Daily provocations from China and Russia against the Philippines

0:00 Speaker 1 Sunday morning. What’s going on in the Far East? Well, our expert Gordon Chang and his Twitter at Gordon g Chang is with us this morning and he is an authority and with the Gatestone Institute as well. Gordon, what’s going on over there? I mean, there’s such a there’s so many things happening. You tell us.

0:28 Speaker 2 Yeah, in China right now, it has engineered a series of extremely provocative acts against the Philippines. And this started in the last few days of last month and it’s continuing. There are now daily provocations by China and Russia against the Filipinos. And I don’t know exactly what Beijing has in mind, but each day seems to get more serious,

0:53 and they seem to be staging more and more forces for something even more provocative later this month. I hope that’s not the case, but right now it seems Beijing is on the war path.

1:06 Speaker 1 Understood and will give us the feelings of while Beijing is thinking of handling President Trump’s and his desires.

1:19 Speaker 2 Yeah, s Jianping. I think for the first three weeks of November was very wary of President Trump, and there were no provocations, no belligerent acts in China’s peripheral seas and waters, and that’s a real indication that the Chinese leadership didn’t want to gone the incoming American president. Now, I think they are seeing a window of opportunity with

1:43 the Biden administration that is basically left office, and so they see that they have an opportunity to make gains against, for instance, the Philippines, but also they’re provoking South Korea and Taiwan at the same time. The other thing john that’s going on inside China is that the purges at the top of the Chinese military are continuing, and they

2:07 very well may be increasing in pace. So we saw the number five Chinese military officer placed under investigation. There’s also stories that the Defense Minister is being investigated as well, and there are rumors that the commander of the Eastern Theater Command, which is one of the most important positions in the Chinese military because that’s the guy who would

2:31 be waging war on Taiwan or Japan or the Philippines, there are reports that he actually committed suicide recently. So China right now, it’s military is in a state of turmoil.

2:45 Speaker 1 Understood now, is it what side are those people that are being they accidentally fall out of their fifth floor window like in Moscow. What side are they on? They are taking Taiwan or moving against Taiwan or more of a piece.

3:05 Speaker 2 I think that the people who are being removed are basically allies of Sigean Ping, and that suggests one of two things. Either that Sijan Ping is not controlling the Chinese military right now, somebody else is, and that somebody else is purging Sijanping’s favorite officers. Or the alternative explanation is that Sigenping has become very much like Stalin, who

3:30 became a paranoid and who was sacking his own picks, his own favorite officers. There could be a combination of both, but right now there is a lack of visibility into what is happening. All we know is the purges are continuing, and that suggests and this has been going on now for better part of two years, so we know that

3:54 this stability in China is there’s just not very much stability in the military.

4:00 Speaker 1 And you know, you’ve been on this for so many years good and nobody really understands it as well as you do, and you feel that Chiji thing is going to make an effort to cooperate with Trump and work things out. Well.

4:20 Speaker 2 I think that every leader in the world, including Cijimping, thinks that they can make a deal with Sijimping, or at least they’re going to try, so that might be his dominant mood in the first couple of months of the Trump administration. However, if the Chinese feel that there is no deal possible, then we could see some more

4:40 turbulent activity. The other thing is, and this we just it’s very hard to figure out, is whether the instability inside China will lead Si Jimping to become more peaceful or more aggressive. I’m guessing more aggressive, but I could easily be wrong on that. But right now, there are so many moving parts in China that it is just

5:01 not possible to make predictions with any degree of certainty.

5:06 Speaker 1 And this, you know, are the Philippines really being targeted or you think that they’re just making noise.

5:17 Speaker 2 I think that they are really being targeted because Si Jumping looks like he needs a quick and casualty free victory. He knows he can’t get that with Taiwan. He believes the Philippines are weak, and he also believes that the United States won’t come to the aid of the Philippines, even though we have a mutual defense treaty dating back

5:37 to nineteen fifty one that requires us to do so.

5:40 Speaker 1 I’m not I believe he’s right as far as as President Trump or a President Harris. No, I mean President Biden or President Harris. But President Trump is not going to allow that to happen.

5:53 Speaker 2 You must, I don’t think. Yeah. I don’t think Trump is going to allow the Chinese to take advantage of this or take advantage to the United States or in their friend or partner of our country. And that’s a good thing. The one thing that I don’t know is whether the domestic pressures on Sigimping are so great that

6:14 it will force him to do something. I don’t think that he would start a war to rally the Chinese people. The Chinese people now are too alienated, disgusted, and resentful that Cjping knows a war would be unpopular across China.

6:28 But Sjping needs a war to prevent other senior Communist Party leaders from opposing him, and that is something that is a reability. But we just don’t know the extent of the pressures inside the regime. We do know that they’re great, but we don’t know how great they are.

6:46 Speaker 1 Understood well, Sunday morning, anything else you want to tell the American.

6:51 Speaker 2 People right now? China is as I mentioned, turbulent. Turbulent societies are very hard to they can lash out, and especially we see Russia and Iran also weakening. So here we have the major aggressive powers are all hitting in the same direction, and they’re not about to fail on without lashing out. So we need to be prepared as

7:17 a society.

7:18 Speaker 1 Understood well, Gordon Chang your Twitter at Gordon g Chang. That way everybody could stay on top of what you’re thinking twenty four hours a day, even at three o’clock in the morning, which is probably three o’clock in the afternoon in China. Thank you so much for coming you on this Sunday morning, and Merry Christmas, a happy New Year.

7:38 Speaker 2 Well, Merry Christmas and happy New Year to you John and to your staff, and thank you so much.