This is CBS, I'm John Batchett with my colleague and friend Gregory Coppy, the editor in

Publishment of Defense and Foreign Affairs.

We began in 1982 in the Falcons War.

We moved quickly to the threat identified in a new book published in Australia in Chinese

language, not translated yet, according to Gregory, about the final battle in the Taiwan

Strait, written by someone who knew Xi Jinping as a young man.

Now we introduce one more unpredictably irrational factor that is Moscow after the attempted

mutiny by Progosen and his private army, the disappearance of Seroviken, the commander

in the South, General Armageddon, the non-appearance over these last days of Gerasimov, the commander

in chief, the chief of staff of the Russian military.

How does his all suit Xi Jinping's irrational concept of the world and what he must do, Gregory?

I think that Xi Jinping doesn't understand Russia or what's going on there.

He doesn't fully understand that the Russians don't trust the Communist Party of China.

He knows that there's no love loss between Moscow and Beijing, but the reality is I think

that Xi is unaware as to what this might mean for the PRC.

Anyway, the Vagna mutiny was not something which has a direct parallel in the People's Republic

of China because the PRC has the People's Liberation Army, which is a now very, very tightly

controlled formal military structure under the party.

In Russia, the Vagna group was actually a mercenary group, a professional military company

which the Russian government was using around the world to do things that the Russians

did not want to raise to the profile of formal military intervention.

I mean, for example, the Vagna group has operations throughout much of Africa, particularly

...