The Feudal Future .
Bye cast .
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Feudal Future podcast . I'm Marshall Tplansky , I'm Joel Kotkin , and today we are delighted to be talking about Taiwan-China relations . And to help us do that , we have two great guests . One is first Raymond Wah , who is a former professor at Fordham and now at the Rand Corporation running their Taiwan initiative .
Raymond welcome .
Thanks for having me .
And also we have our old friend Professor Robert Kep . Rob runs the Asia Pacific Initiative at Chapman University and is a professor at the Chapman Arduous College of Business and Economics . Rob welcome . Thank you , marshall .
Glad to be here .
Well , I'd like to kick things off with a question that's probably on everybody's mind , which is , if you look at the popular press , taiwan and China are facing off , armed to the teeth , across the Taiwan Strait , ready to go at it with each other . How far from the truth is that , raymond ? Start us off .
Sure , you know , I was in Taiwan for the election last month and doing interviews with both local and international journalists .
And the international journalists always ask me like so , is this ?
is this going to election , going to lead us to the world , to World War Three ? And I was like no , of course not . The ABS people on the ground , there they're actually weren't that concerned about the security situation .
So my , my usual response to them was , like you know , if there's any election that's going to lead us into World War Three , it's the US one at the end of the year , not the Taiwan one . I think you know there is obviously a reason to be concerned . Right , the Taiwan is the most likely flashpoint for a US-China conflict .
But I think we have to remember that A overall , the likelihood of war is quite low historically and you know all sides have a really strong interest to not want to get into a war . Now , that said , you know if you're in Taiwan , you're in the weakest of the sort of triangle .
It really is imperative for Taiwan to be arming itself more in order to push back against not just Chinese conventional coercion but also especially Grey Zone coercion . So there's a risk of conflict . For me it's .
It's it's really in that Grey Zone where China , for example , tries to impose a quarantine or a blockade , or Taiwan on Taiwan , or tries to steadily close this international space such that Taiwan doesn't feel like it has any other choice but to kind of try to internationalize the dispute and draw in the United States even further .
But you know , to get back to your basic question , no , I don't think the people on Taiwan or to some extent the people in China , really , are going for a war at this point .
Well , and Rob , it's funny because you and I right landed in Taiwan did indeed the day of the election , yeah , so what's your sense of all of this ?
Well , I agree with Raymond , I don't think it's actually that likely . At the same time , I mean the age old adage if you want peace , prepare for war . And to Raymond's point exactly , a Taiwan needs to be doing more Towards its defense . There's this . It's interesting .
I mean there are a couple of debates in Taiwan I think get overlooked in the United States and the West , maybe almost outside of Taiwan generally . So one is there's this . There's this Really raucous debate about what Taiwan should do . So we saw that . In fact . Getting back to your point about the election , so how did the election go ?
Well , the least favored candidate for Beijing won Lai Qingda , the DPP . You know that's a continuation of the Tsai Ing-Wan's Generally considered pro-independence party .
At the same time , if the first time in three election cycles , the majority of the votes went to two groups , it was a split vote , but I went to two groups that favor more amicable relations across the Taiwan Strait . So that's , to me , the bigger take home . It isn't who won by a relative majority , it's what the people are thinking .
Which , by the way , I mean that the spoiler candidates a bit like a Bernie Sanders . So he's . You know , we have lots of discussion about that if you want , but in any case , it's not really clear If it's not so much a pro Mainland stance as much as hey , hey , let's lower the tension .
So that is the consensus view , certainly , and even the DPP , which is now in power in the executive branch . They aren't talking like they were a few years ago , when China was a lot poorer and a lot less militarized , to say , hey , you know , let's go our own way . Everyone's talking along the lines of let's try to work things out , so .
So I think that's you know where you have to start seeing the issue , and it's the Western press , I think , likes to see hey , here's a conflict point , and it's understandable , it's good to have the scrutiny and it shouldn't be ignored .
The possibility , but the likelihood , just as Raymond was saying , you really don't see an interest in heading in that direction and there isn't an economic interest at all .
Well , let's talk about that economic interest , because I think underlying all of this Attitude of kind of let's keep things Going , let's not , let's not fan the flames too much on the Taiwan side Is it a very deep set of economic and business Relationships . I'm not sure people really appreciate that . Tell us a little bit more about that .
Yeah , I also just want to add in the context of the China now having far less foreign investment , I assume it foreign investment into Taiwan is continuing . Yes and no .
Like you know , a lot of . So you know China has certainly over the last few years been imposing economic sanctions or cutting back on the free trade agreement . Essentially it's signed with Taiwan , the effort under the Maingio administration but the important thing to note is that they're reimposing those tariffs on agricultural products .
They're not imposing those , are reimposing those on semiconductors and the reason why is that you know about 35 40% of Taiwan's trade , I believe , is with the mainland , and the vast majority of that , by value as well , is is , is semiconductors , it's intermediary goods .
The Chinese work , why upon the stuff that Taiwan manufactures in order for it to do like its high tech industry and high tech manufacturing . So those intermediary goods , I think , are a pretty important factor for preventing conflict across the street .
I think there's two things I would actually mention in terms of saying that this may not be as rosy a picture as we might think . One , taiwan is actively diversifying its trade relations with , especially , southeast Asia , but also we're seeing negotiations happening right now with the United States . I think this is good .
From a security perspective , china has very clearly shown to South Korea , australia , to Taiwan itself , that's willing to use economic coercion to get their way , and so diversifying is probably a good thing .
But Dale Copeland , who I don't remember where he's a professor somewhere he just had this great new book on economic statecraft by great powers and his argument for the longest time is that it's not trade specifically that reduces conflict between these two states , it's trade expectations .
If I believe that in the future we will continue to trade more , then I have a reason not to want to fight . But if I think that I've hit the high point of our trade and it's only downhill from here , then I might actually want to fight you . I have less . The shadow of the future matters less if I think our relations are going downhill .
And so there are good reasons for .