Another Taiwan Straits Crisis? CIA veteran John Culver weighs in

Sinica Podcast

Kaiser Kuo

Culture, China News, Hangzhou, Chinese, International Relations, Chongqing, Beijing, Sichuan, Currentaffairs, China, Politics, Chengdu, Shanghai, Guangzhou, China Economy, News, China Politics, Business, Film, Shenzhen

4.8 • 676 Ratings

🗓️ 4 August 2022

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In a week dominated by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, Kaiser welcomes John Culver, who served as national intelligence officer for East Asia from 2015 to 2017 and as a CIA analyst focusing on China for 35 years. John offers his perspective on Pelosi's trip and provides important context with a discussion of the last Taiwan Straits Crisis, in 1995-96 — a crisis touched off by Lee Teng-hui's decision to visit Cornell University, his alma mater. John also draws important parallels to the Diaoyu/Senkaku crisis of the fall of 2012, after the Japanese government nationalized the disputed islands.

2:47 – A walkthrough of the last Taiwan Strait crisis

13:45 – How China's growing capabilities could affect its decision-making in future Taiwan crises

19:52 – Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan and the political environment surrounding her decision

25:14 – Explaining China's interpretation of U.S. actions and the Chinese domestic political context

32:21 – Parallels to the 2012 Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands episode

35:22 – The potential fallout of this crisis

A complete transcript of this podcast is available at SupChina.com.

Recommendations:

John: The late Alan Romberg's exegesis of the US-China negotiating record, "Rein In at the Brink of the Precipice" and Ryan Hass's book Stronger: Adapting America’s China Strategy in an Age of Competitive Interdependence

Kaiser: Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada — and the town of Canmore as a great place to stay nearby.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Cineka podcast, a weekly discussion of current affairs in China produced in partnership with SUPChina.
0:15.2	Subscribe to SubChina's daily, newly designed China Access Newsletter to keep on top of all the latest news from China
0:21.2	from hundreds of different news sources. Or check out all the original writing on our website
0:25.7	at suprinia.com. We've got reported stories, essays, and editorials, great explainers and
0:32.0	trackers, regular columns, and of course, a growing library of podcasts. We cover everything from China's
0:38.9	fraught foreign relations to its ingenious entrepreneurs, from the ongoing repression of Uyghurs
0:44.0	and other Muslim peoples in China's Xinjiang region to Beijing's ambitious plans to shift the
0:49.2	Chinese economy onto a post-carbon footing. It's a feast of business, political, and cultural news
0:55.8	about a nation that is reshaping the world.
0:59.1	We cover China with neither fear nor favor.
1:02.8	I'm Kaiser Guo coming to you from Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
1:06.4	Just a little over three hours ago, around 10.45 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday, August 2nd, a plane carrying
1:13.5	a congressional delegation headed by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi touched down in Taipei.
1:19.4	In the weeks prior to this, from the time her plans were first leaked to the press,
1:24.1	there's been non-stop commentary on what this means, wisdom or folly, standing up to a bully
1:29.5	or baiting a bear, enhancing Taiwan security or undermining it. And there's been no shortage of
1:35.4	speculation on what Beijing's reaction to it might be. Already we've seen part of it,
1:41.5	Sinha has announced that the PLA will conduct a three-day military exercise
1:45.5	in the Taiwan Strait and in the waters around the island, something that looks suspiciously
1:50.2	like a blockade. And there have already been some sanctions imposed, bans on importation
1:56.7	of certain vegetables and other agricultural products from Taiwan.
2:06.0	So as we now enter what might be called the fourth Taiwan Straits Crisis,
	...

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