Transcription
The Washington Post is reporting a secret Pentagon memo that shows the US could make deterring a Chinese invasion of Taiwan its top priority. The memo, signed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegsth, directs the US military to shift resources toward the Indo-Pacific, prioritizing China over its focus on Russia and conflicts in the Middle East. It also called for increased pressure on Taipei to boost its defense spending.
Right after this was leaked, and after F-16s had been transferred to Taiwan by the United States—uh, by Lockheed Martin—China has been engaging in intense live-fire drills surrounding Taiwan. This also comes as Linka, the president—so-called president—of Taiwan has been, just every other day, talking about separatism and independence. This is what’s going on right now: Taiwan is being encircled. The People’s Liberation Army is calling Trump’s bluff once again. But I’m curious on your assessment of where we are in this war—uh, with China—that is being built up as we speak by the Trump administration, despite being seemingly tied up in many other areas.
Well, in the very beginning, I pointed out that all of these conflicts are ultimately interconnected. Undermining, overextending Russia is part of—is ultimately isolating and undermining China. Attacking and destroying Iran and removing a—a source of hydrocarbons for the Chinese economy and disrupting the entire Middle East, and hydrocarbons from all countries flowing out of the Middle East, disrupting that is part of undermining and destroying China. And so, when you really think about it, it’s—it’s doing all of these things ultimately to target China. It all goes to China. It’s not a coincidence that Russia and China and Iran all have such a close relationship.
I want to go back to something you—you were just saying that the US is demanding Taiwan to increase defense spending. Why would you have to demand Taiwan increase defense spending if there was really some existential threat that they—they faced? Why would you have to force them to increase defense spending? So, just—just right there shows you who the real troublemaker is. And again, I say this every time the—the topic of Taiwan comes up: under international law, according to the UN, Taiwan is part of China, is a province of China. According to the US State Department itself, if you go to their website right now about US-Taiwan relations, even though they erased the—the part that they had on there about not recognizing or—or supporting Taiwan independence, they still say that they believe in a one-China policy. One China means there’s only one China; Taiwan is part of China; and there’s only one government of China: it’s the People’s Republic of China in Beijing. Even the US understands that Taiwan is part of China. So, this—this whole conflict, all of this tension over the status of Taiwan, is deliberately pursued by the US, regardless of administration. President Trump is simply picking up exactly where President Biden left off. President Biden, throughout the four years of his administration, even though Ukraine was the—the central—foreign conflict everyone was paying attention to, it was reorganizing the entire US military to fight China, and that reorganization has completed just in time for President Trump to take over and—adopt this much more aggressive posture against China, over China’s sovereignty over its own internationally recognized territory. This is—this is how crazy US foreign policy is. When you peel back the—the layers of propaganda, rhetoric, confusion, and ignorance across the general public, when you actually look at what’s here, the US is—they have US forces on Taiwan, in Chinese territory. It is an act of war. It is—it would, if the roles were reversed, this would be inexcusable. The US would never tolerate this; they would already be at war with China. And so, this is—this the problem that China faces, and they’re—they’re facing it very patiently, in a very mature diplomatic manner. They know time is on their side, and they’re trying to resolve this peacefully over time, even if it means losing face, rather than rushing into war with the US, which the US is attempting to provoke.
Again, I just want to point out the US is demanding that Taiwan itself increase defense spending because they themselves are not willing to do this, because there really is no threat. The only threat to Taiwan is Taiwan becoming another Ukraine, the US turning it into a battering ram against the rest of China and having it flattened—uh, the surface of the island scoured of life, industry, and infrastructure—uh, you know, for the sake of another US proxy war against China, because the US itself refuses to give up—primacy over the world and—and adopt partnership with the rest of the world.
Here you have Taiwan’s first F-16 Block 70 fighter jet officially unveiled at Lockheed Martin’s Greenville, South Carolina facility. Attendance from Taiwan’s Vice Defense Minister, Prohung Hoy. Um, the Washington Envoy. Taiwan has ordered 66 of these F-16 Block 7s in an $8 billion arms deal; delivery is expected to finish late 2026 under Trump. And here’s the happy photo again. I mean, we—we warned people about this; we said that this is exactly what was going to happen. Look at his first four years in office; look at the people he—has once again surrounded himself with. If not Mike Pompeo himself, literally his ideological clones—uh, he has—and people like John Bolton and all these others are ideological clones. Even people like Tulsi Gabbard, a political chameleon—shape-shifting, changing color to—to suit whatever the—the tone is in—in the room at the moment. And—and obviously the policy has not changed because the special interest driving it—you just showed this picture of Lockheed Martin cashing in on all of this, of course, very happy—they were very happy in that photo. Exactly. And—and Danny, I want to point out a little detail people might have missed. You—you referred to an envoy instead of an ambassador. You—you referred to a—a Taiwan representative office instead of an embassy. Because even officially, as the US and Taiwan interact with one another, Taiwan is not a country. So, there is no US ambassador to Taiwan; there is no US embassy in Taiwan; and Taiwan does not have an embassy in other countries because it is not a country. It is not a country. So, just little details like this. And then when you look at the Western media, how concerted the lie is that China claims Taiwan is part of its ter—literally is part of its territory, and even Taiwan itself recognizes this by not having embassies and not having ambassadors from other countries—uh, coming to Taiwan because it isn’t a country. So, it just shows you how concerted the lies are—not just the left-liberal media or—uh, the right-conservative media—together, they’re doing this together in concert, and that should be a warning sign to people regarding all these other topics they might not be familiar with. This is how big and concerted the lies are regarding absolutely everything, which is why they get away with it, which is why they’re able to convince people of an alternate reality that does not actually exist. And a—and a reality in which President Trump can have spent four years—continuing—a single corporate-driven agenda, and people will still believe this time—this time he’s going to change; this time will be different.
I would like your comment actually on what the significance of these drills are because it’s not the first time China and the Eastern Theater Command has conducted live-fire drills, essentially circle—encircling Taiwan and showing off—China’s military strength. What do you make of—of this kind of response by China? This has become a regular reaction, and one that does send a pretty strong message. Again, if you—if you just heard everything that I just said about how Taiwan is not a country, how even the US does not recognize it as a country, how officially it recognizes it as part of China, China conducting military drills all around Taiwan—its posture toward the admin—the local administration in Taiwan—it—it really is an internal political affair of China, and the US has no business being involved. Yet the US is the central—core party driving this crisis, this internal security crisis of—of China. It would be like if China was putting troops on Catalina Island off the coast of California and sailing warships in between Catalina Island and the California coast and pretending somehow that it’s America causing the problem by—by reacting with its own military to defend its sovereignty over Catalina Island, which is indisputably part of the United States. So, this—if—if you reverse the roles, it becomes so clear just how wrong all of this is. And again, for people who still somehow think President Trump is pursuing peace with Russia, just look at this irrational, utterly dishonest, malicious policy visa v China regarding Taiwan. It is inexcusable; it is indefensible; and there’s no way to reconcile it with a genuine attempt to create peace with Russia over Ukraine. It just does not—does not add up. And so, what China is doing is what any nation on planet Earth would do when its territorial integrity is threatened. Under international law, as per the UN Charter, no nation is allowed to violate the territorial integrity or political independence of another nation, and this is what the United States is doing in Taiwan. China has every right to defend itself. The fact that it has been so measured, so patient, so reasonable—uh, shows you who the real dangerous actor is in all of this. Unfortunately, in the United States, a lot of the population—I don’t know to what degree—a certain degree of except—exceptionalism, supremacist mindset, also racism—just—just baseline racism against China, just because they’re Chinese, just because they’re not white and their—their nation is on the rise, is surpassing not just the US but the collective West. This just automatically translates into China is somehow a threat that we need to stop. I—I’ve seen people argue that without actually being able to make an argument, just because China is successful and it’s on the rise, they—they somehow think that China is just such an alien civilization and it can’t be trusted with this amount of power, no matter how badly the US has demonstrably abused its—its power over the last—uh, several decades, if—if not generations. So, yes, in regard to the exercises, China is doing what it’s allowed to do under international law: defend its territory.
Taiwan separatists are becoming happier and happier with Donald Trump in recent days. US made its first move to cut off Chinese access to high—high-end technology, hardened its wording and a pair of public statements on Taiwan in ways that are certain to wrankle Beijing. Alaska’s governor—uh, visited Taiwan earlier in—March to advance plans to sell its natural gas to Energy Star of Taiwan, while last month the Trump administration quietly released 870 million in previously frozen military aid to Taiwan and sailed two naval ships through the Taiwan Strait. Meanwhile, American military trainers have discreetly sustained their pace of activity with Taiwan’s troops, while political contacts between US-Taiwan have picked up, with officials of the White House’s National Security Council, State Department, and Pentagon offering reassurances. And this is what we said was going to happen: the US is running out of time; they’re becoming increasingly desperate and increasingly dangerous, and they’re escalating across the board. This was something that had already begun from—from Obi-W—Obama to Trump to Biden, and now it’s just continuing with this second term in office for President Trump. And again, it’s—if you understand where US foreign policy originates, it’s not in the head of President Trump or in the minds of his cabinet members; it originates in these think tanks that are funded by these immense, unelected—uh, corporate monopolies that—this is what they want, and this is what the US is going to pursue until somebody changes those dynamics, until those corporations are exposed and displaced and replaced by—by more constructive interests. This is how US foreign policy is going to proceed, and unfortunately it’s the very irrational—foreign policy, I would say unsustainable, even unobtainable. And the—the scariest thing about all of this is the—the lengths the US is willing to go to achieve this. I don’t know why anyone thought that President Trump in his second term wasn’t going to make—containing and confronting China a priority. He—he pretty much said it. JD Vance said it; he said we don’t—we shouldn’t be wasting weapons on Ukraine; that proxy wars lost—dump it on Europeans; we need the weapons to fight China. He said this before even stepping into office. So, why are people—surprised that now they’re doing exactly what they said they were going to do? Again, if you look at Project 2025, one of these corporate-funded think-tank papers, it’s all spelled out in those pages. Everything that they spelled out there, the Trump administration is obediently complying to and pursuing and—and overseeing—uh, so no, there’s—there’s no surprise here. This is exactly what the US has been doing; it’s what it will continue to do—uh, and it’s going to be—there’s not going to be internal change in the United States that changes this. This is going to be up to multi—the multipolar worlds—uh, to unite against this, to put in check—uh—unchecked American—military, economic—political aggression and interference worldwide, to isolate the US essentially until it’s ready to play a constructive role on the global stage. If you look at what Russia and China are doing, despite the existential threat US poses to both nations, they always are leaving the door open to the possibility of a United States that will play a constructive role sometime in the future—when maybe they don’t know—but they don’t want to close the door entirely on the US, despite everything the US is doing. Then and you can see Russia and China having the same posture towards Europe—uh, so they’re—they’re very rational; they’re very patient. I don’t know how people could honestly look at what Russia and China are doing and honestly what the—the US and its proxies are doing and draw any—any other conclusion. The—the fact that the US is so—so final on everything that it says, you know, if—if you don’t do this then—then we’re cutting everything off; everything is—is done; we’re going to bomb you; we’re going to do this and that. And even as they’re threatening the existence of these countries, these countries still try to maintain—you know, they—they try to recognize that the United States isn’t just these special interests; it’s also three—300 million-plus human beings that they would actually want to work with sometime in the future. So, they don’t—they don’t want to burn those bridges, and that they put a lot of effort into maintaining them—keeping them open. So, it’s—it’s—it’s tragic—uh, you know, every—every year the US persists along this path is a year human progress collectively is obstructed, and—and a better future for all of us is stolen from us. And I just—you know, stop for Americans and—and people abro—around the globe, stop thinking that well, at least it’s not Kamala Harris—that would have been worse. Actually, would have been literally exactly the same; they had the exact same policies. If you peeled through the layers of propaganda, left-right smoke screen, it was exactly the same. I remember people saying, “Well, imagine if it was Kamala Harris, there would be mushroom clouds.” And now we—we hear people saying, “The US might nuke Iran; that sounds like a mushroom cloud to me.”
Pete Hegsth and the Trump administration has been very busy establishing deeper ties for quote-unquote deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. Hegsth talked about, “Well, those who long for peace must prepare for war.” Or he literally said it during this meeting. Then he is off to Japan, where he says the United States is making Japan a warfighting base to deter China. Even as Pete Hegsth says Japan will be the military base for the United States against China, China, Japan, South Korea have jointly responded to US tariffs, and they are going to—seek to import semiconductor raw materials from China. Xi Jinping is going to make a few visits to Russia, going to attend Victory Day; there’s going to probably be another state visit with an opportunity to discuss bilateral relations, cooperation on international platforms. It—it seems like China has a lot of cards to play here, Brian, but your thoughts on the military buildup here because it seems like there are two contrasting pathways being walked by China and the United States.
Well, even though it’s the US pretends it wants peace with and reconciliation with Russia, it’s creating the—an identical conflict with China in the Asia-Pacific region. So, what it’s doing with nations like the Philippines—uh, Japan, South Korea—they’re—they’re politically capturing these countries or have already politically captured these countries, and they’re transforming them into battering rams to use against China, just like the US politically captured Europe and began transforming one nation after the other into a battering ram to use against Russia. The Georgia in 2008 is an example; Ukraine is—is the ongoing current example of all of this. So, it is the exact same process—uh, just versus China instead of—of Russia, instead of Europe in versus Russia. This nations—politically captured nations in—in Asia versus China. The Philippines is a particularly tragic—uh, example of—of what the US is really doing in terms of foreign policy. It used to be a literal US colony; it only gained its—its independence following World War II, but the US never gave up exercising control and—and—and political capture of—of the Philippines. And that leads all the way up until today. There were—there were brief moments in the Philippines’ history where they tried to kind of push back and carve out their own independent policies, foreign and domestic, but it—it never really amounted to anything. Have a—a much larger population than Thailand but a much smaller GDP because this political capture by the US and the use of the Philippines as a tool of the US rather than the Philippines existing for the people actually living there is—it has led to poverty, stagnation—poor development. And this most recent couple of years there was growing cooperation between the Philippines and China. Virtually every country in Asia counts China as its—its most important trade partner—investor—um, partner in terms of infrastructure, including the Philippines—uh, the US got the government to cancel all of these projects that were ongoing with China and instead redirecting the—the Filipino public funds into military spending and military spending specifically aimed at transforming the Philippines into a battering ram against its own largest trade partner, which is China. And you mentioned South Korea and Japan; these are two countries that also count China as their largest, most important trade partner. They understand that their future is with China; the US has nothing to offer these—these nations, nothing at all—uh, security guarantees against the conflict of America’s own engineering; that’s not—that doesn’t add up. And so, even though they exercise political control over the governments, the special interests in South Korea and Japan unfortunately are overruled by the much larger, more powerful interests of the United States, but ultimately they are doing business with China; they want to do business with China. And you can see every step along the way they’re basically kicking and screaming against this—this transformation of these countries into battering rams against China. And there—and the language is even—very open, like—like you just said, using Japan as a—as a base against China; it’s just—it’s insane. And they’re openly telling you what—what they’re doing. And they’re—again, they’re creating the exact same situation in Asia that they’ve just created in Europe that they’re pretending to—to be sorry about and wanting to fix, and yet they’re—they’re openly, actively working on this—the same policy in Asia. And by the way, China and Russia are—are key allies, and they depend on each other. So, collapsing China is a national security threat to Russia.
Yeah, it’s always so astounding. I think it’s—um, it’s incredible actually to watch as the United States—I mean—uh, somebody reminded me recently that—uh, the United States has over 100 military bases inside of Japan alone. And indeed it is—in fact, that is exactly what the United States is trying to do to Japan, and it’s trying to encircle China along the entire Asia-Pacific. But even as it does this, you’re so right, Bri, these countries depend on China. Is the—is really the hope of Asia that when we—about the Asia century, we’re really talking about the China century because it’s China’s economic miracle which will drive the entirety of—Asia’s development, in large part because the United States helped actually torpedo Asia’s development 40 years ago when it decided that it did not want to see Japan and didn’t want to see any of the other countries get too far ahead—China had the sovereignty to disallow that from happening to itself and was—was so far behind Japan and even South Korea at that time. So, all this is to say is that China—it’s China’s economic miracle that is driving—uh—really the future of that—of that part of the world and really in large part the entire world. And that’s what I think the Russia-China relationship and just overall how ineffective US policy—from the military encirclement to the tariffs—how ineffective it’s been in curbing its rise. I think that’s one of the most—uh—I think astonishing parts about this is that the more the United States pushes in this direction, the more actually that it isolates itself. And that’s what leads to—I think this final question that—we’re all wondering about—um, not that I’m—I’m asking you this—so I’m just—the final question is, well, what was the endgame here? And the endgame is eventually to find a way to wage war on China, to find a way to militarily defeat China. Insane—probably—and not—not only insane, it’s impossible because of the nuclear deterrence, but that’s the ultimate endgame here.