# Trump's Wars Raise Stakes For Taiwan

An episode of [SpyTalk](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1560016782), 5 Mar 2026, 1 h 02 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/audio4.redcircle.com/episodes/7d0c85c5-53e6-4916-b77d-f8fcd9617811/stream.mp3

Former top intel operative David Shedd says it's now "50-50" Xi will invade next year. David Shedd The Great Heist China’s Epic Campaign to Steal America’s Secrets Follow Michael Isikoff on Twitter: https://twitter.com/isikoff Follow Karen Greenberg on Twitter https://x.com/KarenGreenberg3 Follow Jeff Stein on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SpyTalker Follow SpyTalk on Twitter: https://twitter.com/talk_spy Subscribe to SpyTalk on Substack https://www.spytalk.co/ Follow Jeff Stein on Twitter | https://twitter.com/SpyTalker Follow Michael Isikoff on Twitter | https://twitter.com/isikoff Follow Karen Greenberg on Twitter | https://x.com/KarenGreenberg3 Follow SpyTalk on Twitter | https://twitter.com/talk_spy Subscribe to SpyTalk on Substack | https://www.spytalk.co/ Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

## Transcript

[0:00] \[SPEAKER_02\]: M-S-S-W-M-D-A-M-S-S-W-M-D-A-M-S-S-S-W-M-D-A-M-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S
[0:19] \[SPEAKER_03\]: I'm Mike Lizgoff.
[0:21] \[SPEAKER_03\]: I'm Karen Greenberg.
[0:22] \[SPEAKER_03\]: And welcome to another edition of the spy talk podcast Jeff Stein can't be with us today.
[0:29] \[SPEAKER_03\]: But we have plenty to talk about.
[0:33] \[SPEAKER_03\]: We've got a great guest David Shed, former veteran intelligence officer, former deputy director of the office.
[0:42] \[SPEAKER_03\]: of ODNI, Office Director of National Intelligence, former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
[0:48] \[SPEAKER_03\]: And he's going to share his pearls of wisdom on the war in Iran that's going on right now.
[0:55] \[SPEAKER_03\]: And also talk about his new great book, The Great Heist, China's Epic Campaign to Steel America's Secrets.
[1:02] \[SPEAKER_03\]: By Karen, let's just start out with the aforementioned war in Iran, Secretary Higgs-F.
[1:10] \[SPEAKER_03\]: the secretary of wars and Wednesday morning, we're just getting started suggesting that this could go on for a while.
[1:19] \[SPEAKER_03\]: I think most people are more focused not on how it starts or how it will be getting started, but how it's going to end your thoughts.
[1:28] \[SPEAKER_01\]: No, I think that's a really good way to introduce it.
[1:31] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I mean, we know what it means to be in a forever war.
[1:35] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We know what it means to go into a war without thinking through step two, three, four and five.
[1:41] \[SPEAKER_01\]: We've seen this before and now all of a sudden we're seeing it again.
[1:44] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And to make matters worse, I think the idea that there really is, we don't know, as you suggested, what the rationale is for this war,
[1:58] \[SPEAKER_01\]: nuclear weapons and deterring their nuclear capacity and their ballistic missile Capacity, what is it about and they keep changing it day to day moment to moment a Official to official and so what we know is what we know something from that We know that they didn't feel like they needed to come up with a statement about what it was about and that really is some Kind of a very disturbing a piece of what's going on right now Right, yeah, look there's obvious parallels which we're gonna
[2:28] \[SPEAKER_03\]: talked to David Shend, our guest about because he was actually at the National Security Council in charge of intelligence during the run-up to the Forten of Rack.
[2:38] \[SPEAKER_03\]: So he's got a good perspective on that.
[2:40] \[SPEAKER_03\]: But so there are obvious parallels with, um, with,
[2:45] \[SPEAKER_03\]: our decision disastrous decision and retrospect to invade Iraq, but at least during the bush years, the the the president and his administration felt they needed to make a case.
[3:00] \[SPEAKER_03\]: And they needed to go to Congress and tell us why we had to invade Iraq.
[3:05] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Now, of course, they're reasoning turned out to be completely foolishness and based on false intelligence, misreading of intelligence and all the consequences of that.
[3:17] \[SPEAKER_03\]: But in this instance, it's not, I mean, leave aside going to Congress asking as Bush did for a congressional authorization.
[3:28] \[SPEAKER_03\]: to invade another country, they haven't looked.
[3:33] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Trump hasn't even given a national speech to the country.
[3:37] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Here's why we need to do this.
[3:40] \[SPEAKER_03\]: The explanations keep changing, you know, Rubio says one day it's because of Israel and they were going to attack and therefore we have to do something and then that didn't sit well with anybody and so they had to come up
[3:54] \[SPEAKER_03\]: that there was a imminent threat.
[3:56] \[SPEAKER_03\]: And I wrote on spy talk this week, we're all talking about the parallels with Bush, but it was President Obama and his drone campaign that opened the door wide open for a redefinition of imminence.
[4:14] \[SPEAKER_03\]: And as I wrote about this week, there was a
[4:19] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Justice Department, white paper, explaining the reasons for our drone strikes to kill suspected al-Qaeda operatives, including one, al-Aqqi who was an American citizen, and in that in their legal memo on this, they said that there was a broader concept of imminence
[4:47] \[SPEAKER_03\]: somebody like a lockie.
[4:48] \[SPEAKER_03\]: It didn't mean an imminent didn't mean what the dictionary says it means.
[4:53] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Happening soon underway something about to happen.
[4:58] \[SPEAKER_03\]: It can mean sometime in the future because based on the pattern of activities of this individual, there's reason to believe he might
[5:15] \[SPEAKER_01\]: that you could drive a couple of nuclear aircraft carriers through which Trump has just done because well, first of all, we don't know that they wouldn't have done that with or without the imminent, the change in the word, imminent under the Obama administration.
[5:31] \[SPEAKER_03\]: No, but then they didn't have them cover to do.
[5:34] \[SPEAKER_01\]: but have they used it as cover?
[5:36] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I haven't seen have they?
[5:37] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Well, they keep saying, yeah, when the Rubio explanation didn't fly, they went back to Iran was an imminent threat.
[5:48] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Ballistic missiles and rebuilding their nuclear program.
[5:51] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Now, ballistic missiles we should point out that the Defense Intelligence Agency did a report last year that said they're not going to have an
[6:04] \[SPEAKER_03\]: fit into the definition of imminent to you.
[6:07] \[SPEAKER_03\]: The nuclear program, we supposedly obliterated it, but now they were rebuilding it.
[6:12] \[SPEAKER_03\]: We don't know how much, how close they are, where they are, whatever, but we're going to call it imminent.
[6:19] \[SPEAKER_03\]: And the elastic definitions of imminent give presidents enormous latitude to basically do whatever they want.
[6:28] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yes, and I think the elastic definitions of any of these terms that are associated with how we conduct war which have been abused for this entire century since the attacks of 911 have been one of the real problems and something I write about in subtle tools and I so I think it's not I think it's part of a bigger picture of how we use language to be.
[6:50] \[SPEAKER_01\]: to render it in many ways meaningless, which again makes it also iffy in terms of the law.
[6:59] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Because a law is meant to be very specific.
[7:02] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Right.
[7:03] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Right.
[7:03] \[SPEAKER_03\]: You want to tell us what subtle tools are?
[7:07] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Settled tools are what I call those tactics and strategies that are used that are not about the policy itself, but the way the policies are brought about and enacted.
[7:21] \[SPEAKER_01\]: What are the actual mechanisms that are going on?
[7:24] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And one of them is vagueness, intentional vagueness,
[7:26] \[SPEAKER_01\]: in crafting policy and law so that you can do basically whatever it is you want to do in a very broad way that is so it's not about the aim of what you're doing.
[7:38] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's about the way you go about it, which is then those tools still remain.
[7:42] \[SPEAKER_03\]: I'm trying to do that.
[7:44] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Opening to talk about
[7:46] \[SPEAKER_03\]: your book.
[7:47] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Well, that is what my book is about.
[7:48] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Well, but I don't have the title of the book.
[7:52] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Oh, the title of the book is Settle Tools as this Manson of American Democracy from the War on Terror to Donald Trump.
[7:59] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And it goes through a series of what I call Settle Tools that are not over policy decisions on the table.
[8:06] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But the mechanism and strategies by which these policies are passed and enacted, which are tools that still lay on the table
[8:15] \[SPEAKER_01\]: the axiom cells have become irrelevant, ceased, or have been, you know, performed.
[8:22] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Well, we are going to talk today about a book that has nothing in it.
[8:30] \[SPEAKER_03\]: It's not about subtle tools, it's about the most unsuttle tools one can imagine, and that's the way the Chinese are stealing our secrets.
[8:43] \[SPEAKER_03\]: David Shed, co-author with Andrew Badger is of the Great Heist, China's epic campaign to steal America's secrets.
[8:52] \[SPEAKER_03\]: David is a veteran intelligence officer.
[8:54] \[SPEAKER_03\]: He's with the CIA for two decades as an operations officer that he was a deputy director of Office of Director of National Intelligence.
[9:05] \[SPEAKER_03\]: He was Director of Intelligence at the National Security Council during the run-up to the Warren Iraq.
[9:11] \[SPEAKER_03\]: And he was later director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
[9:15] \[SPEAKER_03\]: So he's got plenty to say about all these subjects.
[9:25] \[SPEAKER_03\]: David Shed, welcome to Spy Talk.
[9:28] \[SPEAKER_00\]: It's my kind of language, Michael.
[9:31] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Yes, veteran intelligence officer at all levels, multiple continents.
[9:38] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Look, we definitely want to talk about your fascinating new book, The Great Heist about China, but we are at war right now with the government of Iran.
[9:55] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Raise a lot of questions about where this is going, what are justifications for doing it is, give us your top of the line thoughts on what you're seeing about this word or hand right now.
[10:08] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Well, this is a high wire act in terms of going in on Saturday and decapitating the the leadership, including Ayatoa Hamanai and the rest of the leadership 49, I believe, is the number that's out there.
[10:25] \[SPEAKER_00\]: In joint Israeli and US air campaign in terms of hitting these targets,
[10:33] \[SPEAKER_00\]: The high-wired act is, it is historically proven that there is no war that's ever been won from the air, and leading to the destruction of the ballistic missile sites and additional targets related to the nuclear
[10:52] \[SPEAKER_00\]: file in Iran is probably very much in keeping with the targeting packages that are being hit.
[11:01] \[SPEAKER_00\]: The idea that somehow it will bring about regime change is very much in question in my view.
[11:09] \[SPEAKER_00\]: after 47 years of the Iranian Revolution in subsequent to 1979, and having them come to power as we saw the U.S. embassy hostages take in all of that in 1979.
[11:27] \[SPEAKER_00\]: and see it where it is today.
[11:29] \[SPEAKER_00\]: The three observations, the IRGC, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and all those associated with the security apparatus, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, the MOS, and others will not go down without a fight, no matter what takes place.
[11:48] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Because it's really the preservation of an ideological religious driven motivation in terms of holding on to power.
[11:59] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Second observation is the in the 90 million in population of Iran you're talking about the vast majority are unarmed and incapable as we saw with the protests in January.
[12:13] \[SPEAKER_00\]: of, you know, my estimate is with many others well over 30,000 killed in the streets of various cities of Iran in terms of the protesters, having them go to the streets again, under these conditions, might very well lead to the same particular, same kind of outcome.
[12:34] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And my third observation is,
[12:37] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I don't know what winning looks like at this point, and I'm raised the question of when you start something as we well know, it has permutations and I go back to very different situation, very different circumstances perhaps, but it was by October 2003, you had the sons of a rock in, you know, out in.
[13:00] \[SPEAKER_00\]: in Ambar province and elsewhere rising up as a Sunni counter revolution in Iraq after the invasion of March 2003.
[13:10] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And as I sat at the NSC staff in the White House of George W. Bush,
[13:16] \[SPEAKER_00\]: it was very clear we were we were on the cusp of potentially losing the rock in that October 2003 timeframe totally unforeseen in terms of we weren't greeted with the room's failure and view of of rose petals and welcoming songs and all the rest in the streets of Baghdad and elsewhere.
[13:35] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Again, difference circumstance I understand I'm not drawing a one-fold
[13:40] \[SPEAKER_00\]: But the point is, is that war has consequences that on balance have more unseen consequences than foreseen outcomes.
[13:51] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so what where did this end up?
[13:55] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I have no doubt that we'll be fewer ballistic missiles that we'll be fewer.
[13:58] \[SPEAKER_00\]: the nuclear sites will be further degraded doesn't mean if they've taken the highly enriched uranium at 60% in hidden it that you've been able to find it and I don't think the regime falls as a result of this absent major defections and certainly a people going out to the streets again but against a very heavily armed counter response by the regime.
[14:24] \[SPEAKER_03\]: So let me just ask you because the goals of this war are a bit unclear at this point.
[14:32] \[SPEAKER_03\]: You just said that we don't know what winning looks like.
[14:35] \[SPEAKER_03\]: But it does seem at this point that anything short of regime change is not going to do it.
[14:45] \[SPEAKER_03\]: That that's really what they're after here and is there any way to achieve
[14:50] \[SPEAKER_03\]: regime change without boots on the ground troops inside a ramp.
[14:57] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Well, to say any way, the only way, absent boots on the ground, in which I don't think that's being seriously considered.
[15:06] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And like all of you, it's very hard to tell what are siopsens in terms of the psychological operational messages that are out there in terms of the threat of it, and not discounting it, and all of that is Secretary XF said.
[15:22] \[SPEAKER_00\]: is that you either have to have major defections from within the power structure that currently exists.
[15:30] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And now it's the son of Hamanai that is presumably taken over the range of power in terms of Supreme Leader along with, I think, a three-person council around him,
[15:43] \[SPEAKER_00\]: is without those defections and without a public uprising that is effective, effective in going against the regime, I don't think there's regime change.
[15:54] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I think it, now it's degraded from the standpoint of what it might be able to do with ballistic missiles as it's used up its arsenal of them.
[16:03] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And that sort of thing, I'm not denying that clearly there's damage done to the
[16:08] \[SPEAKER_00\]: There will be no navy for Iran for a while.
[16:11] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I mean, it's clearly degraded in that way.
[16:13] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Although I do think that when it comes to unmanned vehicles in terms of drones in that, of which they're very advanced, I think they probably have thousands to use.
[16:25] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And we've seen them using it against some of our own facilities in Bahrain and the consulate and so forth.
[16:31] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So that,
[16:33] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I don't know where the the uncle moment comes, you know, I've had enough, let's talk and and what does the administration think is enough to bring them back to the table to do this.
[16:46] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So that's the part that remains as an open question.
[16:50] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I have a question.
[16:51] \[SPEAKER_01\]: One of the things you write about in your book, which we're going to get to, is the sort of unbelievable knife-tay of American elites, including people in the American government.
[17:04] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And we can talk about that later in terms of your book, but you know, we also saw the video of the all the intelligence that was shared and the targeting of the compound that the leadership of Iran was in and how how that went according to plan and with so much preparation.
[17:21] \[SPEAKER_01\]: But what about the people that really understand Iran, culturally, politically, that you know, I've noticed that a lot of the people that were advising about Iran in all over the US government are now no longer in government.
[17:37] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Do you think that we have in place the expertise we need to understand what is going on on the ground so to speak in Iran?
[17:47] \[SPEAKER_00\]: That's been a challenge well beyond Iran in terms of expertise that has either left government service or isn't sort of in the first ring of influencers within the government as well.
[18:02] \[SPEAKER_00\]: In other words, there are
[18:04] \[SPEAKER_00\]: those who are ideologically driven to do what is being done, and then there are those who pragmatically look to close a deal.
[18:15] \[SPEAKER_00\]: But in both instances, those type of people oftentimes,
[18:20] \[SPEAKER_00\]: do not understand the culture, the background, the history associated with it.
[18:28] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I would be hard pressed to find administration officials that could take you back to 1953 and how the shock came to power, what the motivations were for the revolution in part.
[18:46] \[SPEAKER_00\]: It's intelligence is an interesting craft in that it brings expertise, but often times it brings the expertise that as you suggest Karen is an often welcome or at times not welcome.
[19:04] \[SPEAKER_00\]: because of the news that it delivers that this is going to be hard.
[19:08] \[SPEAKER_00\]: These this regime will fight back.
[19:11] \[SPEAKER_00\]: It's going to die because they're in an infinite game, which is of course a religious friver that's behind the Shea sect of Islam.
[19:22] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And to have that all kind of a delivered up and say,
[19:29] \[SPEAKER_00\]: This isn't a sure thing and certainly not with an air campaign, so defining what your objectives are, and defining the reasons as to why you win in.
[19:39] \[SPEAKER_00\]: uh... really do matter and they can't be shifting if you want a solid message to get the american people uh... both were represented is but then the american public more generally to be behind this effort and i think that shows up in the polling because it's unclear where this is headed notwithstanding that the objective in a lofty sense is is is you know bring freedom to the Iranian people so that every one would want
[20:07] \[SPEAKER_00\]: but the questions how and what are the expectations against that expertise and I'm not sure that expertise is always in the room.
[20:14] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I'll leave it at that.
[20:15] \[SPEAKER_03\]: So David, you've had quite a career in the intelligence community.
[20:19] \[SPEAKER_03\]: You were CIAD.
[20:21] \[SPEAKER_03\]: operations for nearly two decades than you were at the National Security Council during the entire early years of the Bush administration and you were there for 9-11, but you were there for the war in Iraq.
[20:37] \[SPEAKER_03\]: And all the intelligence mishaps have occurred during that run-up period.
[20:46] \[SPEAKER_03\]: You had a cat bird seat for all that.
[20:49] \[SPEAKER_03\]: And I just wonder to what extent do you see parallels with that experience with Iran right now?
[20:59] \[SPEAKER_03\]: And what are the similarities?
[21:03] \[SPEAKER_03\]: What are the differences that you see?
[21:06] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Let me start with the differences, and I remember a conversation with a great clarity of what Vice President Cheney and Secretary Rumsfeld and others who were kind of in that grouping recommended which was the entire debathification which took explained to the audience was of course
[21:33] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Kusay and Usay, his two sons and the rest of the Sunni minority of Iraq ruled from, and that clearing that out was the best thing for Iraq, and what it turned out to be was it created a enormous power vacuum.
[21:52] \[SPEAKER_00\]: that resulted in the sons of a rock arising as I mentioned earlier by, certainly by October set six, seven months after March, the March invasion of 2003.
[22:05] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So in contrast, the decapitation and then the occupation is clearly a difference
[22:16] \[SPEAKER_00\]: The decapitation of what now is in Iran is that the succession piece is clearly there in place, not to suggest that with the a very significant percentage of Iran's population and that that it's totally homogeneous.
[22:36] \[SPEAKER_00\]: is that certainly within the power structures of the clerics and the IRGC, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and the other power structures of security is they had a de facto succession plan.
[22:53] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I mean, they are now replacing those
[22:56] \[SPEAKER_00\]: and we're not there in terms of that.
[22:59] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So that's another difference.
[23:01] \[SPEAKER_00\]: The problem now becomes is what follows.
[23:04] \[SPEAKER_00\]: As I said earlier, that is an open question because I don't think there is
[23:14] \[SPEAKER_00\]: will not go down fighting and fighting to the brutal death, if that's necessary.
[23:21] \[SPEAKER_00\]: We saw them in a long war with the rocket self in the 1990s and the period there where chemical weapons were used and all that sort of thing, and they weren't vanquished as a regime.
[23:36] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So they have a tolerance for pain, they have a tolerance for certainly countering outside interference, as you might call it.
[23:46] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And there is no opposition to work with inside Iran.
[23:52] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so this puts the administration currently in a really, really tough spot.
[23:58] \[SPEAKER_00\]: in terms of what does change in Iran really mean, if it is about regime change, that remains the open question, but absent physical presence by U.S. and international forces or whatever it is external forces, it's not likely to happen absent again major defections and a view that there is an alternative for the Iranian people that don't support the regime.
[24:25] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Of course, the administration's messaging on this has been muddled to say the least.
[24:32] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Secretary Rubio, when he gave that explanation that, well, we had to go in because the Israelis were going to go in and therefore, they were going to raise where to attack us and therefore, we had to.
[24:43] \[SPEAKER_03\]: did not play well, not just with the manga base, but even, you know, people who might have been otherwise sympathetic, but the idea that we were forced by these railies to go in was not good for messaging.
[24:57] \[SPEAKER_03\]: So now they've circled back with the original just to think justification, imminent threat.
[25:02] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Now, exactly what the imminent threat seems a bit malleable.
[25:11] \[SPEAKER_03\]: I
[25:13] \[SPEAKER_03\]: exceedingly tenuous, but, you know, imminent threat was also the argument that the Bush people were using for going into Iraq.
[25:24] \[SPEAKER_03\]: So there seems to be a parallel, but in terms of imminent threat when you look at it, a lot of people see a we're stretching the word
[25:41] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Well, in Michael, I would place the invasion of Iraq and the faulty intelligence, which I was a part of being briefed into, as opposed to dissecting it or collecting it, at that point in my career, because I'm sitting as an intelligence policy person at the White House in 2003 or late 2002 in the lead up,
[26:06] \[SPEAKER_00\]: that led to it is along with 911 to the largest intelligence failures that I certainly experienced in my 30-plus year career.
[26:18] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And now the word imminent in which has often been used in the context of counterterrorism operations, I.e.
[26:28] \[SPEAKER_00\]: that is an individual or a unit or an element that's about
[26:34] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Ergo, you remove them through kinetic action or you somehow are able to detain them or have a friendly service go after them in terms of that.
[26:45] \[SPEAKER_00\]: A imminent threat is because there was a concrete plan of an attack.
[26:49] \[SPEAKER_00\]: on a certain, certainly periodicity that the three of us would understand to be imminent, which would mean, you know, in the next days, the few days a week, to two weeks, I mean, not years, I mean, and so it's interesting how the story has in terms of, you know,
[27:08] \[SPEAKER_00\]: making their case has in fact changed a bit and they have circled back to the imminent threat versus the the Israelis were going to do it in there for I heard Secretary Rubio's comments to that yesterday and and whatever he said today I haven't got the latest one in terms of the twist around it does it doesn't change
[27:30] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Well, we're going to take a quick break now, but when we're going to come back, we're going to talk about David's new book, The Great Heist about Chinese espionage and we're going to start out with a big question for him, and I think a lot of people who study and follow China are asking right now.
[27:53] \[SPEAKER_03\]: So we'll be right back.
[27:58] \[SPEAKER_03\]: And we are back with David Shed, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, veteran intelligence officer and co-author of the new book, The Great Heist, China's Epic Campaign to steal America's secrets.
[28:14] \[SPEAKER_03\]: So the big question I have for you, David Shed on all this, is you point out in the book that the,
[28:22] \[SPEAKER_03\]: 2023 annual threat assessment of the U.S. intelligence community concluded that President G has ordered the people's liberation army to develop the capabilities to invade Taiwan by 2027.
[28:35] \[SPEAKER_03\]: That's next year.
[28:37] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Does our attack on Iran?
[28:41] \[SPEAKER_03\]: which follows, of course, our attack on Venezuela.
[28:45] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Does it make it easier and more likely that President Z will, in fact, invade Taiwan?
[28:57] \[SPEAKER_00\]: My strong sense is that President Xi has learned a lot of lessons or continues to learn a lot of lessons both from Ukraine and now watching Iran in terms of the U.S. response or the real or offensive actions in the case of Iran.
[29:16] \[SPEAKER_00\]: In the sense that he is well, the People's Liberation Army Modernization continues to take cold through, in part, the heist, and we can get into some of the details as to that modernization being built off of what they have been able to steal from our industrial base here, is that
[29:45] \[SPEAKER_00\]: the 110 miles across from Fujian Province in China is really measured against the capabilities of what the adversary in this case Taiwan for mainland China for Beijing really have in their ability to fight back.
[30:02] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And I think that, as you well know, there has been a purge, taking place at the highest levels with General John being the most recent casualty of that purge in the basis of allegedly sharing nuclear secrets and, of course, you always throw in corruption just in case there's nothing else that you can put up with.
[30:31] \[SPEAKER_00\]: That was one of the rumors that of course, which is a very, very humiliating attack on a kindergarten partner of G's and his father who was both fathers were
[30:46] \[SPEAKER_00\]: long-march veterans and all of that, that you would attack your number one political competitor, the way you did, General Zhang, with that attack of being a spy in helping the United States better understand the nuclear capabilities of China.
[31:07] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I digress.
[31:08] \[SPEAKER_00\]: really on the on the whole question of more likely or less likely.
[31:12] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I think that that G is taking a pause to better understand what he is up against.
[31:22] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And I think he is a keen observer.
[31:25] \[SPEAKER_00\]: of both what has been occurring for the last four years in Ukraine slash Russia, and then by extension now the Iran.
[31:35] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Do we call it a campaign?
[31:37] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Whatever.
[31:38] \[SPEAKER_00\]: The under takings that are now in kinetic actions in Iran in terms of the capabilities of Iran to respond to that,
[31:47] \[SPEAKER_03\]: It seems like a good word to use.
[31:51] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah, right.
[31:52] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So I think it's a 50, 50 in terms of 20, 27 in going forward on that, but I would have to have insight information as to what lessons he's actually taking away, but he has a keen observer of them.
[32:07] \[SPEAKER_03\]: I should point out, since we were just discussing before the break, the use of the word imminent, but you wrote in the book pointing out that in June 2025, Secretary of War, Pete Hexf called the Chinese threat to Taiwan imminent.
[32:26] \[SPEAKER_03\]: So yeah, once again, use of that word, but you said it's 50, 50.
[32:32] \[SPEAKER_03\]: You'll do it next year of 2027.
[32:34] \[SPEAKER_03\]: What about going forward 2028 the rest of the decade?
[32:38] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Oh, I think that she has made it part of his permanent legacy to bring Taiwan into the fold is obviously used very, very different tactics in Hong Kong with the national security law and tightening the news around that and and
[32:58] \[SPEAKER_00\]: You see in Jimi Lea and others who are of course held hostage to that tightening news from Beijing and Hong Kong I don't think that's the likely scenario for something as complex and big and important as Taiwan.
[33:15] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I think that in the end Taiwan will fight back very very hard It's nationalistic in its own right
[33:22] \[SPEAKER_00\]: going back to, of course, the remnants from the escape to aspects of the, of the long march when Mao rode into pecking at the time.
[33:33] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so I think this will be a real war.
[33:37] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And now it may take on different dimensions in terms of initially courting it off in terms of access to the outside world and that sort of thing in hopes that it doesn't require an invasion.
[33:52] \[SPEAKER_03\]: And last question on this, and then I'll let Karen dig into some of the details in the book, but the fact that under this administration, we have been so aggressive in attacking other countries, kidnapping the leader of Venezuela and thinking back to St. trial, killing the leader of Iran,
[34:23] \[SPEAKER_03\]: And resist the Chinese attack on Taiwan when we are attacking countries left and right.
[34:33] \[SPEAKER_00\]: My fear is that the fact of the Trump doctrine is starting to carve up the world in a manner that it's solely if not primarily defined as US interests according to the White House.
[34:52] \[SPEAKER_00\]: that you kind of go for a settlement having to do with Russian Ukraine, that is the Dombas, or good portion of the Dombas is given to Russia, you know, that that's the settlement why because that's the sphere of influence of Vladimir Putin and the Russians.
[35:11] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And then in that case, Beijing, as it pertains to Taipei and Taiwan, is that's in their sphere of influence.
[35:21] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And I think there is this Monroe Doctrine that's applying now to the Western Hemisphere.
[35:29] \[SPEAKER_00\]: called the Donro doctrine.
[35:32] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I think that Cuba is probably in now.
[35:36] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I'll use the word imminent soon to be a country that additional pressure will fall on it as well as to Nicaragua and the Ortega's there.
[35:47] \[SPEAKER_00\]: uh that that I think that it makes it more likely for, uh, Jason King and the CCP and the PLA to read a message.
[36:01] \[SPEAKER_00\]: that that's in their sphere of influence in the United States will not intervene in the case of Taiwan.
[36:07] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I'm suggesting how they would be seeing it.
[36:10] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And that's why my eyes are absolutely fixated on this state visit.
[36:15] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Should it go forward as I suspect it will between Trump and going to Beijing next month?
[36:21] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And what does that conversation look like?
[36:24] \[SPEAKER_04\]: Explain, what do you think is going to take place at that summit that might affect this?
[36:31] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I'll give you first my fear, and then what I wish it would be, my fear is that it will be highly tactical.
[36:37] \[SPEAKER_00\]: It will be again talking about precursor chemicals for fentanyl.
[36:41] \[SPEAKER_00\]: which is a broken record in terms of what the Chinese can and should be able to do in terms of stopping precursor chemicals for fentanyl and in other aspects of that.
[36:52] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Secondly, a message about the sphere of influence for us as the Western Hemisphere, the United States that is, and sort of you need to understand that that's where we're going to push back on.
[37:07] \[SPEAKER_00\]: But you know,
[37:08] \[SPEAKER_00\]: We can find accommodations for it in terms of Beijing's interests.
[37:14] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And why can't we just get along and sort of meet in the middle?
[37:19] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Beijing and the book brings this out has no interest in meeting in the middle.
[37:22] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I mean, it has a view of the world in which they're coming out of their
[37:32] \[SPEAKER_00\]: that after joining the WTO in 2001, they are very much fixated on overcoming the United States in terms of its national interests and what it would determine to be a near-peer actual peer and beyond peer competitor adversary to the United States in the long term.
[37:58] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, I think maybe we should turn to your book in the time we have remaining.
[38:04] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So, first of all, I'll tell you, it's a terrific read.
[38:07] \[SPEAKER_01\]: For something that's so technology, you know, savvy and so complicated in terms of all the things you have to know to master this field.
[38:17] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You made it very readable for actual people who aren't.
[38:20] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So, so, no, thank you.
[38:28] \[SPEAKER_01\]: the United States and China, and how China has vastly won this war, and they've done so by stealing the intellectual property and data of American companies, etc.
[38:41] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So, I mean, that's kind of the overview of the book.
[38:45] \[SPEAKER_01\]: but there's a line that goes through the book as it's how did this happen, right?
[38:50] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And so there are right factors in how this happened and you explain them very well, but one of them is just this profound knife tag on the part of both business.
[39:00] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I think it's really interesting the way you talk about Elon Musk in the book.
[39:04] \[SPEAKER_01\]: and on some of the most pivotal people in the American government, starting with perhaps Bill Clinton.
[39:12] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And I just wanted you to talk about why this knife-tay was able to persist so long basically through 2025, as you describe it.
[39:23] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And what was there, where there are moments that you saw where that would, should have taken a turn that it didn't take and there were people
[39:32] \[SPEAKER_01\]: come on.
[39:33] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You got to pay attention to this in better ways or or not.
[39:38] \[SPEAKER_00\]: The night we take really begins with the grand opening of China 1972 in Richard Nixon.
[39:45] \[SPEAKER_00\]: But then you fast forward to our ability to ignore a seminal speech given by Deng Xiaoping in June of 1984, five years before Tiananmen occurs.
[39:58] \[SPEAKER_00\]: to a Japanese audience in Beijing in which he says there will be a co-existence going forward of a single party state, the Chinese Communist Party, of course, being the single party, and then with Chinese managed capitalism.
[40:15] \[SPEAKER_00\]: in the Mandarin that I never learned, it has been explained to me in very flowery terms.
[40:23] \[SPEAKER_00\]: This was essentially managed capitalism, Chinese style, that within certain guardrails.
[40:33] \[SPEAKER_00\]: capitalism would flourish, and that, in fact, the Wanchi, which is this relational aspect of Chinese owing one another and owing the state, a certain benefactor relationship, really kicked off in the 90s.
[40:55] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so it really, it, it, it goes a little further back than the Clinton administration in the 80s with George Herbert Walker Bush and Brent Skowcroft when he makes his secret trips that I lay out in the book to Beijing, including right in the, in the aftermath of, of, of what it occurred at Tiananmen in June of 1989 and really kind of overlooking it.
[41:24] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Why?
[41:25] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Because there was a grand strategy to bring China into, but formally was the general agreement on tariffs and trade to now the world trade organization.
[41:36] \[SPEAKER_00\]: That occurs by in a bipartisan way under George W. Bush in December of 2001.
[41:43] \[SPEAKER_00\]: My operations in the mid 1990s come to a screeching halt,
[41:47] \[SPEAKER_00\]: in and captured in the foreshad wings in the book, really with this naivety that really centered around two things.
[41:57] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And it was bipartisan.
[41:59] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And it was widespread.
[42:01] \[SPEAKER_00\]: It was incorporate.
[42:02] \[SPEAKER_00\]: It was in government.
[42:03] \[SPEAKER_00\]: It was on Main Street.
[42:04] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And it was certainly on Wall Street.
[42:06] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And it was that if China joined the WTO, they would play by the international rules.
[42:12] \[SPEAKER_00\]: The rules of trade, the international finance, think of Bretton Woods, think of IMS, think of all the sort of the rules put in place in the World War II post World War II and all of that and they would play by those rules.
[42:26] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Nothing could be further from the truth and that's what this grand larceny of our intellectual property brings out.
[42:41] \[SPEAKER_00\]: enormous amount of consumer goods in the U.S. even though in the 1990s when I was going there regularly and serving there perhaps for a while, you were seeing these knock-off piracy products all over the place on the sidewalks and everywhere.
[42:56] \[SPEAKER_00\]: low tech and all of that.
[42:58] \[SPEAKER_00\]: The 90-tate continues, though, as we go on the, the, the offense on the war on terror after 9-11, 2000 and 1, and whether it was Hujian Tao or Jean-Jameen, and then really Xi Jinping puts it, he turbocharges it in 2012, 2013, when he comes to power, and he launches made in China 2025 in 2015.
[43:23] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So 10 years ago now, 11 years ago.
[43:25] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And now it's been extended to 2030 in which he is intent on overcoming the United States and these key technical technology areas, Karen, the two point out that the book addresses in terms of intellectual property that Chris Ray, the former director of FBI, put at $600 billion or more a year in value.
[43:49] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So two thirds of our defense budget, for example, just to put it in context.
[43:54] \[SPEAKER_00\]: doubling the size of the Ministry of State Security which in China is the CIA, the FBI, cyber command, NSA and any intelligence to more than 300,000 operatives now that are working this and they're working those typhoon attacks that we hear about salt typhoon
[44:19] \[SPEAKER_00\]: The naivete though continues, all the while China's economy becomes interlaced, intergraded into the U.S. economy.
[44:30] \[SPEAKER_00\]: We saw fissures of that in the supply chains doing COVID.
[44:35] \[SPEAKER_00\]: It sort of brought a particular light on the supply chain pieces, whether it came out of Mexico and the supply chains that were coming into the US, not just in medical supplies, but elsewhere, kind of really brought home how little control we still had on our supply chains on these critical
[45:01] \[SPEAKER_00\]: in which there was generally this desire over and over to make this work, somehow the integration which would never have occurred with the Soviet Union.
[45:12] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Now occurred with China for now 40 years.
[45:17] \[SPEAKER_00\]: takes hold and it becomes integral to how the U.S. economy operates and vice versa.
[45:23] \[SPEAKER_00\]: The dependency that China has on markets in the United States for their products, goods and services.
[45:29] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so that's part of it.
[45:31] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Then there's the grand opening to China to U.S. investment, Western investment in China under joint ventures.
[45:39] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Now Musk Elon Musk is interesting because
[45:45] \[SPEAKER_00\]: groundbreaking in Shanghai for the Gigafactory in 2019, all the while a billion dollars in source code is taken by Mr. Cow and prosecuted against and all of that.
[45:56] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so it's playing that a little bit.
[45:59] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Can you what was the case?
[46:01] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So it's the industrial industry, it's the hook that tells you the story of where Elon Musk in the summer of 2018 syncs the deals for Tesla to go to China.
[46:16] \[SPEAKER_00\]: In his state of mind, Elon Musk says, I'm always going to stay ahead of a BYD or any other competition in the EV market, electric vehicle market.
[46:28] \[SPEAKER_00\]: all the while back at Tesla headquarters in a very restricted access area, a Chinese American
[46:50] \[SPEAKER_00\]: of all that software that now is in all the BYDs and other Chinese-made electric vehicles.
[46:59] \[SPEAKER_00\]: The point is that China had a very intentional plan to move the into the EV market and dominate it and now does.
[47:09] \[SPEAKER_00\]: If you look at Tesla's versus BYD in Europe and Latin America and Africa and it far exceeds
[47:20] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And I think in many ways Elon Musk has moved on, and it's really dominated now by the Chinese.
[47:28] \[SPEAKER_00\]: That that is that captures the fact that the Chinese while you're working in good faith with them, and I'm going to say that Elon Musk was working in good faith to access a 1.4 billion person market in China and all of that with Tesla.
[47:46] \[SPEAKER_00\]: all the while his pocket is being picked, or his computer is being downloaded, or whatever form you want to, and there are multiple stories of Google having this happen to it, Apple has it happen to them for their driverless cars, and on and on, Huawei does it in terms of the microchips and other things, and so the stories
[48:09] \[SPEAKER_00\]: that the book captures is this arc of a campaign as opposed to one offs that we read about almost on a daily basis of what China does in terms of capturing our intellectual property.
[48:24] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And for the viewer share with the listenership,
[48:27] \[SPEAKER_00\]: We're really talking about the blueprints.
[48:29] \[SPEAKER_00\]: It's the research and development.
[48:30] \[SPEAKER_00\]: It's the ability for them to bypass the cost associated with that.
[48:36] \[SPEAKER_00\]: It's not that the Chinese workers aren't hard workers in all the rest.
[48:40] \[SPEAKER_00\]: They just don't pay the initial cost associated with it.
[48:43] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And they leave fraud all that at our expense.
[48:47] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And then are where they are today.
[48:49] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Just to give everyone a sense of magnitude.
[48:53] \[SPEAKER_00\]: In 2001, China's economy was $1.3 trillion in nominal GDP, in same dollar GDPs in 2020, they were, I'm sorry, in 2024, are basically at 19 trillion.
[49:08] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And the argument is they could not have made that growth without this heist of this intellectual property, not only in the United
[49:22] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, and so it's kind of interesting because on a much lower level and a much different thing, don't you see this or do you see this as sort of they understood something you've trying you try to which we understood better, which is that national security is economic security and that we don't we don't do not understand that that is the base of our naive today.
[49:43] \[SPEAKER_01\]: And so I'm wondering, do you also see their belt and road initiative as a as a different
[49:51] \[SPEAKER_01\]: in that case, the access to production, the access to workers, et cetera, et cetera, or would you consider them completely separate?
[50:01] \[SPEAKER_00\]: No, I think they do, they overlap much like a venn diagram in the sense that Belton Road kicked off in 2012 by G and the CCP is really their soft power.
[50:13] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so they'll go in with loans that they never expect to have repaid.
[50:18] \[SPEAKER_00\]: but now they have the leverage.
[50:19] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So it's a deep sea water port in Peru.
[50:22] \[SPEAKER_00\]: It's the same in Uruguay.
[50:24] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I know the Latin America infrastructure pretty well.
[50:28] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Twenty countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have Belt and Road relationships with China.
[50:35] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And this is over.
[50:36] \[SPEAKER_00\]: This is where they simply, these are the exposure of their loans in Belt and Road in Venezuela, which they
[50:45] \[SPEAKER_00\]: But it's this idea that it's complementary to in terms of what the MSS, the Ministry of State Security, and the Great Heist is about.
[50:58] \[SPEAKER_00\]: It's not a one for one.
[50:59] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I mean, obviously, they bring in their workers.
[51:02] \[SPEAKER_00\]: They do the mining in Belton Road.
[51:04] \[SPEAKER_00\]: in the African countries for rare earth minerals they do these infrastructure projects all throughout America building the subway for Bogota under belt and road all those sorts of things they then apply technologies for their companies because as the national security or the
[51:29] \[SPEAKER_00\]: is that every Chinese citizen at home and abroad as well as any Chinese entity must cooperate with the CCP.
[51:37] \[SPEAKER_00\]: In that way, there is an overlap.
[51:39] \[SPEAKER_00\]: They clearly have invested interest in influence in these countries and any tool that allows them to have greater influence is to their benefit.
[51:50] \[SPEAKER_01\]: So given the fact that there's part of that naive tale or a large part of it is this refusal to see the, you know, great power competition, you know, outside of the military sphere, but all, you know, in the economics sphere and that we need to.
[52:07] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Do we need to do something government-wise?
[52:10] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Do we can business handle some of this lack of attention?
[52:15] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Where do you what needs to change for this to be addressed in a way that makes sense for the moment?
[52:22] \[SPEAKER_00\]: It's really interesting, I taught for eight years at a college level and as an adjunct and I can tell you one thing that I was impressed by was President Truman 1947 had the ability to foresee the role of the United States in global affairs after World War II.
[52:44] \[SPEAKER_00\]: and the national security act is passed, and that national security act is part of what I served in the NSC and CIA went from being the OSS, and so now you have a national intelligence capability, a centralized intelligence capability and all of that as a result of that.
[53:02] \[SPEAKER_00\]: My argument is this economic warfare that you suggested here, Karen, is the economic warfare requires a change of paradigm on the part of the United States, and it's the creation of a national economic security apparatus.
[53:21] \[SPEAKER_00\]: But this one would be different.
[53:22] \[SPEAKER_00\]: This one required having private sector as well as academia tied into it.
[53:30] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And then you say to yourself,
[53:32] \[SPEAKER_00\]: What crown jewels do we want to protect at all costs?
[53:36] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Not everything is decoupled from China, but what is it that we cannot afford from a national security standpoint?
[53:44] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And this is why I'm very concerned about H200 chips going to China from Nvidia.
[53:49] \[SPEAKER_00\]: They'll reverse engineer it.
[53:51] \[SPEAKER_00\]: That's what they do.
[53:52] \[SPEAKER_00\]: There is no assurance that they won't have the capability to take those and apply them to AI advanced AI models well beyond deep seek in terms of their version of chat GPT or whatever these other models are.
[54:08] \[SPEAKER_00\]: and so in the AI race why would we give them those sorts of things or why would we not protect those things that we must protect?
[54:17] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And that's what this council would really be focused in a.
[54:20] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So that would be the infrastructure part but it comes in tandem with really
[54:25] \[SPEAKER_00\]: raising the bar on at all costs, U.S. investment cannot go into these crown jewel areas in China, or vice versa, Chinese, Xinjiang capital cannot come into the U.S. in investing them and have a piece of the rock, so to speak.
[54:41] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And so you really cordon off what are those things in biotech in areas of microchip technology development that you really want cordon off from their access to it.
[54:55] \[SPEAKER_03\]: You know, in Trump's first term, he had a national security council staffer, not pottenger, who understood these issues and was quite, he was a hawk on China and really made efforts to ensure that our policy reflected the concerns you're raising here.
[55:16] \[SPEAKER_03\]: It's not clear that there's anybody like him.
[55:19] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Um, in the administration at a high level right now, um, and do you see that absence and do you see that reflected in decisions likely to video chip one.
[55:32] \[SPEAKER_00\]: uh... absolutely in a and a shout out from that pottinger who worked for me as well at one really in his career and yet dear dear friend of mine and consulted with the book and and he's he's clearly covered in the book as well because of his knowledge of uh... being a correspondent in Beijing with
[55:50] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Wall Street Journal and knows China inside and out, there is no voice like that in the administration.
[55:57] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And what that is led to is an administration and a president in particular who is far more tactical.
[56:04] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And he thinks everything is a transactional arrangement with China.
[56:10] \[SPEAKER_00\]: China in contrast is seeing this as far more strategic.
[56:14] \[SPEAKER_00\]: in terms of its interests.
[56:15] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So when there is that whole discussion of the rare earth minerals and the potential of China cutting us off on that 80% ish of the supply that they control of rare earth minerals and magnets, there's no voice inside the administration that I know of,
[56:33] \[SPEAKER_00\]: that is outspoken on this issue to the point that it says Mr. President, what you're seeing here is a hardball game played by China that essentially is gray mailing us on pick your topic, chips or anything else that we are engaging on transactionally.
[56:56] \[SPEAKER_00\]: The explain what you mean by that is the answer for the inability to have that supply until our reserves are up on rare earth minerals is a very, very serious problem for our auto production and many, many other high tech fields that where these rare earth minerals are used.
[57:24] \[SPEAKER_00\]: The gray male comes in and I think it's been laid out that China has given us one year of opportunities to get the rare earth minerals from them.
[57:37] \[SPEAKER_00\]: The gray male comes from, you know, in exchange, however, in video chips, or what else is it that they are using to leverage this,
[57:49] \[SPEAKER_00\]: control on rare earth minerals.
[57:52] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And I'm not trying to be conspiratorial.
[57:54] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I'm just thinking as an intelligence officer.
[57:57] \[SPEAKER_00\]: What would it be that they have over us that shaped our policy responses to China?
[58:07] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And it would be rare earth minerals and access to that for the foreseeable future.
[58:12] \[SPEAKER_00\]: It's open press information about they have 80% of the supply chain and we need them.
[58:21] \[SPEAKER_03\]: So last question you said before you were concerned about the upcoming summit that Trump may have with G. What is it that what's your worst case?
[58:35] \[SPEAKER_03\]: What are you most worried about that could happen at that summit?
[58:43] \[SPEAKER_00\]: The worst case is, and I'm not suggesting this will happen is that there is a handshake on Taiwan.
[58:52] \[SPEAKER_00\]: that in the name of preventing a war, there is an agreement that we will stop on sales, that we will message very clearly that we will not go with Taiwan in the event of an invasion or some form of mainland takeover, whatever form that takes, that would be a worst case scenario.
[59:15] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And next worst case is, sort of walking away believing that China has come to an agreement on equivalent to the Obama rose garden on cyber attacks and all of that.
[59:30] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And Trump walks away touting
[59:33] \[SPEAKER_00\]: these great agreements with China and they're laughing all the way.
[59:37] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Of course, they're not going to comply.
[59:40] \[SPEAKER_00\]: They'll have all kinds of alabies as to why they can't do it and all that.
[59:45] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Knowing full well, under COVID, he could shut down mega cities and all the rest.
[59:50] \[SPEAKER_00\]: So it's just not credible.
[59:52] \[SPEAKER_00\]: but walking away, touting great successes when in fact, there is no intent by China to comply with that.
[1:00:02] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Meanwhile, agreeing not to do certain things against China in the classified world of cyber and all the rest, we keep our part of the bargain they do not.
[1:00:13] \[SPEAKER_00\]: That's a worst case.
[1:00:14] \[SPEAKER_00\]: And type of worst case scenario.
[1:00:17] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Great.
[1:00:18] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Well, as sobering thought to close this out, but the book is the Great Heist, China's epic campaign to steal America's secrets.
[1:00:31] \[SPEAKER_03\]: David Shed, I want to thank you for a really interesting and important conversation.
[1:00:36] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Thank you for having me and as I say and Karen might this might rebound with you as well.
[1:00:43] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Don't read the book after you don't have caffeine and take in the day because you won't be able to sleep.
[1:00:48] \[SPEAKER_00\]: It's so serious and there aren't words to express how did we let this happen and it continues to happen.
[1:01:01] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Okay.
[1:01:01] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Well, thanks a lot.
[1:01:03] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Thank you.
[1:01:04] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Thank you.
[1:01:06] \[SPEAKER_03\]: And that's it for this week's spy talk.
[1:01:08] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Be sure to check out our complete podcast archive on Apple, or wherever you get in your podcast.
[1:01:13] \[SPEAKER_03\]: And if you haven't already, do check out the spytalk.co new site on Substack, where we offer a steady diet of scoops and original analyses on the intersection.
[1:01:22] \[SPEAKER_03\]: intelligence, foreign policy and military operations, just google spy talk and you'll quickly find your way there.
[1:01:29] \[SPEAKER_03\]: This edition of the spy talk podcast was smoothly produced as always by can I and expertly edited by Molly Hawkey for MSW Media.
[1:01:38] \[SPEAKER_03\]: That's it.
[1:01:39] \[SPEAKER_03\]: See you around on Michael Isakov.
[1:01:41] \[SPEAKER_03\]: I'm Karen Greenberg.
[1:01:42] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Thanks for listening.
[1:01:44] \[SPEAKER_02\]: For more original reporting and insights like this, subscribe to spytalk.co on Substack and follow us on Twitter at Talk Under Score Spy.
[1:01:53] \[SPEAKER_02\]: If you enjoyed our podcast, subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[1:02:04] \[SPEAKER_02\]: M-S-W-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-E-M-

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