From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Free Expression with Jerry Baker.

Hello and welcome to Free Expression with me, Jerry Baker from the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

Thanks very much for joining us. And if you're not already, please be sure to subscribe at Apple Podcasts, Spotify and elsewhere.

This week on the podcast, as tension with China over Taiwan reaches

new levels of uncertainty, and as the US continues to figure out how to handle a long-term strategic

challenge from China, we're going to look in depth at the condition, ambitions, and strategy

of the Communist Party leadership in Beijing. I'm delighted to say I'm joined by Michael Pilsbury. Michael is a long-standing scholar, commentator and policymaker on China. He's held positions in multiple U.S. administrations, including in the Pentagon and the State Department. He served on the staff of the U.S. Senate, authoring influential reports that have helped shape U.S. policy toward Beijing. He's been the director of the Center on Chinese Strategy at the Hudson Institute in Washington, says 2014, and he's the author of several books, the most recent of which was the 100-year marathon, China's secret strategy to replace America as the global superpower. But was not only a bestseller, it was very widely cited by key figures in the Trump administration, as they sought to reorient U.S. policy towards China. Michael Pillsbury joins me now.

Michael, thank you very much for being here. Well, thank you very much for having me.

So, Michael, let me start if we go with the immediate situation. Earlier this month, Nancy Pelosi

visited Taiwan to great consternation in Beijing, the first of the most U.S. official visit at Taiwan

since 1997 when Speaker New New Gingrich went,

it was seen as an act of defiance, a provocation by Beijing. Of course, China doesn't recognize

the independence of Taiwan and has pledged to reunite the island with the mainland and by all

necessary means. In response to the visit, we saw not only angry rhetoric from China,

but dramatically stepped up military drills with all kinds of disruption to shipping,

made all kinds of rather scary live-fire drills all around the island. And the tension,

even now, continues and concerns are mounting that this may be the prelude to some more dramatic action.

What's your take on this?

Is this just posturing by China, or do you think there is a real risk here that this could

represent perhaps the most significant escalation we've seen at least for 25 years?

Well, as you mentioned, Jerry, my duties over the last 40 or 50 years as a China

specialist have been to try to interpret Chinese behavior to Americans in the White House and the

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