear message. taiwan is giving you -- to pass all that information. we have seen them use it over the past two years around taiwan. it looks like the most recent military activity are unlocking options. we are starting to demonstrate a lot more confidence here. i would like to highlight two factors. although we didn't see it, based on our understanding of missiles assigned to the eastern theater command, they fall under -- called base 51. i am fairly certain -- we didn't see them publicly, they didn't show video footage of it. it is important to note that not everything is intended for public consumption. another angle on the missile side worth highlighting is it is not a missile per se, we did see army drop their military fires out of the 72nd military army. one of those three group armies assigned to a taiwan mission --. if we are talking about some indications to join us after the reforms, i want to highlight, and chris already mentioned this, the activities we are seeing are very much intended for messaging and deterrence purposes. although they are a scale, we do see relatively large-scale in other areas. the air force conducts annual -- the number of aircraft involved is probably greater than what we are seeing right now. all of this leads towards a better hermit. a large-scale summer exercise will get them a lot more bang for their buck. i want to really hammer home on the air and -- is very much for messaging. the training is nice to have. >> great. thank you very much, rod. on that note, let me turn to christina. from your perspective, as you look at the chinese military activities and in thailand, maybe they have not been that significant on the airside, and how do you differentiate these current activities from typical chinese gray zone activities? given your research, how would you speak to that? >> i will speak to that. if you want me to cover u.s. response as well, i can do that also. what we are seeing is broadly consistent with china's gray zone approaches. in the sense of combining military and nonmilitary activities in the region against its neighbors. we see china's gray zone approach. leveraging all national resources available. that could include diplomatic, economic, financial or any type of form of coercion. we have seen this against japan, india, vietnam, philippines, many in the region, as well as taiwan. during these exercises we also saw diplomatic statements by china going towards any allied partner who raises concern about u.s. behavior. the drones, that rotted mentioned, probing various locations, trade measures, imports and banning some exports. this information and cyber attacks. second, we have seen china increasing its -- overtime against taiwan in conjunction with building up these lower military activities each summer. in july and august 2019, -- in the south china sea and the east china sea. in 2020, we saw simultaneous military on north and south of taiwan. we have seen this major ramp up over the past year and used by aircraft across the median line. we have also seen a growth and cyber capabilities try to manipulate the environment and attacked chinese government and other websites. other activity is not typical. the amount of live fire, multiple missiles potentially fight -- essentially flying over taiwan --. what this conveys, based on some research poking -- some research recently published, -- against taiwan in the region. combining with this geopolitical pressure. seeing that continue as we go forward with these grassroots efforts to shape the opinion in taiwan society. >> if you could really touch on what you saw as the initial u.s. response and we could follow-up on this more in round two. >> absolutely. i will highlight three areas. plans for a maritime transit over subsequent weeks. we haven't yet seen one of those announcements. they are typically announced after they occur. the last was july 19, four the exercises began in early august. we could potentially see this again coming up soon. second we saw the secretary of defense with kevin stryker to carry in the east of taiwan. along with -- we know from zone scenes that we saw ronald reagan depart. cerda, we also saw washington take some plans to postpone -- missile test. the message was to avoid potential miscalculation. this was the behavior of response of nuclear power. >> great. thank you very much, christina. let me turn to catherine to ask for your thoughts on how did you see taiwan's's response to this. what did you see as the main taiwan military or military response? >> sure. taiwan's response was heavy on the nonmilitary side. the taiwan government also sees this. as an operation that has political aims from the chinese side. taiwan's military did, with regard to the chinese aaron, naval -- saying they did something they hadn't done before, which is sending taiwanese naval vessels close to the chinese ones. especially on the median line. playing a little bit of cat and mouse and trying to prevent the chinese from crossing the line. on the other side of the island, in the east, also staying close and making sure -- this back-and-forth was weighing the pal -- the pla -- from the nonmilitary side, from the chinese military, they had two goals i think they were pursuing. one is the domestic audience. ensuring that no panic would occur. and that public morale wouldn't take a blow. they are strong, they are prepared. they do not shy away from fighting. but they certainly are not itching for a fight. they kept repeating this every day, maybe twice a day to reassure the public. that clearly worked. on the other hand, there was messaging to the national community in the person of the foreign minister. and described him as an attempt to try to change the status quo and appeal to the as far as what is going on now, the taiwanese government hasn't really made a very clear cut they have adopted a wait-and-see attitude. as far as i know, the administration is conducting the review of declared exercises and the pla's movement since then. what i heard was that not considered -- there are doubts as to how to respond if this happens again. they want to discuss this with you is. how to quickly create or build up --. >> thank you very much, catherine. we appreciate you for bringing out the nonmilitary responses. that was a critical component. let me turn this into a second round of questions. i want to get out -- i want to get at, is this a crisis? we are seeing both thingy the united states and in some places, taiwan. it continues to execute and taiwan has decreased. let me start off by turning to chris. i know you have a piece just published on the war in ironic. why don't we start with how this is a crisis in how you see this moving forward? >> i hope i am wrong. i hope that piece of the title is shown to be false going forward. i suspect that is not the case. this is likely the early stages of a crisis that is going to continue to percolate for months. if you look at the historic presidents in 1954, 95, 96, those went on for about eight months. 1950 one was over a. of three months it developed. some of the reasons are just highlighted. the u.s. is talking about transits of the straight. about flying. wherever international allows. is it going to be important for us to send signals to our allies, as well as china? that we are not being deterred by these exercises. that response is going to be provocative to the chinese. they are going to need to show their own population that they have a response to the u.s.'s response to their exercises. if one source of continuing pressure is more broadly the surging of forces that the u.s. engaged in to beef up the seven fleets in terms of its overall numbers, putting it to see a marine site desk during its earlier stages of the crisis, there are other stages to. other delegation have passed through. the japanese is going to send delegation to taiwan. all of these occur in normal times. the heightened salience means all those sorts of video -- all those sorts of visits get more attention going forward. fundamentally, we shouldn't look at this crisis solely as a response to speaker pelosi's visit, but more broadly from the chinese perspective. there has been a series of salami slicing tech made against the traditional u.s. one chinese policy that treats the taiwan situation as somewhat a normal list. provides taiwan with a different sort of political and diplomatic status than countries that have normal complete diplomatic normal -- normalization. they need to draw some clear, bright red line to communicate to the united states, taiwan and to others that further erosion of our china one policy is not going to be acceptable to the chinese. that is likely to put additional pressure on china to communicate, communicating -- to communicate to ensure further erosion of the way taiwan is treated as a second-class citizen in the international community doesn't occur. those broader causes as well as some of the narrower operations, they started off talking about reasons i suspect this crisis is going to continue to work late and develop over a. of months. >> thank you, chris. christina, do you agree with chris that this is a crisis? and from the perspective of u.s. partners. do they view this as a crisis and how have they responded? >> going back to the gray zone operations, this transition pressure we put on -- we could see more potential flashpoints. there were multiple decision point from washington over that time. we will see how -- is reacting and how washington is framing this going forward. we have seen a number of activities by partners. statements of others with the g7 and other high representatives. china responded very negatively to that saying the g 70 is the eight powered forces. there is also a trilateral statement between the u.s. showing japan firing missiles. we also saw -- france called sharing concerns about china's actions. focusing on the live fire and ballistic missiles. japan and kind of more muted statements from the nato chief. we have also seen some messaging by the u.s. involving military operations of the u.s. and other countries. the u.s. has already planned a very large scale. this is an indonesian lead exercise with the u.s. army and a dozen other allies and partners involved. that took place from august 3 to 14. there was some subtle messaging by the u.s.. in our operability and our unity of nations focused on a -- maintaining our rules. we also saw missile-defense exercise with australia, canada, japan, republic of u.s. forces. it wrapping up in hawaii around the same time. the u.s. also message air drill with japan, aerosol defense force. august 9. that is when exercises were still being taken place near okinawa. we do see some interference by the u.s. to resolve unity with allies in areas that are operationally relevant for those activities. >> what you are saying is, this is a manufactured crisis in our allies are feeling this, even if they are not using the word manufactured crisis in terms of the strength of their response? >> many of these are preplanned exercises like the large-scale ones. rather the united states or others take more direct -- that are messaging this, we will have to see it as time moves forward. >> rod, over to you. we have a question you can hopefully read. as you look at china's framing, i believe they are calling in a crisis. what do they gain by calling it a crisis? particularly if most of what china has done on their in and was preplanned. what are your thoughts on this? >> i first want to highlight where they are calling a crisis, what information environment they are calling a crisis. if you look at where they are talking about it, it is mostly calling this a taiwan crisis. mostly coming out of p.r.c., through their spokesperson in press conferences or through individual press releases or eventually held by efforts. that is one avenue. the other avenue where they are really hammering home that it is a crisis is in the english media outlets that various taiwan state run outlets control. all of the state run media outlets -- western consumption component, they are really hammering home that this is a crisis. more specifically that this is a political crisis created by the united states to contain china. the question of what do they have to gain, there is two ways to look at this. an internal component and external. looking internally, we first have to your address do they believe internally this is even a political crisis. my intuitive answer is probably yes. they probably mean this is a political crisis. i am sure somebody in audience is thinking, you keep punching around the question. is this a crisis, it is not a crisis? how do you define a crisis? i am one to take the cheat way out and say if you look at the way the trc military talk about crisis, they don't have a standardized way of talking about a crisis. you know it if you see it. my intuition is internally they see a crisis politically. to chris's point, this isn't just about pelosi's visit. this is a sea of u.s. events around taiwan. generally strong political rhetoric. and then you have lots of military activity in the background as well. this is a culminating event of u.s. efforts to contain china through this taiwan problem set. so there is this historical river -- this historical red -- historical evidence. they also have the tendency to manufacture a crisis for their own gain. in 2020 addition of the academy very -- the academy of military science, there is an article about how they talk about how often the united states uses crises to its advantage. it is very much in their mindset that the u.s. would create such an incident to advance national security. how does this help them though? it gets to the psychological component of internal procedure as well. psychologically, the chinese communist party tends to operate better under this idea of struggle. communist revolutions are perpetual struggles. if you look at the way that we talk about the ccp's response to covid back in early 2020, they tried to time, they called it a crisis and they started using this jargon that is really associated with wartime work and wartime struggle. they started calling temporary party -- there is this mental shift that occurs internally that galvanizes ccp efforts in way that normal day-to-day operations won't. calling it a crisis helps on that side internally with the ccp. there is also a procedural component as well where there are things done differently when it is a crisis as opposed to routine day-to-day operations. that is on the internal side. on the external side, this really helps trying to build -- very overused in my view but very standard line that the pac uses. this points up a long-standing issue with the u.s.. in destabilizing global security and stability. here is another example of them doing it. we see some p.r.c. embassies driving towards this narrative by hosting these local events where the ambassador will make a speech about how the u.s. is creating this manufacture crisis and then invite local academics or local speakers that will reiterate that narrative about how the u.s. is in fact manufacturing these crisis. the u.s. all does these -- the u.s. always does these types of things and this is the u.s.'s fault. setting that initiative that the u.s. started it but now i need to regain an initiative. one great way is to talk about how the u.s. is destabilizing the world war. there is both utility internally and externally. internally is to galvanize ccp efforts. externally, you are setting -- for that dominant narrative. >> thank you, rod. my understanding is china has been more reluctant to call this a crisis. as you described, maybe like rod was suggesting, maybe there are multiple channels. using different channels based on who they are communicating with. catherine, over to you. >> i have been very reluctant to work crisis. especially when they are talking to their own people. that is not surprising. you have a population that is in general, used to this threat of military force from china hanging in the background. the goal is to engage more, get in more visitors of democracy. trying to strengthen the backing one has. talk about crisis that grew out of one of these visits, that is one of the reasons also. but then you have other politicians that although -- the main opposition party has been a bit careful during the hard phase of the exercise is not to appear too critical or putting the blame on the entire administration too much. people who identify -- tend to be more critical and more willing to call the system and coupled with the argument, why don't you let us help you communicate and let some adults tried to do the job? but when the military activity was still ongoing. there is a split there. >> is there a recognition or any consensus about how this is going to move forward or have they decided a one off? >> i don't think so. i think the government here views this as a further step in what they have already identified as quite dangerous increase in use of military pressure by china. this didn't come as a surprise. very much echoing u.s. government language on this, i have been hearing from several government officials that they think china planned this since april when this planned visit came up. they had also been picking up chinese warnings of some kind of military reaction months ago. before the resurrection of the visit and the planned date became public again. they put this in the context and they see this as one phase in development that has been a gradual escalation of tension over the last several years, particularly since 2020. >> great, thank you. taylor, over to you. you view this as a crisis? and even if you don't define it as a crisis, is this still a point that afterwards we wait -- afterwards we may see something different from the chinese moving forward? >> i agree with chris that it is the start, most likely of a crisis that could go on for a very long time. i think about definitions. i call the definition of crisis a high danger or high instability, high tensions. two people don't have to recognize they are in a for there to be one. it is enough for one person to believe there in a crisis, or one country. putting on my political science professor had, the theory definition of a crisis was either the military different niche the military use of force or to war. we may be in the political phase of a crisis. creating conditions for greater military escalation down the road. it is still very much the initial political phase. especially in light of an approach by the biden administration to make the point , the talking point it is a manufactured crisis, not a real crisis. that it is totally normal and precedented, nothing to see here, let's move on and get back to the way things were. i guess i want to make two more points here. i do generally see the situation the way that chris does. it is a manufactured crisis and china is over react might make a military phase more likely if china feels it is not being heard, or the stakes are even greater when the united states does take military action, whether it is an exercise near taiwan, giving the increase of forces in the east water. i think, as chris mentioned, or as christina mentioned, we have not seen much of a military response. the longer this goes on, the greater incentives china might feel to do something in response once it actually happens is they are defending on the administration's view that china is overreacting, there is no crisis and they don't need to do minor -- to do more. to pair privates -- to paraphrase john ride, it is too soon to tell. i hope i am wrong. but we are in. where china has come to the conclusion that the u.s. needs to re-communicate its resolved to the u.s.. in october, when -- began talking about the fake china policy. talking points about the --. those gop points are concerns. china can find ways of addressing them. we are leaving into a tense moment. various political calendars in the united states. local efforts in taiwan where they made be incentives down the road and demonstrations of other --. that can take us to the point of where we are in congressional theory and may be where we are august 22. we are the middle of something that is changing. it can be hard to necessarily -- to necessarily know. i hope it does not escalate. but the potential has increased or the probability has increased. >> let me follow up with two really quick questions. the first is the current biden initiative of china's response as a mini crisis, your worry is that is not giving enough attention to the fact china may respond significantly moving forward. but then you also couple that with the point of saying maybe we should be moving more or doing more now. i thought i was getting two different messages. >> on the one hand, china is undertaking a pretty significant display, broken lots of norms and we haven't really seen a corresponding u.s. military response yet. although i think we will see something down the road. it does raise intention with the fact, if you believe china is signaling trying to get the u.s. attention, when the u.s. does respond, china might feel a slightly greater incentive. especially given the fact that the u.s. talking point is to portray china as a child. they shouldn't be doing this, there is no reason for it, and so on and so forth. excuse the barking dog. i think there is a lot of dynamic going on at the moment. that itself should be a cause of some concern that we are not necessarily in a stable situation where we don't really expect further escalation down the road. >> thank you, taylor. let me move to a third round of questions where want to go around to everyone to ask how do you move forward from here? and what are you most concerned of in terms of what china may do next or if you are concerned that the u.s. or taiwan may take other actions? and also, how should the united states and taiwan prepare moving forward? let me turn to captain first and then to taylor. >> what happens next? what i am most concerned about right now is links to what taylor rapp do with. that we have not seen a u.s. response. i am concerned about the potential reasons behind that. i am concerned there might be a lack of understanding or a lack of options as to how deterrence can work with china. as taylor pointed out, china had broken norms. china may be establishing a new normal. do they end up with no reaction at all or not being deterred from taking the next step? that is certainly a concern or a fear that is present right now. what i see on the u.s. in -- escalation, and rightly so. that is the only concern. the question about how do you make sure that china doesn't move forward in that direction that they are going now, if that remains an open question, then we have got a problem. that is my foremost concern. then, what other options are there? taiwan is clearly not where it should be with its defenses. even in the current situation, i don't see the kind of determination and pays and change in pays that would be necessary to maybe turn this thing around. what i am picking up at the moment is a further deepening of the disconnect between taiwan and the u.s., overall how they view the situation is may be how they view the threat. the taiwan military and the natural defense havoc for a long time already said they think they need a full range of capabilities and they think the main threat comes from pla brazen operations. they are reluctant to focus only on and prioritize only the fright the night capabilities. the u.s. has increasingly in the course of this year tried to push taiwan in that direction. this recent episode has strengthened the belief in taiwan. even in the presidential office, which was previously break -- previously being swayed, in this situation, escalation risks and lack of options about deterrence, we have a disagreement between taiwan and the u.s.. that really worries me quite a bit. about your third question, what might china do next, i don't know. it would be natural for the pla, over the course of time, maybe not tomorrow, but over weeks and months, to continue doing what they have been doing to expand the range of where aircraft and naval vessels go. increasing frequency in growing numbers and let us not forget there is a whole range of forces they haven't even started using it. what about the coast guard. what about the militia? in other operations. if we see >> thank you. i did want to follow up with one question, because you and other panelists also tensioned that at least from the public perspective, it seems that the u.s. has not done enough. but i think the flip side of it is we have not seen it too much action on the taiwan side, to push back against the chinese. is there a discussion now in taiwan going forward how much taiwan should be more willing to escalate? because in some respects, even though the escalation dynamics might be quite risky, they are the main target of china's military pressure. >> yes, well, during the week of the exercises, people were sometimes making fun of the taiwanese military and the ministry of national defense, because they basically kept repeating the same races. do not worry, as long as we are here, you are safe. but that opinion is clearly not shared by the public. if you look at polls that have been conducted repeatedly, i think it is only a minority believes that the taiwan military is up to the task, if china were to invade. so, i think that there might be -- at some point, might have been some public pressure for the military to at least put on a better show or be more present. i think people know that there are not many options. so i do not see either the government or the military itching to escalate. the only clear step we have seen in terms of a more muscular response from the taiwanese side is really having some of their ships out there, trying to hinder the pla navy in getting across the line. >> thank you. so taylor, over to you. how do we basically look at this very difficult dynamic, in which the united states is concerned to some extent about escalation? and seems to be also concerned that china may be trying to normalize a new site of operations? a more regular set of operations against taiwan. how do we move forward from here, what do you recommend? >> i think it is a very delicate situation. i mean, my assessment is that we have seen a step change in sort of the pla presence. so unfortunately, one in which they are not likely to move back from, which is why this new normal is sometimes used. the intensity level of the presence can vary over time and i suspect we will see variation in that, but i do not think in other words that the genie can be put back in the bottle, so to speak. the question is do these activities, and a relatively peaceful poor peacetime setting, do they disrupt commercial traffic? do they disrupt air traffic? you know, is there an imperative to ensure that sort of access to the -- remains unimpeded and so on and so forth? and then i think getting to the more military which can include transits by the united states or other countries. at this point in time, i would be surprised if an ally or partner country didn't. a different view on this, but i still think it is a pretty -- it is a pretty delicate situation. i guess what i worry about a bit more is what happens when the next incident happens in china feels like they have crossed the redlined yet again. the talking point is nothing has changed in u.s. policy, but i suspect there will be continued changes in the implementation of the policy. then there is the wildcard of what the president might say at the next public town hall and if there is one scheduled in the next few months. and then what china -- how china interprets that and the new attention it has drawn to its concerns. and what does the united states do against china if they repeat something like they did in august 2 a response -- august to a response. i believe one shoe will drop because we are in a political crisis. we are not in the high end military phase of one and i think something is likely to happen. and then there is the question of if the u.s. might feel greater pressure to respond to that, either for political reasons or because of -- they were unable to deter china from doing it again. and so on and so forth. i am repeating myself. i just think we are under unstable and tense moments. it is hard to look out and see exactly what will happen, but it is unstable. i think on the one hand, what the u.s. could do and other experts have mentioned this, right? a very senior member of the administration gave a speech or detailed remarks on what the u.s. china policy is and is not, what it does include, what it does not include. what it means. the three sentences that have appeared in antony blinken's speech are all positive, but clearly, since this seems to be the elements -- one element of concern, more clarity might be helpful. and might reassure china on one hand and also underscore on the other hand, the steps that the united states will undertake to help support and defend taiwan, if it comes to that. and through the one china policy, historically, it has asserted that role. , both reassuring to some degree and also aiding taiwan to another degree. so, there is an important element of communication that needs to happen. maybe it is happening in private channels, i do not know. but there does not seem to be much in public channel. in parting, i worry a little bit about this talking point of being a manufactured crisis and overreacting, because that means there is nothing to talk about. right? i think there is probably something to talk about. and so, that is very important. and more generally, i think this underscores a much broader sense, the importance of taiwan doing more to defend itself. right? you know, taiwan is a country facing an existential threat. in terms of its defense policy, like many countries face existential threats, finland, south korea, to some extent, israel. right? and so, taiwan has to think really hard about, you know, being more sort of committed -- a set of policies for its own defense. counter from what the united states might do. taiwan has to -- you know, there is a power of reactions. on the one hand, i think it is positive that there was sort of a, you know, a lot more domestic political instability. on the other hand, i think there is a real thing here. i do wonder and worry of taiwan is going to be in a position to defend itself robustly when it will need to do so. and so, i will stop there. thanks. >> thank you, taylor. chris, let me bring you in here. maybe just to follow on to the point that taylor raises. so he mentioned that another shoe will likely drop in the future, in terms of what china perceives as u.s. or taiwan provocations. as we move forward, do you think china will respond more strongly moving forward because of what it has demonstrated in the last month? and if it does, -- so we are likely not going to see speaker pelosi go back to taiwan anytime soon, but if it was something close to that, would try not respond much more forcefully than what we saw in august? basically, what should be expect moving forward? >> yeah, i mean, i think the way i think about it is there is something of a ratchet effect here. taylor talked about a step function, but you know, different ways of coming at the same idea. the next time that there is a provocation that china views as needing some response, the baseline to some extent is going to be what they did over the last couple of weeks. and if you would to signal even more resolution, to deter the next provocation, then it you are going to have to do more. so i think that is pretty worrisome. more missiles over taiwan, more missiles coming closer to taiwan. i think another way to think about the potential for escalation, you know, is the creation of a new status quo with ships and aircraft routinely violating the middle line. so when there is another provocation, do you get closer, do you violate territorial waters of the main island? right? so i think to some extent, what you are going to see is a competition in kind of displays of resolved by the two sides. and, you know, as was talked about earlier, the u.s. is going to need to show some response to this over time, right? and whether those are just transits or other, new planned exercises that are flagging that sort of commitment is hard to predict. but i just feel very confident that the navy is going to want to show that it is not being deterred and that is to taylor's point of then china is going to need to feel -- feel the need to respond because they are try to send the signal that this is not acceptable. it's not the next policy visit, but if you are china looking out at the u.s. one china policy, over the last several years you have seen public discussion of u.s. know terry forces on the ground in taiwan. three statements from president biden eroding strategic ambiguity, changing lang which on the state department website with regard to taiwan's status -- changing language on the state department website with regard to taiwan status. talking about taiwan as a strategic asset. any one of those in the future might be grounds for china to want to send another signal and again, there is this challenge of the baseline of today being something that you need to escalate from. and so, that is what i worry about. and when we talk about -- just to other quick points before i hand over the mike, when we talk about what taiwan can do, you know, as things continue to percolate, or if they re-escalate, i think there is a lot of different steps that taiwan can take. radar illuminations, buzzing chinese ships with aircraft or helicopters, none of which should lead to outright war, one hopes. but all of which would further militarize the security element in the competition that over time i think we will flagged as kind of worrisome. and the last point i would note, the crisis that we have had so far was one that china saw coming for a long time, right? a couple of co-panelists here have noted. so pretty clear since april that some pelosi-like visit was going to occur and so china created an impressive set of government responses, from the release of the new white paper, the diplomatic economic sanctions, all done pretty quickly. , in response. but now we are in a more fluid phase of the crisis. and so the precise nature of the u.s. response, the japanese response, i actually will expect additional transits, not just from the united states, maybe not immediately, but over time from allies and partners. in china is going to have to respond to those a bit more on-the-fly than they have been able to thus far. and all of those to me kind of create a worrisome dynamic to be aware of. thank you. >> thank you, chris. christina, do you want to wait in here on either what china might do next or how the u.s. or allies and partners might respond? four could act in the near future? >> sure. i wanted to highlight maybe two concerns. one is there are some parallels to the third parliamentary crisis. we did not get to delve into that too much, but one i think that is interesting is at that time, as the pla began its initial reactions in the summer of 1995, washington had a bit of leverage over beijing that i do not think we see in this current situation. that is that china was seeking to hold a presidential level summit between johnson and president clinton. so even as some of these initial exercises and the initial ballistic missile test launches were happening, both sides were entering into negotiations. you know, potentially washington felt that this was a point of leverage to not alter its stance, because china really wanted to have this high level engagement discussion. if anything, we have seen the reverse at this point. china has been cutting off communication and cooperation in various areas. you know, things like climate change initiatives. trying to put more leverage onto the u.s., you know. washington is behaving in a way that you fundamentally disapprove of and we are seeking to come and their multiple channels. and i think that, you know, building on taylor's and other points as well, it seemed like beijing felt that washington's -- washington did not hear its message. and going into the latter half of 1995, so in early 1996 as we are approaching march 1996 elections, this is the first time that a president is going to be democratically elected in taiwan. but then china began a larger scale exercises. so some of those were greater than what we have seen to date. over 40 naval vessels, 250 aircraft at one time in 100,000 troops mobilized. so the question is does china need, to everyone else's points, convey a larger scale of activities in a closer to china's shores in 1996. that was 20 to 30 miles off the coast, but still much closer than in 1995 so that they again up the ante? so my second area of concerns is does that pla conference from these surges or possible new normal, does it feel increasingly capable undertaking a high end campaign? now, to others points, planning for maybe four months for the specific series of activities in a week or so in august is really different than wartime cape abilities. so do we start to see this cycle that they feel they are seizing the information in other initiatives, to demonstrate the strength read and then they feel more victorious in these limited objectives that are successful. how is that different compared to the really expensive requirements for a joint campaign, to seize taiwan >> did they start to feel potentially confident or overconfident. i think i will stop there. >> thank you, christina. here is an excellent question and then i do want to leave a couple of minutes for other folks to answer in addition. we will posit this question to you, but how do we basically get out of here? how do we get out of the current situation? it seems like what all five of you are highlighting so far as we are in an escalation spiral, but not one in which we do have immediately one after another, but more prolonged over an extended time. and i think christina, what you are highlighting is that you do not necessarily see how we would initially get out of there, but maybe taylor, what you suggest earlier is the u.s. has to clarify our one china policy. i'm not sure that will get us out of the spiral. let me turn this difficult question to you, rod. whatever else you wanted to add before opening it up act other folks on the panel. >> yeah, so, i don't want to, too much about u.s. policy, but i think china right now is kind of leaning into the united states, to see if the u.s. wants to actually go along that spiral. penalty really touched on yet, but at the end of the day, the military response to pelosi's visit was still constrained. as tiller pointed out, this was mostly -- as taylor pointed out this was managed by eastern theater command. chris highlighted that yes, there were some naval assets that came out of the theater, but most of them were still using theater. the number of flights has decreased and the number of naval vessels around taiwan has decreased. so i think -- if you actually look at the way the pla is probably putting out what it is doing right now, this is -- this appears to be resuming back to normal. in fact, this appears to be normal in most of the pla outside of the eastern theater in the week immediately after it closed its visit. in this case, it is really eating into the united states about whether that united states needs to respond militarily or not. and i do not know the answer to that. and so, perhaps, i am less convinced than the rest of my fellow panelists that we are in an inevitable spiral. i think it is more up to the united states on whether it wants to respond or not. my concerns probably get more towards longer-term what happens after this series of connected -- whether it is weeks or months with taiwan's trade crisis, if you will. what happens next time? my concern on that front is if the pla decides that it wants to maintain a larger naval presence and they decided that they want to engage and overfly over the offshore islands with unmanned or manned aircraft more frequently, then this all sets the bar higher in terms of military activities. and, assuming the pla is not able to carve out more space if you will in terms of escalatory options. not saying that will not happen, because historically, the pla has been able to carve out more options on an escalation ladder if you will on the military deterrent side, but if it does not do that or if the rate at which it unlocks options, if you will, is slower than the rate at which it burns escalation options, then there are fewer and fewer military options that the ccp has at its disposal that do not look even more escalatory. if you look at textbook options for military deterrence activities, really, you're looking at large-scale at this point or some really provocative activities, like shifting certain parts of the country to wartime or partially wartime posture. or notating demonstrated strikes against targets in taiwan, possibly targets in the united states. and i think that is sort of what they are driving towards if china does not feel like it has additional options. and what i think the focus on the u.s. and taiwan side is what happens -- and i think we sort of touched on this, what happens when the pla marks next time around on anymore provocative activities. what happens when there is a manned flight. what happens if china begins to use some of these military deterrence activities, all of these are very taiwan focus. what's what happens on we start seeing missile impacts near alaska? for if we see bomber flights near alaska or a naval presence? these are all sort of entering the vein of available options for the ccp and i do not know how much we were thinking about how we do or do not respond to those activities, alongside more provocative activities. basically, taiwan. let's say more escalatory network attacks that are not just taking down certain websites, but targeting infrastructure and power grids. so thing about what happens if china has fewer military options, and begins exercising those options in the coming decades, what is the response there? the last thing i want to kind of highlight is we really need to watch long-term how the prc and pla diagnoses this current crisis. we will not see -- or i do not think we will see a real diagnosis internally until at least months, if not years down the line. but i think that determines whether they think what they did now or in the past couple of weeks was useful. because i think they look back to 95, 96 and from my reading of the literature, it looks like they thought that went pretty well for them. that leads to them saying if that went well, maybe i should do that again. if there diagnosis of everything went well this time around in august of 2022, we feel like we deterred the united states, we feel like we deterred taiwan, then maybe that leads them further down the escalatory paths saying well, i need to ratchet up what i've been doing, because clearly it works. so that diagnosis is what i am interested in. seeing how they internally perceive if what they did work or not. so i will wrap it up. >> one quick question, from your perspective. how do you think the pla would respond? what they be as restrained against taiwan. >> that's a good question. i expected -- i think we are in unexplored, somewhat unescorted territory right now. because historically, even during taiwan's trade crisis, the military capabilities between the mainland and taiwan was not as yawning of a chasm as it is now. and so an aggressive taiwan response might in some ways, because the prc has the luxury of restraining itself, because at the end of the day, they can demonstrate capability's and some other way, i think there are mechanisms that would allow for greater prc restraint. i think another plausible angle that the prc might attempt to go for is a lot of the targeting that we are seeing this time around is that this is not necessarily taiwan's fault. if you look at the way the coded the first, second, and third taiwan straight crises, although they largely attribute them to the u.s. is a major player and have been somewhat responsible, they still view them as third party. they intervened and took advantage of the situation. if though to begin to coded this particular child -- taiwan straight crisis is the u.s. is beginning it, it then becomes easy for the taiwan to response -- to respond in a way that is more restrained. because they can reach out and publicly voice that, at the end of the day, their concern is not taiwan or is not the taiwanese people. their big issue really is the u.s. using taiwan as one of many different leverage points against containing china. and that is why getting to my previous point, that is why i am a little concerned about military deterrence activity oriented toward the u.s.. because that, i think, is much more with the narrative is shifting toward nowadays, not just about issues on taiwan proper i know that is not a super satisfying answer, but. >> no, that's great, thank you. we have a couple of minutes. i wanted to leave time for any folks he wanted to jump in, to weigh in on any of the points made recently or if you have any additional points that you want to bring into the conversation. >> let me just make one comment, kind of building on rods. i thought great list of possible escalatory steps that the chinese might take, right? i think there is a lot of room for what do you call them? gray zone or military steps that are well below the threshold of provoking war, but nevertheless are going to be highly escalatory and are going to demand some u.s. response, to show that we are being deterred by unannounced closure zone near guam, for instance. or chinese missile tests. 200 miles off. so i think those sorts of provocations, there is just a lot of different options. and it is that sort of escalatory spiral that stops short of work, but nevertheless intensifies the military aspects of competition. most worrisome. i will just stop there, thank you for the opportunity. >> great, thank you very much chris. any final thoughts on your end, christina? if not, i think we will wrap up. >> ok, what thank you everyone for joining us. this was a fascinating one and a half hours. i really want to think our five excellent panelists for joining us from different time zones, including from taipei. i believe this should be available on youtube shortly afterwards, so please tune in for this and reach out if you have any questions. thank you again. >> over the past few months, the january 6 committee has conducted a series of hearings wrote viewings it's hearings from the investigation for it all week, watch c-span as we look back at hearings featuring previously undisclosed evidence, depositions and witness testimony onto the attack at the was capital. tonight at 8:00 eastern, former justice department officials address allegations made by then president trump as the request to the deck to alter the outcome of the election could watch monday on c-span or anytime on demand at c-span.org. >> now available in the c-span shop, c-span's 20 congressional directory. go there today to order a copy of the congressional directory. this compact, spiral-bound book is your guide to the federal government with contact information for every member of congress include bios and committee assignments per it also contact information for state governors and the biden administration cabinet. order your copy today at c-span shop.org or skin the code with your smartphone. every c-span shop purchase helps support c-span's nonprofit operation. >> dr. anthony fauci announced today that after 38 years of service, he is stepping down as the head of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases. most recently, he has led the federal response to the coronavirus. the washington post writes that during his tenure, dr. fauci has been on the front lines of the fight against aids, anthrax, ebola, is he got and again with covid-19 pandemic. his statement about dr. fauci's resignation, president biden said quote i extend my deepest thanks for his public service. the united states of america is stronger, more resilient and healthier because of him. he will leave his post at the end of the year. >> experts on iraq discuss the future of the country and its government after the resignation of the iraqi finance
AustraliaTaiwanJapanPhilippinesUnited-statesAlaskaVietnamRepublic-ofBeijingChinaTaipeiT-ai-pei