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Intelligence Matters

China Expert John Culver on Beijing's Military Prowess

Intelligence Matters

CBS News

(154991), News, Cbs, Politics, Government

4.63.3K Ratings

🗓️ 30 June 2021

⏱️ 41 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode of Intelligence Matters, host Michael Morell speaks with John Culver, a career CIA analyst, former National Intelligence Officer for East Asia, and leading expert on the Chinese military. Culver and Morell discuss the decades-long modernization of the People’s Liberation Army and the prowess China has attained across multiple war-fighting arenas. Culver offers insights into Xi Jinping’s rise to and continued hold on power, and describes the many challenges of engaging Beijing in a multi-polar, interconnected global system.  

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Transcript

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0:00.0

This is Intelligence Matters, with former acting director of the CIA, Michael Morrell.

0:06.7

Brought to you by Lockheed Martin.

0:08.8

Your mission is ours.

0:10.8

China's primary ambition in the world is to keep the Communist Party of China in power.

0:15.6

That's why they react so strenuously to Tiananmen and why they react so strenuously to Hong Kong.

0:20.7

I think on the more kind of what they hope to achieve beyond survival is to validate their

0:26.0

system as legitimate.

0:27.5

They want to show that the liberal values that we're trying to the UN charter can be redefined.

0:34.2

When I look around today, there's sort of a breathlessness about Chinese military modernization.

0:41.4

It's really ramped up resources and they probably spend on the order of, I've seen various

0:45.4

estimates, about $250 billion in US dollars a year.

0:49.2

This is a strategic challenge, decades in the making.

0:52.2

It's not Germany in the 19th century.

0:57.8

What they can deploy today, especially in terms of area denial, anti-access weapons, is

1:04.2

truly unique.

1:05.2

Like, nobody has done more with precision-guided, conventionally armed ballistic missiles

1:10.8

than the Chinese.

1:16.6

John Culver is our country's leading expert on the Chinese military, having served as

1:21.3

an analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency for 35 years, retiring just last year.

1:27.3

In one of his last assignments, John served as the intelligence community's National Intelligence

1:31.6

Officer for East Asia, the IC's senior most expert on that region.

1:36.7

We just sat down with John to talk all things China.

...

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