I'm John Batchler. The day after the State of the Union, I welcome my colleague and friend Gordon Chang at Gordon

G. Chang and our good colleague at the Heritage Foundation, Steve Yates. Gentlemen,

headlines from London in these last hours. Friedrich Merritt meets China Xi Jinping as trade

tensions mount. That's the Chancellor of Germany, shaking hands with Xi Jinping.

And then this from London, the telegraph.

Japan to deploy missiles on island near Taiwan subhead.

Tokyo to expand military capabilities on potential front line with China in next five years.

Gordon, your thoughts about Mertzen-Berget, Taki-Sanai, bolstering the defenses in the First Island chain, and last night's speech, altogether. Gordon. What we see is Trump

going soft on China, sort of trying to put the issue in the background.

This sort of mimics what he did in 2020, where he actually sort of did not discuss the important points about China.

The reason I mentioned this, John, is on January 31, Las Vegas SWAT and federal agents found what appears to be the second Chinese biological weapons facility in the United States, suggesting that the Chinese regime plans a mass attack on the American people.

And I think that that deserved some attention in the state of the union, because we're talking about the lives of many Americans.

If nothing happens, people will forget.

But if there's an attack on the United States from China this year, people are going to say that President Trump did not attend to what was the most critical national security threat.

Steve, a very good day to you. We have Germany in Beijing and Tokyo on the front line

building defenses in the first island chain. History doesn't repeat itself to Steve, but it does

rhyme. It is striking that the two major combatants of the first

half of the 20th century are here now in playing defense in the first half of the 21st century.

Your measure of China's position with regard Europe and with regard Japan.

Well, there's, I think, a different level of mugging by reality going on in East Asia versus in Europe.

It's been a much slower process in Europe.

But in both cases, neither of the leaders of these countries, their predecessors, wanted to be pulled into a conflict.

...