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00:00.9
All right, everyone. Good evening, good morning, good afternoon, depending on where you're joining us.
00:06.2
Of course, this is the Richard Hedarn Podcast, otherwise known as Meta Podcast.
00:11.2
Gladly, of course, we can proudly say one of the leading political podcasts in the region and beyond.
00:17.2
And today, since we want to keep our international profile up, we have a very good friend of mine, Raymond.
00:23.7
Raymond Powell, thank you very much for joining us.
00:26.9
Thanks, Richard. It's great to be here.
00:28.0
And you're joining us from California, right?
00:31.5
Yeah, so just to remind everyone that our good friend here is making such a big sacrifice,
00:36.1
considering it's like, what, 16 hours time difference, even worse than Washington, D.C.
00:40.0
So thank you so much for waking up at 6 a.m. or so.
00:43.4
I know our friends would love us to even do this earlier, but I think this is the most reasonable we can do under the current circumstances.
00:51.3
Now, speaking of reasonable circumstances, unfortunately, that's not what we have in the South China Sea or West Philippines,
00:58.2
But before we go into the nitty-gritties and the latest developments in the area, Raymond, for the purpose of some of our audience who may want to know more about you,
01:06.5
and hopefully we can have you more regular over time, can you tell us a little bit about yourself first, your connection to the Philippines,
01:13.5
so that people don't realize you're just not a random, I don't know, white dude making comments and stuff.
01:17.4
You're not, right?
01:18.6
And just as important also, what your center, the Gordian Knot Center, does and what's in contribution.
01:25.7
So thank you again for joining us.
01:28.7
Yeah, so I first came to the Philippines in 1988.
01:34.2
I was a young military guy.
01:37.2
I was stationed at Clark Air Base, which is in Pampanga, which is also very close to a mountain that people may be familiar with, Mount Pinatubo.
01:48.1
And so I was there in 1991 when the volcano exploded.
01:53.5
And at that time, together with my young newcomer,
01:57.6
a new bride, a Filipina from Davao City, was evacuated and ended up on a ship
02:06.1
because that was the only way you could get people out right after the volcano.
02:10.1
So I spent three years in the Philippines at that time.
02:12.9
And of course, I am now married to the Philippines for over 33 years.
02:18.1
Before I go to your center, wait, so you were in Pampanga, but you married from Davao?
02:23.5
Yeah, she was working at a little truck.
02:27.6
I went to church right off the military base.
02:30.3
So I was a good boy.
02:32.5
I was going to church and I met her there.
02:35.6
I mean, what better place to meet your lifetime partners?
02:38.8
God bless you guys.
02:39.8
And of course, more than 30 years and going strong.
02:42.7
Now, of course, you spent time a lot in the military throughout the years,
02:46.9
but now you're with a very, I would say, edgy, cutting-edge center now in Stanford University.
02:54.0
Can you tell us a little bit about Gordian Knot?
02:55.9
What was the idea behind it?
02:57.6
We can check on website, but from you, from someone within,
03:01.3
can you tell us a little bit about your center in Stanford?
03:04.0
So the interesting thing about Gordian Knot, first of all, as it relates to me,
03:07.4
I am actually a volunteer with Gordian Knot.
03:10.1
So I got started with Gordian Knot about a year and a half ago.
03:14.5
They run a program in which students try to innovate for national security answers to thorny questions.
03:24.4
They get questions that are real-world questions.
03:27.6
For young students to try to solve.
03:30.0
And a lot of them get solved in very innovative ways.
03:32.6
And sometimes new initiatives are launched and companies are launched.
03:36.2
And I joined them actually because I know the director, a guy named Joe Felter, pretty well from previous life when I was a defense attache.
03:48.8
And he was working in the Pentagon as a deputy assistant secretary of defense.
03:52.7
And I got started with them.
03:54.4
And I just went to them and said, look, I'm interested in this.
03:57.5
South China Sea, I see what you guys do here with hacking for defense.
04:01.0
It's interesting to me.
04:02.9
I feel like the South China Sea is a place that innovation should happen.
04:06.6
Because, frankly, I don't understand the U.S. strategy.
04:09.5
And it feels like we're losing in slow motion.
04:11.6
And I'm not really sure what we're doing.
04:13.6
So how about if I just start a project?
04:16.4
And they said, okay.
04:18.0
You know, being an innovation center, they were open to sort of randos coming in from wherever and saying, I'm interested in this.
04:26.6
And so, and a bunch.
04:27.5
And a bunch of people just got interested in the same thing.
04:29.8
So the weird thing about our project, which ended up, of course, being called Sea Light, is that we're all volunteers.
04:38.1
And I have some interesting people on Facebook and Twitter who follow me and troll me and accuse me of all kinds of nefarious activities and, you know, involvement with the CIA.
04:52.9
And I recently had one guy who said I had a $500 million propaganda budget.
04:58.7
I actually have a $0 propaganda budget.
05:01.5
I have a $0 anything budget.
05:03.4
I'm living off of my military pension and, you know, a part-time job and my wife's job as a teacher.
05:12.7
And doing what I do because I kind of have a passion for the Philippines.
05:17.7
I love the Philippines.
05:18.5
Of course, I've been married to it for a long time.
05:20.5
And I'm interested in this topic.
05:24.9
Thank you for that.
05:26.8
Joe is someone that many people involved in the Asia-Pacific, Indo-Pacific affairs have been familiar with.
05:33.3
Of course, with some of us who have connections also at Stanford via Shorenstein Center, among others.
05:38.4
Fantastic stuff there.
05:39.4
And, of course, there are also some very senior officials, including James Mattis, also involved there, right?
05:48.5
Jim Mattis, of course, you know, again, he was a defense secretary when I was defense attache in Australia.
05:54.7
And have had the chance to.
05:56.8
Interact with him a few times because he is a regular here.
05:59.3
He now lives up in Washington State because very late in life, he decided to get married.
06:08.6
He was known as the warrior monk.
06:11.7
Is he still a monk?
06:13.2
I mean, I was about to ask, right?
06:14.8
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
06:15.6
Oh, he's now happily married.
06:18.4
And when he comes down, he's got a big smile on his face.
06:21.3
So it's always great to see him.
06:23.7
But, yeah, we see him from time to time.
06:26.8
It is good to see people having a new life after especially serving under administration like that of Trump administration.
06:34.1
Now, can you tell us a little bit first about what exactly are you guys doing under your project?
06:41.6
So we have an idea about the center.
06:43.5
So center is about, you know, really bringing people from different background, policy, technology, private sector, business.
06:51.1
And it's Stanford, of course.
06:52.5
That's really what Stanford is all about.
06:54.1
But particularly your project, what is all about?
06:56.8
You just set up your website when life just over a year ago or something?
07:01.8
Or time is faster than a year ago.
07:04.3
I'm trying to keep in touch.
07:06.9
No, it was just under a year ago.
07:08.4
It was July of last year.
07:09.7
It was actually the anniversary of the Arbitral Tribunal ruling.
07:13.8
So I was in Manila for the launch of the website.
07:18.5
And we essentially – so the website, there's really a couple of avenues that I usually put information out on.
07:25.4
One is the website.
07:26.2
The other, of course.
07:26.8
My X feed or my Twitter feed.
07:30.2
But it's all about the idea of maritime transparency.
07:33.7
And I'm not the first person to do maritime transparency.
07:35.9
In fact, you know, CSIS has a very famous Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative project that they've been doing for over a decade.
07:44.1
And we got a lot of inspiration from them.
07:45.8
And we really respect what they do.
07:48.7
I have a little bit – with SeaLight, we have a little bit of a different place in the transparency ecosystem.
07:55.6
Where they do more sort of, you know, finely tuned, very highly, you know, produced products that they put out.
08:06.9
Really good stuff.
08:11.0
No, I'm not as highbrow as them.
08:12.8
But they have a lot more money than I do.
08:15.4
I probably do it too.
08:17.0
I mean, I love Greg.
08:17.8
We had him on this show also.
08:20.2
So it's always stuff more transparency on this show.
08:23.1
Hey, I've got nothing but respect for those guys.
08:25.6
And I'm more like the beat reporter on the corner who says, look at what I'm watching now.
08:31.4
This is what's happening.
08:32.4
And, you know, and so I sometimes make mistakes, you know, because I'm sort of putting things out as they happen.
08:40.4
I try to correct those as quickly as I can if I do.
08:43.9
But so, again, I'm more like the, you know, if you think about the reporters that go out with the resupply boats.
08:53.4
I do something similar.
08:55.6
Except for I do it from a lot further away than they do.
08:58.8
I mean, just about.
09:00.1
So you served also in Southeast Asia before, right?
09:02.4
Was it like Vietnam or something?
09:04.0
Just some idea also about, you know, I mean, of course, you're married to the Philippines.
09:08.1
But in terms of your service, you were based in Vietnam, if I'm not mistaken.
09:13.5
And in fact, almost the very first thing I ever did as a young military guy was to go to Vietnamese language training.
09:21.9
Because, you know, back in the late 80s, we were still in the middle of the Cold War.
09:25.6
And frankly, we were interested in Vietnam for completely different reasons back then.
09:29.1
There were Soviet bombers flying out of Cam Ryan Bay.
09:32.5
So, frankly, I was involved in intelligence work.
09:35.5
But many, many years later, about 10 years ago, I and my family were in Hanoi.
09:42.5
And I was the U.S. Air Attaché.
09:44.5
And I used to tell the Vietnamese officers, you know, look, I used to, frankly, I used to spy on you guys.
09:50.8
But now I'm here as a military diplomat because we're partners now.
09:55.6
Can you tell us a little bit about the transformation of your relationship with Vietnam?
09:59.3
Because I think that's also one of the most fascinating things in our part of the world.
10:03.4
I mean, I've spent a lot of time with our Vietnamese friend, obviously, in the context of South China Sea, our arbitration case.
10:08.4
And I remember very well during a meeting we had in North Korea with very senior officials, one of our Vietnamese friends openly said,
10:16.3
maybe you want to learn from Vietnam that, you know, life is not about eternal enemies.
10:19.9
It's about national interests, right?
10:21.7
And look at us in Vietnam.
10:22.9
We're still standing with our national autonomy.
10:24.7
But we're opening up our economy, providing for our people.
10:27.8
And welfare maximization is the, you know, the ultimate goal of, I don't know, socialist republic, modern social.
10:33.4
So can you tell us about how you understand it as an American when it comes to the Vietnamese relationship?
10:40.3
Well, of course, you know, we only normalized relations with Vietnam in 1995.
10:44.2
So it hasn't been, it's been less than 30 years since we've even had an embassy there.
10:48.7
I was only the second ever U.S. Air Force attaché to be stationed in Hanoi.
10:53.6
So it's still a young relationship.
10:56.5
I have, you know, complicated thoughts on trying to compare the Philippines and Vietnam as far as how they relate to China.
11:03.3
Of course, there's the U.S. alliance that shapes it.
11:06.2
But actually, geography shapes it in a lot of ways.
11:08.8
You know, Vietnam looks at China, you know, China invaded Vietnam in 1979 across its northern border.
11:17.0
And so Vietnam is very aware of the China threat.
11:20.0
But as far as the maritime space, you know,
11:23.6
I think the Philippines actually has a harder problem because of all of the, you know,
11:29.9
reefs and shoals in the West Philippine Sea, Vietnam doesn't quite have that problem.
11:36.1
So, you know, the Philippines is the only country in Southeast Asia that has a major Chinese military base in its own exclusive economic zone.
11:46.1
So Mischief Reef, you know, big port, big airfield,
11:49.5
is sitting in the middle of the Philippines,
11:53.2
exclusive economic zone.
11:55.5
And as a result, you know, the Philippines is the only country that faces an ongoing blockade of a military outpost,
12:03.7
the one at Ayungin Shoal or Second Thomas Shoal.
12:06.8
And of course, also a restriction on a very, very important fishing ground at Scarborough Shoal.
12:14.7
So I think that, you know, even though I understand Vietnam's, you know, sort of bamboo diplomacy, as they call it,
12:22.6
where they sort of,
12:23.2
bend back and forth, but, you know, the Philippines has a little bit of a more urgent, acute problem than Vietnam in the maritime space at this point.
12:31.6
And so I don't, I don't think you can just sort of directly compare the two approaches because the circumstances are so different.
12:40.0
Indeed, indeed. I mean, I think the difference is quite clear.
12:42.3
I mean, just the regime types are totally different.
12:44.3
So you cannot expect the Philippine government to have the same predisposition as Vietnam's communist regime.
12:49.9
Although it's not like they have stable politics nowadays.
12:52.4
We can talk about their,
12:53.2
their reshuffling of president every six months or so.
12:55.3
But overall, of course, authoritarian or single party regimes or socialist democracies, to put it nicely,
13:01.3
they can approach strategic culture and strategic decision making very different from us.
13:05.3
Because one of the things I always hear about the Philippines is how exceptionally chaotic or unstable or swinging our foreign policy is.
13:12.5
I mean, as someone who's been writing on this issue over the past decade or so from Arroyo to Aquino to Duterte and now Marcus Jr.
13:19.1
I mean, I can understand why some of our friends, including there,
13:21.8
on the other side of the Pacific may feel a little bit about Philippines, like what's what's up with you guys?
13:27.0
So I think there's there's no need to, you know, but in terms of similarity, do you because in terms of size, both GDP size and population size, almost identical, right?
13:39.3
Both around half a trillion dollars, both almost upper middle income countries, both almost 100 million people.
13:46.0
So size wise, two very similar countries, right?
13:49.0
You cannot find two more similar countries in terms of geography.
13:51.8
So you can't find two more similar countries in terms of geography.
13:53.8
So you can't find two more similar countries in terms of geography.
13:54.3
What do you think about people are saying maybe there's a thing for the Philippines to learn from Vietnam?
13:58.5
Of course, the Vietnamese have been studying our arbitration case, among others, also because they're also always looking at the angle of legal warfare against China.
14:06.9
But do you think is there something that the Philippines can learn from Vietnam?
14:09.9
I know it's going to be weird coming from you like an American saying, oh, Philippines, you should learn from our former enemies.
14:15.8
But I mean, just for a moment, just put your on your hat as a kind of a regional hand.
14:23.8
Well, I mean, so there's no such thing as a perfect analogy, right?
14:26.9
I mean, it's that's a it's basically a contradiction in terms.
14:30.2
An analogy is just something that is not quite the same.
14:32.9
So, I mean, so there's always things you can learn from other countries.
14:36.6
I think that there are limits to what you can learn.
14:39.3
So I think you begin with the fact that, of course, every country acts in its own national interest.
14:44.3
And so, you know, a lot of the the propaganda that comes from China that accuses the Philippines of being kind of the cat's paw.
14:51.8
Or the pawn of the United States is extremely condescending and and just ignores Philippine agency because there's no no country in the world that sort of just does whatever other country says.
15:07.2
You know, it's it's every every country acts in its own national interest.
15:12.6
I think that there are things to learn.
15:15.6
And of course, the Philippines is needs to consider its own interests in every circumstance.
15:21.5
thinks that the Philippines should do X, the Philippines should say, OK, we'll take that into consideration because we do what we need to do for our national interests.
15:29.9
And that's and by the way, that's exactly what the U.S.
15:32.9
does, you know, because we're just we're normal, right?
15:35.3
We're a normal country that does what we what we do for our own purposes.
15:39.2
And I completely associate with your your your your sentiments about being in a democracy.
15:47.9
I remember I was leaving Australia in 2020 and was on a podcast.
15:51.5
And the host of that in that podcast asked me, what's going on in the U.S. election over there?
15:56.1
It's you know, we're watching all this stuff.
15:57.5
We've got COVID and George Floyd and all of these things going on.
16:00.9
Should we be alarmed at what's happening in the U.S.?
16:02.8
And I I said, look, we're we're a big, messy democracy.
16:06.6
That's what we are.
16:07.7
And that's that's what we'll always be.
16:09.5
And because we're big, we're all of our news is international news all the time.
16:13.8
So everything you get to see what we are in Technicolor because it's going to be on everybody's news shows.
16:19.7
It's going to be on the Richard Hedarian.
16:21.9
It's going to be everybody.
16:22.8
Everybody's going to know what is going on.
16:25.7
And it's the good, the bad and the ugly because we have an open society.
16:28.3
We have a free press.
16:29.8
That's that's that's.
16:31.1
But you know what?
16:31.6
Which we inherited from you.
16:34.2
I just came from Germany.
16:36.5
They're a democracy, too, but a very different type of society.
16:39.8
Not as fiesta feisty as us.
16:42.6
I'll just be honest about it.
16:45.4
Yeah, we lived in for in in Germany for two years.
16:50.2
And yes, but, you know, I mean,
16:51.5
they're culturally, they're just very, very different, you know, totally, totally.
16:55.7
So but, you know, I mean, that's that's that's the nature of a democracy.
17:00.2
And but, you know, the amazing thing is somehow we just muddle through.
17:04.3
You know, my dad was he was involved in the civil rights movement.
17:07.9
He ended up in jail in Jackson, Mississippi, for for for protesting, you know,
17:13.0
in the early 60s and something called the Freedom Rides of 1961.
17:16.7
Just with a great Dr. King.
17:19.9
I mean, like this is.
17:21.5
Yeah, this was really early in the civil rights movement.
17:25.9
So before many people knew who Dr. King was.
17:29.3
So the Freedom Rides of 1961 were really I mean, if you ever just decide to sort of, you know,
17:37.0
Google and watch, watch some fascinating stuff.
17:39.8
And really, the people who were early involved in that in that in that event were really brave people who went down into the deep south.
17:48.7
And some of them risk death.
17:51.5
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
17:53.3
So and actually, you know, I know we're not quite there yet, but I look at what the Philippines is doing and I see some parallels with the civil rights movement in the in the form of nonviolent direct direct action, which is what the early civil rights movement was all about.
18:11.9
They would go down.
18:12.6
They were trained not to hit back.
18:16.2
And and what they accomplished through extraordinary bravery.
18:21.5
And my dad was part of this.
18:22.7
I'm very proud of him was they got the nation galvanized and realizing what was going on in the deep south, things that the country didn't want to look at.
18:33.2
They sort of forced the country to look at because they saw things like water cannons.
18:39.3
I mean, that was that was a that was a weapon of the deep south of the Jim Crow south at the time.
18:43.9
They saw the riots and the and the beatings and the and the jailings and all the things that happened.
18:51.5
I mean, one of the first actually the very first mission, the very first freedom ride ended with the bus being lit on fire at the at the border of Alabama and Mississippi.
19:04.7
So, you know, but I look at what the Philippines is doing and what you're what what the Philippines is doing is essentially nonviolent direct action.
19:13.5
You're going and you're exercising your rights and you're showing what the oppressor is doing in a case where you're simply.
19:21.5
Doing what you are legally allowed to do and the world is being forced to pay attention to something that it would rather ignore.
19:28.7
Yeah, I mean, this is Satyagraha.
19:30.4
This is the truth force that Gandhi was talking about, which, of course, the Gandhi civil disobedience also inspired Dr.
19:36.4
King, among others.
19:36.9
I mean, you can see a picture of Frederick Douglass up there.
19:39.0
So I'm a big fan of the civil rights movement in the United States.
19:42.5
Among my biggest heroes are Dr.
19:44.6
King and Frederick Douglass and this kind of people.
19:47.1
So honestly, I didn't see that coming.
19:49.6
But the story of your father is wow.
19:51.3
I mean, that was that came out of nowhere.
19:53.1
Perhaps we have to have a separate discussion on on on civil rights movement in the United States because, you know, we're all troubled democracies in our own way.
20:00.5
I don't know what is your partisan preference, but I try to stay above the fray in that sense.
20:04.9
And sometimes, look, we are troubled democracies and in a way we're tethered to each other because of our historical traditions.
20:11.7
And of course, I don't know how you call in the Philippines, but, you know, America's colonial past.
20:15.6
I know. But that's a long conversation.
20:18.5
But before I go to the Philippines.
20:21.3
U.S. aspect, because, Raymond, I mean, I'm sure you have seen it.
20:25.3
Like whenever I post something, the question is, where is America?
20:27.9
What is America doing?
20:29.4
Your wife is from Davao.
20:30.5
So I think you're very familiar with the line of attack of the former mayor.
20:34.3
To be honest, of course, I, as any Filipino patriot, would ask questions about what is the most we can get out of our alliance in the same way that I'm sure an American patriot would ask, what are we getting from our allies, et cetera?
20:44.7
But before going there, can we discuss what's going on as far as the situation on the ground?
20:51.3
What is China doing here?
20:54.5
So a while ago, I was having a conversation with people who are in the know and they were telling me, for instance, the power of the water cannons quantifiably are much stronger than before.
21:04.8
And I just shared this footage that came out of GMA News a while ago.
21:08.8
And you could see how this is not even an offense.
21:12.2
I mean, the civil rights, I watched the footages.
21:14.7
Those are horrible.
21:16.2
You know, you know, the water pressure.
21:18.8
But this is this looks like crazy.
21:20.1
This this moves a whole.
21:21.3
This is a whole semi gigantic boat.
21:23.5
That's how bad this is.
21:24.9
Can you tell us a little bit about what is this?
21:27.3
And because the conversation I want to have here, Raymond, is are we past the point of gray zone?
21:33.2
I mean, my my reading is this is something between gray zone and shooting wars.
21:38.5
It's probably a totally new category because I've been following with what they've been doing to Vietnam, what they've been doing to Indonesia.
21:45.0
What is your take on this on the tactical level and in terms of what's happening on the ground?
21:49.7
Yeah, I mean, I think.
21:51.3
So gray zone is in the eye of the beholder.
21:53.4
And, you know, so in some ways, this is past gray zone because the Philippines has lit it up.
21:59.6
The Philippines is responsible for letting the world see what's happening in this space.
22:05.5
China exploits every square centimeter of the gray zone.
22:11.6
And, you know, if it can.
22:12.8
So right now, I would say it's still in the gray zone because we have not got to the point where anyone is, you know, anyone in a position of.
22:21.3
Political authority is saying we're now invoking Article 5, although if you watch Admiral Aquilino testifying before Congress, you know, for the commander of U.S.
22:31.5
Indo-Pacific Command testifying before Congress last week, he said, I'm really concerned that we could be there, you know, soon.
22:38.6
So, I mean, your question is really apt and it's it's something that we've actually been talking about.
22:44.2
I think all of us have been talking about for a while is when do we get to that point?
22:49.1
When do we actually start talking?
22:51.3
And when people ask me about, you know, the quote invoking the the the the mutual defense treaty.
22:59.5
I often say it's it's kind of already been invoked.
23:03.3
Every single time this happens, the the statements coming out of the State Department and the embassy there in Manila are, you know, we we stand by our Philippine allies and we remind China about the mutual defense treaty.
23:15.2
So in some ways, it's already out there on the table.
23:18.3
The question then becomes, I think.
23:21.0
What people really mean is when does the U.S.
23:24.9
Show up with gray ships and start, you know, maybe escorting, you know, resupply missions.
23:31.2
And, you know, I think that everything's trying to stay out of that.
23:34.9
I mean, you've heard President Marcos talk about it.
23:37.2
You I don't think China wants it.
23:39.7
I mean, every China wants to keep exploiting the gray zone.
23:43.6
It's just it's just hitting that very, very upper limit of what it is.
23:47.0
It's hitting a ceiling.
23:48.3
I mean, it's really hitting a glass ceiling or whatever ceiling.
23:51.0
You want to call it.
23:52.4
Yeah, I mean, so and and actually part of the reason it's hitting the ceiling is because the Philippines has made everybody look right.
24:02.1
I mean, so what we do at Sea Light, I mean, we do kind of a little sliver of what the Philippines has done, you know, because the Philippines has pictures and video.
24:13.6
I don't have that.
24:14.3
I mean, I've got satellite images.
24:15.9
I've got, you know, you know, automatic information system tracking.
24:20.1
I can show you what.
24:21.0
Little dots on the map look like.
24:23.0
But the Philippines has reporters.
24:24.7
It has, you know, pictures that it can release.
24:27.5
And that has forced the world's attention on this.
24:31.0
And I will I will even venture to say you just try.
24:34.6
I don't mind you screen sharing right now.
24:37.3
Do you want to screen share anything for the purpose of I mean, we can make it educational as you wish.
24:42.6
Yeah, I mean, I can I can I can show you.
24:44.8
This is for educational purposes.
24:46.6
And this is the difference with how we do it mainstream.
24:49.0
We only have five minutes to discuss.
24:51.0
Point, that's why we need long form discussion.
24:52.7
This has to be like a free public lecture, right?
24:55.4
So, Raymond, please share whatever important information you have for our Kababayan, our folks here who are trying to catch up.
25:05.4
There are some people who are guessing who you are by your voice.
25:08.0
I think that's always a good sign.
25:09.3
So is that Raymond Powell like because they're just hearing you right now?
25:15.9
So we're just trying to get in questions.
25:17.7
I'm sure as you as we discuss this more, folks will be much more interested.
25:23.1
OK, so you tell us what's going on there.
25:26.2
So you can see this here.
25:27.5
Let's see if I can make it as full screen, try to get as large as I can.
25:35.0
Well, all right, so this is I think this is yeah, this is yeah, this is so this is a service that I use to look at at what's going on at sea.
25:45.3
I'll try to give you a little more context by putting in a full day's worth of tracks.
25:50.8
Here is the action.
25:52.6
This over here is Mischief Reef.
25:54.8
And over here you can see a union shows like a commercial.
25:59.2
So you can see at all times they usually have at least a couple of maritime militia ships here.
26:04.7
And then, of course, a bunch of others circling around Mischief Reef.
26:09.1
I often will watch to see if I see right now what you can see down in the south of Palawan, you can see a U.S.
26:20.8
Merchant Mariner, frankly, down there.
26:24.1
But if I see the these these ships here, the Cabra and the Sundangan, if I see them leaving and going toward towards second second time,
26:32.1
then I usually pay a lot of attention because there might be something going on.
26:38.2
And actually, one of my first clues that something is going on is a bunch of these ships over here to the left, which are our Chinese maritime militia will make their way over to Mischief Reef.
26:49.0
And that'll be a clue to me that China.
26:50.8
So all the red ones are Chinese, right?
26:54.1
So the CN one, we see that all of these are Chinese, right?
26:57.5
And yeah, not so the way that they code these things is a little a little odd.
27:04.2
So but generally speaking, most of the red ones are going to be Chinese maritime militia.
27:09.6
You can see some Vietnamese ships.
27:11.4
Now, you're not seeing all the ships because I filter.
27:14.2
Right. I'm not interested in every cargo ship that's going by.
27:16.6
So I kind of you know, if I were to actually take that away, it would be a big mess.
27:21.2
Yeah, this is just the sense of the proportion of distribution.
27:27.1
Yeah. Actually, so like if you look up here, you can see this is this is Pagasa.
27:34.9
This is Titu Island. And here is Subi Reef where the Chinese base is.
27:40.0
And you can see all of these maritime militia ships here.
27:42.5
So here's one maritime militia ship that's not that's not colored pink for some reason.
27:45.9
So, you know, their coding is a little bit.
27:48.8
This is the service that I'm using.
27:50.8
So it's not it's not perfect as far as how it paints everything.
27:54.1
In fact, part of the interesting thing about this one, if you look at this, it it's it's categorized as a pleasure craft.
28:03.2
Yeah, exactly. What's a yacht, a billionaire yacht or something? Russian or American yacht?
28:09.2
But all it is, it's just one more maritime militia ship.
28:11.6
So actually, it's how they it's how the actual people on the ship, when they when they code into the AIS system.
28:19.4
Yeah, they actually.
28:20.8
Identify themselves.
28:21.5
These are self-declared Chinese vessels that obviously includes the ones that they're turning off their identification systems.
28:30.5
Right. I mean, that's another right here.
28:32.4
Right. That's a totally different layer.
28:33.7
These are the ones that are shameless enough to be out there and shameless enough to lie about the exact nature of their their their raison d'etre.
28:41.5
Well, most most of them, of course, are categorized as fishing ships.
28:45.6
You can see this one is a fishing ship.
28:47.6
And China is really cagey about it.
28:50.3
It doesn't deny that it has a maritime militia.
28:52.6
It just will never tell you exactly which ship is maritime militia.
28:56.5
Now, all of these are clearly maritime militia.
28:59.1
They're only ever involved in doing security operations.
29:02.6
And in this case, what they're involved in doing is essentially intimidating the the the people at Agasa.
29:11.8
They're essentially like an armada.
29:13.5
Right. Raymond, again, for the purpose of some of our audience who may not be keeping up with the whole literature.
29:18.6
Can we give a little bit of background about.
29:20.3
I mean, so basically, this is China's version of people's war at sea.
29:24.9
Right. Which is a very communist Soviet idea.
29:27.8
The Vietnamese have it.
29:29.1
This idea that you really don't separate the Navy from the Coast Guard, from from patriotic, ordinary citizens.
29:35.5
They're all part of defense of motherland, blah, blah, blah.
29:38.1
So can you give us a little bit background about this Chinese maritime militia forces, their training, their resources?
29:43.4
How can we say that they're really attached to the go?
29:46.1
What if what if they're Raymond, they're like you, they're volunteers.
29:48.8
You know, they're doing it for the.
29:50.3
Hey, you know, I'm saying, hey, how does it work if you can tell our audience?
29:53.8
Yeah. Well, so maritime militia is a really funny group.
29:57.7
And by the way, none of them are volunteers.
29:59.9
They are all getting paid.
30:01.3
Exactly. At least their fuel costs and all.
30:03.7
Right. Well, so they've actually got two categories of maritime militia and all the ones that you see that I'm able to track.
30:11.1
Almost all of them are what we sort of refer to as the professional militia.
30:15.5
So all they ever do is security operations.
30:19.2
And they are paid.
30:20.3
For that purpose, they are paid by the government to do that exact thing.
30:23.7
They don't even they call themselves fishing ships and they look like fishing ships when you look at them, but they never, ever, ever fish.
30:32.0
So they do full time security operations.
30:34.2
There's another category which also can fish but seldom fishes.
30:40.1
And they're referred to as the Spratly Backbone Vessels.
30:43.4
And they are basically given their commercial, but they're given a subsidy from the government to simply exist.
30:50.3
And they are basically given a subsidy from the government to simply exist.
30:50.7
They're all going to be in the Spratly Archipelago for 280 days a year.
30:54.7
So as long as they.
30:56.5
Mercenary residents, like mercenary, like just to stay there, squat there, hold the line.
31:03.8
Right. So, you know, they don't have to fish because, you know, honestly, they're getting quite enough money just by hanging around from the government.
31:11.8
And those are the ones you see.
31:13.1
They'll be the ones that are all tied up together.
31:15.4
And we call it rafting that, you know, there's nothing for them to do except for assert Chinese sovereignty.
31:20.3
By sitting around and saying, okay, we're here, what are you going to do about it? Right? And actually, the funny thing is, they're not doing anything technically illegal as long as they don't fish. When you talk about an exclusive economic zone, so the ones, for example, at Whitsun Reef, where there are well over 100 of them right now, as long as they don't fish, they're allowed to be there.
31:44.0
This is the one Philippine Reef, just for our Philippine audience. Sorry, I just have to give the Filipino names.
31:48.1
No, absolutely. I appreciate that. You know, they're technically allowed to be there because they are not exploiting the resources. Now, of course, China claims the resources, they claim everything. And by them being there, they're claiming the reef, they're claiming that water.
32:05.9
But if you turn to the page in international law and say, can they be there? Well, you look at the exclusive economic zone, 200 nautical miles out from the Philippine Coast Guard, and you say, okay, it's the Philippines.
32:17.8
But they're not fishing. So as long as they're not fishing, technically, they're not breaking the law. It's very strange. Now, what they're doing is extremely obnoxious. And it is, you know, asserting something that is illegal, you know, that China's ownership, or sovereignty, or, you know, they're asserting that, but it's not illegal under the law to do that. So, but they get a subsidy from the government just to sit there.
32:46.7
And now, their job is to go where they're told to go. So if the PLA, the People's Liberation Army says, actually, we'd rather have you over at Iroquois Reef right now, then they have to go over there. But they don't have to do anything. They just have to sit there.
33:02.8
But obviously, sometimes they fish just for the sake of justifying their label, right? Which is not also because there's so many of them, right?
33:11.7
Yeah, no. So, I mean, that's what makes it so hard, right?
33:16.7
China, when they talk about these guys, they will admit they have a maritime militia. They just won't admit which ships are maritime militia. So you'll point at something, you'll say, well, clearly, that's maritime militia. And they'll say, well, how do you know? I mean, what's your proof? Give me your proof.
33:32.3
The gray zone is also in terms of this. But, but, but, Raymond, what is your, what is your hunch in terms of distribution between the two types of the maritime militia, the auxiliary versus the core of cavalry or whatever, infantry?
33:46.7
Yeah. So the, the, the professional militia are a smaller number than the sort of the Spratly backbone.
33:54.6
20, 25%, 30, something like that.
33:57.0
Oh, golly. You know, it's, it's so hard to tell because it's so hard to count.
34:01.0
But yeah, I'd say, yeah, certainly probably, you know, a quarter maybe is, is, is a fair.
34:06.8
And, you know, the ones, so we actually have some benefit of being able to identify the, the professional because almost all of them have the same name, the Chong San Xiaoyu name that, and of course, you in, and of course, I'm not saying this correctly in Mandarin because I'm not a Mandarin speaker, but means fish.
34:28.6
So every single one of those vessels has a name that ends in Y-U because that means fish.
34:34.9
And they're all supposed to be fishing.
34:36.8
They're all supposed to be fishing vessels, but of course they don't fish.
34:39.1
And, and, and those Chong San Xiaoyu vessels, and again, I'm, I'm, I'm completely butchering that name, again, not a Mandarin speaker, but those are all of the professional militia type.
34:50.8
And so when I see those, I all, I automatically know what they're, what they're up to.
34:54.7
And those are the ones you see blocking and, and, you know, sometimes colliding with the, the, the resupply vessels and those kinds of things, because that's what they do all the time.
35:05.7
They are purposeful.
35:06.8
They are purpose built to look like fishing ships, but to act like maritime militia.
35:11.6
Whereas the other ships, the Spratly Backbone vessels were originally purpose built to fish, but they've had their holes reinforced and they are now, you know, pretty much full-time acting as militia ships.
35:24.0
They're just not as, they're not sort of involved in as much direct action as the, the, the professional militia.
35:31.4
One more question.
35:32.4
I mean, obviously just to give you a background about this.
35:35.0
I mean, the, the whole naval.
35:36.8
The whole strategy of China used to be quite messy during the Hu Jintao administration.
35:40.0
They used to have like the five dragons, like different agencies fighting among each other, you know, something that you see at the local government level in a lot of developing countries, right?
35:49.3
But eventually they consolidated that.
35:51.1
And in recent years, we see that the Chinese maritime militia forces are more or less officially and openly under the command of their Navy.
35:58.6
So I think for some, the reason I'm saying this thing, Raymond, is because we have a lot of friends out there who are spreading a lot of this information and trying to say, oh no, but these are innocent fishermen.
36:06.8
So I think for some, the reason I'm saying this thing, Raymond, is because we have a lot of friends out there who are spreading a lot of this information and trying to say, oh no, but these are innocent fishermen.
36:07.0
Now, let's talk about, I mean, numbers.
36:10.4
Are we talking about dozens, hundreds, thousands?
36:13.9
I mean, the numbers we have been seeing in AMTI are up to 200 sometimes, for instance.
36:17.8
Parking and squatting and swarming, I'd rather say, in the area.
36:22.6
And just to give a context, I mean, I see this in four phases.
36:25.5
Like phase one was the massive reclamation that we had early on from December 2013 onwards.
36:32.9
Before that, I'm sorry, it's the administrative regions they had to establish.
36:36.6
Before that, I'm sorry, it's the administrative regions they had to establish.
36:36.6
Before that, I'm sorry, it's the administrative regions they had to establish.
36:36.8
From 2012 and then 2013, the reclamation.
36:41.4
Now, then we had militarization, obviously, putting weapon systems, all sorts of different anti-electronic warfare.
36:48.2
But now we're phase four, which is, I call it militiaization, right?
36:51.8
From militarization to using militias more aggressively.
36:54.8
And my sense is the level five would be an ADIZ or air defense identification.
37:00.6
But God willing, we're not there yet.
37:02.5
We can have a conversation about how to avoid that scenario.
37:04.7
But again, on the level of the militia.
37:06.8
But what numbers are we looking at here just for people to understand the gravity of the challenge here?
37:13.0
So I think the estimates that I've seen, and they're only estimates because they're never exactly defined.
37:22.7
And as you get further north, what ships up in the East China Sea, for example, are doing the same kind of thing.
37:31.7
So I think the estimates mostly that I've seen are in the couple of thousand range.
37:36.8
But in the South China Sea at any given time, and I'm talking about the entire South China Sea,
37:42.2
and I know there can be some discussion about what qualifies as the West Philippine Sea as far as, and in terms of the entire South China Sea.
37:49.4
It's our exclusive economic zone.
37:51.0
Whatever false feeling is, anything beyond that, it's not West Philippine Sea.
37:54.1
I think I have to be clear to my couple of bi, and we're not claiming the entire basin like some country there, right?
38:00.3
We're just claiming what is ours, which is the exclusive economic zone.
38:03.3
Just to be clear, this is because I work in the Philippine Congress.
38:06.0
When we pass this.
38:06.8
Resolution, the resolution of the West Philippine Sea renaming out.
38:10.8
But and we were crystal clear, we are not claiming the entire waters.
38:14.3
I mean, the Vietnamese can still call their own sea or whatever.
38:17.9
So we're just this is just our exclusive economic zone.
38:20.1
Two hundred nautical miles.
38:22.1
So but if you if you look at the entire South China Sea, I mean, I think at any given time, you're probably talking about several hundred militia at sea at a given time.
38:32.1
There's far less around Lunar New Year.
38:35.7
As I said, they don't.
38:36.7
All of the Spratly Backbone Fleet only has to be at sea two hundred and eighty days a year.
38:40.7
And most of those ships take the Lunar New Year kind of holiday as their extended holiday.
38:45.4
And they'll all go home for that period of time.
38:47.4
So all of a sudden you'll see, you know, Whitsun Reef where they're where there will be, you know, right now they're well over one hundred.
38:54.9
They'll go down to twenty.
38:57.9
And so, you know, so at any given time, there will be anywhere from, you know, say, you know, dozens to hundreds in the in the South China Sea.
39:06.7
Frankly, most of those are in the West Philippine Sea and because that's where China spends most of its time asserting its sovereignty or jurisdiction using the militia.
39:17.6
I mean, you look at places again, Whitsun Reef is probably the biggest gathering place.
39:21.2
But you also have Sabina Shoal where there are about twenty six, I think, at last count militia there.
39:28.3
Last I saw, there were about ten up at Iroquois Reef.
39:31.3
Some of those may actually be fishing.
39:34.0
And, you know, there are a couple around.
39:35.7
There are some around Scarborough Shoal, which, you know, where they're obviously carrying out something of a blockade of the Shoal together with the China Coast Guard.
39:47.7
And really and frankly, at this point, the gap between what the China Coast Guard does and what the maritime militia do is really fuzzy as well.
39:58.6
It's all part of this gray zone activity.
40:00.7
And, you know, I'll just say this.
40:03.1
I mean, the China Coast Guard does not.
40:05.7
Act like any other Coast Guard in the world.
40:08.8
I mean, they are.
40:10.5
Well, they don't look like a Coast Guard, too.
40:12.7
I mean, they got a huge warship level kind of sizes.
40:16.4
It's also their largest ship is twelve thousand tons.
40:19.0
I mean, it's crazy.
40:20.9
It basically looks like a cruise ship, you know, going around.
40:24.5
And I mean, and so they are many of those ships are there for almost the sole purpose of asserting sovereignty.
40:31.7
And of course, they can do it with with the size of the ship.
40:35.0
But they can also do.
40:35.7
With the with the water cannon or or other aggressive actions.
40:41.2
Now, let's talk about options ahead.
40:44.2
I mean, from, of course, your your perspective, I have my own take on this, but I'm interested to see what is your take as an American.
40:51.2
How do you think the that your country can be most helpful?
40:55.6
I mean, just to give a context, obviously.
40:59.6
How should I put it?
41:02.5
I think there there is a definitely more than a grain of truth.
41:05.7
That the Philippines has had huge levels of dependency on the United States for quite some time.
41:10.0
I think it's it's hard to argue against that unless you're you're being sentimental, emotional about it.
41:15.5
I from my understanding of dealing with a lot of people in the D.C.
41:18.5
and all, I think there was this implicit idea like, ah, Philippines, you know, they might drag us into something.
41:24.0
But the good thing with the timing of your your engagement with this issue more directly, obviously, I've been following this for quite some time, is that the Philippines is starting to also, you know, get things together, right?
41:35.7
Let's act together, a little bit of modernization here, a little build up there.
41:39.5
So my sense is the challenge here is how the Philippines can show that it can stand up on its own as it gradually builds up its capabilities.
41:50.6
Because, you know, of course, Raymond, we can have a long conversation about Duterte, Marcos political decision.
41:55.7
But political decision is one thing.
41:56.9
Capacity is another thing.
41:58.8
The wheel on the ground operation is another thing.
42:01.8
So now that those things are coming together in a good way.
42:05.7
I'm very happy about the direction of the Philippine foreign policy.
42:09.0
Of course, the dilemma there is still the Philippines is not 100 percent at its, you know, in terms of I mean, in economics, we call it, you know, production, you know, capacity frontier, right?
42:20.4
Like what you can reach at certain.
42:22.8
So we're not there yet.
42:24.2
So how do you also make sure that you leverage your alliance with the United States without feeding into this narrative of China and also this tendency, I would rather say, of dependency?
42:35.5
Unfortunately, semi institutionalized tendency, because, you know, the Philippines is not the only U.S.
42:40.7
There's Japan, there's Korea, there's Australia.
42:43.1
But frankly speaking, they have significant capabilities of their own right now to also help international efforts all the way in the Horn of Africa.
42:51.4
So if it is not there yet, that's hopefully the direction we're going to move towards.
42:54.7
And, you know, I've interviewed folks from National Security Council, among others, which people will see on my other shows.
42:60.0
But I just want to understand as an American who loves the Philippines, married to the Philippines, what do you think is the Goldilocks?
43:05.5
What's the good balance there whereby America can be there for the Philippines, but not undermine strategic agency of the Philippines and its self-reliance tendency, self-reliance initiative?
43:18.2
Well, I mean, so I think you start with the general concept that even in a large, you know, say a larger force like, say, Australia, of course, I spent three years in Australia as the defense attache, and they got a steady stream of Chinese propaganda saying you're just the tool of the United States.
43:34.9
And so even, you know, it's not like the Philippines is alone, but you're obviously you're very correct that the Philippines, especially being a former colony of the United States, is especially susceptible to this.
43:46.2
Thanks for saying it as it is, right?
43:48.1
I mean, like, I'm sorry, Ray, because I see a lot of tiptoeing around it.
43:51.5
I'm yet to hear an American official openly calling it, you know, for what it is.
43:56.4
I mean, this is very different.
43:57.5
I mean, you've been in Australia.
43:58.3
They always start with acknowledging what they did to Aboriginals, right?
44:01.9
Germany just came in, you know, their recognition of what they did in Holocaust.
44:04.9
I'm not saying the colonialism of the Philippines is at the same level, but I'm glad to see that there's a recognition of that.
44:11.2
There is a colonial past, and that's what feeds the Dutertes of this world, right?
44:15.8
They weaponize that history to turn it into a pro-China narrative.
44:20.1
So, sorry, I just have to do this because, you know, I want to get rid of the usual trolling that we get, right?
44:24.4
Like, I want to shut them down as early as now.
44:26.3
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
44:27.2
Hey, look, no, I mean, we started off by talking about the Jim Crow South in the United States.
44:32.6
We've got our own.
44:33.7
Everybody's got their own history.
44:34.9
The difference between our history and, say, China's history is we don't constantly rewrite it to suit our narrative.
44:41.9
You know, we make actual museums to tell everybody what we did, you know, to show our warts as well.
44:52.1
You know, so we're very, you know, we're an open society just like the Philippines is an open society.
44:58.0
So, you know, getting to your question, though, you know, I think that, you know, part of the way we deal with it is by talking about it,
45:03.9
by just being honest.
45:04.9
Part of the way we deal with it is by sort of not dwelling on some of, I mean, if I posted every Global Times cartoon that shows the Philippines as being a pawn of the United States,
45:17.1
I'd do nothing else because that's all they talk about.
45:20.3
So the Philippines will be as an ally of the U.S.
45:24.2
And the U.S. is obviously a much larger country with a much stronger military, is going to continue to have this relationship.
45:31.6
But as we said at the beginning, you know, the Philippines,
45:34.9
has its own national interests.
45:37.8
And, you know, I think that you just have to, you know, we just have to get comfortable with the fact that that's just the way it is.
45:44.4
China loves to point out that it opposes, you know, all groupings of countries or blocks of countries.
45:50.8
But that's the entire Western system.
45:54.3
You know, it's the, you know, look at NATO.
45:56.4
Look at the whole, you know, the whole U.S. international security arrangement is a network of allies and partners.
46:05.3
So, you know, that we rely on that.
46:08.0
If we, you know, I understand that there are people in the United States who are isolationists in nature and would like to sort of just sort of have fortress America.
46:16.1
But that has never been the U.S. security posture.
46:19.8
And, you know, I again, I was I was a U.S. defense attache during the Trump administration when there were a lot of very loud isolationist voices in the in the United States.
46:30.5
And they're still out there.
46:32.1
But, you know, even the Trump administration was essentially.
46:34.9
Networked and partnered up with a lot of allies, of course, somehow.
46:40.9
And I always point at this.
46:43.6
The U.S.-Philippine alliance endured six years of Rodrigo Duterte, who wanted nothing more than to sever that alliance and in the end couldn't do it because the institutional ties are so strong and so important to both countries.
46:59.9
And, you know, that in the end, he simply couldn't do it.
47:03.5
And so I am actually.
47:04.9
Very, very bullish and optimistic and maybe I'm a natural optimist, but I'm bullish on the future of the alliance because I think that we've proven ourselves through some of the most weird and interesting political times we've ever seen.
47:21.0
So I think very, very Nietzschean, as you can see, what doesn't kill the alliance makes it stronger.
47:26.1
Right. And I think the term being used nowadays is hyperdrive.
47:31.8
I think this just tells us that we have to have more of this conversation.
47:34.9
Soon. I mean, of course, as we get closer to your elections and your interesting times, I mean, I was just in Washington a few weeks earlier and believe me, we had many interesting discussions there about what's coming up.
47:46.0
Right. But but probably we have to talk more about what could be a Trump 2.0 administration mean.
47:51.7
I mean, you are in the center where many of the ex top officials of Trump won.
47:56.4
I doubt any of them will go back again, but I think we can have an interesting conversation later.
48:00.3
But now, just for the purpose of big picture understanding again.
48:04.9
Raymond, you know, the propaganda, right, which is this kind of simplistic idea.
48:09.8
But of course, America is for its own national interest.
48:12.4
Like it's like saying water is wet. Obviously, America is for its own national interest.
48:15.8
But what is the level of confluence of interest here for the Philippines to feel reliably confident?
48:23.7
Nothing is 100 percent, but reliably confident that if push comes to shove, America will be there.
48:29.3
Because again, Raymond, I'm saying this because before I would say 2019,
48:34.9
from Nixon administration until the end of Obama administration, to be honest,
48:39.5
I would say there was more ambiguity than strategy.
48:42.1
The strategic ambiguity was very questionable in terms of its efficacy.
48:45.4
And I'll tell you very well, when Obama was here in Manila in 2014, twice he was asked by my colleagues,
48:50.3
one from ABS-CBN, one from Manila Bulletin, asked, will you come to the Philippines rescue?
48:57.4
We're ready to be war. Again, this is hypothetical, but this hypothetical questions have huge psychological and geopolitical implications.
49:04.7
Not to mention domestic political implications.
49:06.7
And the reason we say, I ask this, Raymond, is because we saw in the case of Japan just a few days earlier,
49:11.2
Obama making it clear that they will stand with Japan in an event of attack on Diaoyu, I'm sorry, Senkaku, right?
49:17.2
I'm being nice to the Taiwanese, by the way, not to China.
49:21.2
And for a certain reason, throughout many administrations, ironically, until Duterte, there was not that clarity, right?
49:29.2
So, can you tell me?
49:34.7
What is your understanding of that situation?
49:36.7
I mean, whatever it is, is it reassuring?
49:38.7
And why do you think America will be there?
49:40.7
Obviously, we're all trying to avoid that.
49:42.7
This is about deterrence.
49:44.7
But push comes to shove, why should the Filipino people feel reliably confident about their alliance with the United States?
49:49.7
Should push comes to shove?
49:51.7
So, you know, I think that there are two answers to that.
49:55.7
One kind of goes back to my previous answer, talking about the institutional ties, which are really very strong.
50:00.7
And the, you know, the cultural ties and all of that stuff.
50:03.7
And if I were still in government, I would talk only about that, right?
50:07.7
But because I'm not, I'm unchained, I can tell it like it is.
50:11.7
China is a huge reason, right?
50:15.7
Even the most, you know, a lot of the most isolationist people in the United States admit there's a huge China security problem.
50:23.7
And the Philippines is extremely important to addressing the China security problem.
50:28.7
So, you know, so take a guy like Bridge Colby,
50:31.7
who is talking a lot about...
50:33.7
I was about to just say his name.
50:35.7
Sorry, we had him on our show.
50:37.7
I was just about to say Elbridge Colby.
50:41.7
Yeah, I mean, so, I mean, a great example.
50:43.7
So here's a person who is saying things like, you know, we should not overcommit to Ukraine and the Middle East and all these things.
50:49.7
But he's saying that because China, China, China, China, China.
50:52.7
Asia first. Asia first. Yeah, Asia first.
50:54.7
It's a prioritization thing.
50:56.7
And you can't, you can't dissociate the Philippines.
51:01.7
Strategic position from that bigger problem.
51:05.7
So, you know, again, for me, you know, for Ray Powell, who's married to the Philippines for three decades,
51:12.7
you know, I'm all about, you know, the Philippines.
51:15.7
I think about the Philippines national interest all the time.
51:19.7
But if I take that hat off and I just put on my Team USA hat,
51:24.7
I think, well, we've got this huge China problem.
51:27.7
And if we lose our position in the Philippines,
51:30.7
Katie, bar the door.
51:31.7
I mean, it is, it is, you know, we are then in a huge problem.
51:36.7
And so, you know, the strengthening the Philippines is even in the prioritizers,
51:40.7
even in the Bridge Colby's, you know, interests or view of the world is in America's national interest.
51:48.7
Can we spell that a little bit before we end?
51:50.7
Hopefully just our first, because there's so much to discuss.
51:54.7
And hopefully we can have it a little bit at a better time later on or a better day.
51:58.7
No, just a question.
51:59.7
No, just a question on this.
52:01.7
Why can the United States afford to not do anything should things go crazy for the Philippines?
52:07.7
Can you tell us a little bit about the importance of geography,
52:09.7
the impact on the networks of alliances?
52:11.7
Obviously, it's not going to look good for America if they're just going to abandon the Philippines, right?
52:15.7
I mean, can you just spell things a little bit out for some friends who are unwilling to understand how these things work,
52:21.7
how alliances work?
52:24.7
And I think, you know, the last point is really important one,
52:28.7
if the United States abandons an alliance,
52:32.7
I mean, even I am still answering questions all the time about what we failed to do in 2012 when the Philippines lost Garbo Shoal, right?
52:43.7
So anytime we don't…
52:45.7
And Mr. Frieff, Raymond, and Mr. Frieff, I would also add to that.
52:48.7
I think we also feel quite let down, to be honest, on the Mr. Frieff.
52:52.7
I remember very well in an event in Harvard, Joseph Nye, who served back then in the Clinton administration.
52:57.7
He was proudly saying,
52:58.7
we have no horse in that fight.
53:00.7
But this 1995-1996 is when the Clinton administration sent what?
53:04.7
Not one, but two striker groups to defend Taiwan, in a sense.
53:09.7
And Taiwan is not even a treaty ally.
53:11.7
So I hope people in the U.S. also understand where we're coming from.
53:15.7
We're not being just some irrational anti…
53:18.7
This is not some Duterte stuff.
53:19.7
This is, I think, the legitimate patriotic question that every Filipino asks.
53:23.7
And I don't want to put you on the side.
53:25.7
I just want us to spell it out.
53:26.7
That this is about hard-edged national interest and convergence of those interests.
53:34.7
And I think it's all fair, right?
53:35.7
And every country acts in its national interest, right?
53:38.7
So including the United States, including the Philippines, including China, every country.
53:42.7
And it's important to recognize sort of the trajectory of things.
53:47.7
1995 was a time the Cold War was over.
53:51.7
There was a lot of talk about taking the peace dividend.
53:56.7
We had actually been sort of ejected from the Philippines.
53:59.7
Of course, I was there near the end of that as a young airman in the Air Force.
54:06.7
There was sort of the residue of the first Marcos administration, the dictatorship.
54:11.7
All of that was sort of very fresh back then.
54:14.7
And so it was a very different environment.
54:16.7
2012, when we talk about Scarborough Shoal, we were still under kind of our China delusion in the United States where we were trying to figure out,
54:24.7
how do we get this country into the fold?
54:27.7
Just a little more capitalism will make them more democratic.
54:30.7
And then eventually, they'll be…
54:32.7
We had these idealistic ideas about what was going to happen with China.
54:36.7
And I think at this point, it's safe to say we're over that.
54:40.7
We have kind of woken up.
54:42.7
I mean, now we're talking about banning a social media app from the…
54:48.7
We're talking about forcing the sale of a social media…
54:50.7
Transfer of data from White Dance Beijing.
54:55.7
I mean, so I think that's another thing I think that the Philippines can sort of take some comfort in,
55:02.7
is that we are not walking around in a daze.
55:05.7
I was in Australia when the 2017 National Security Strategy was released and the 2018 National Defense Strategy.
55:13.7
Those were basically authored by the H.R. McMaster National Security Agency or the National Security Advisor
55:21.7
and Jim Mattis in the Pentagon.
55:24.7
And that was kind of our formal national awakening where we said,
55:27.7
Okay, the reality is that we're in a competition with China and that's just the reality.
55:33.7
And it's funny that when we actually got those documents and we looked at them and we're like,
55:38.7
But somehow, we weren't acting like that until we got the documents.
55:44.7
I mean, we were still kind of under this idea that somehow capitalism was going to turn into democracy
55:50.7
and somehow China was going to become a responsible stakeholder.
55:53.7
And so that was a hugely transformational time.
55:57.7
And so I think that that has helped the United States realize that when we look at our network of allies and partners in Asia,
56:04.7
boy, that's important now.
56:06.7
And I am really actually enthused about this upcoming summit in Washington, D.C. in mid-April, April the 11th,
56:15.7
when President Biden is going to be hosting President Marcos and Prime Minister Kishida.
56:20.7
This is, I think, a big event.
56:22.7
It's a very symbolic event.
56:25.7
I hope it has some deliverables.
56:28.7
And I can't imagine that pictures from what happened over the weekend off of Aung San Suu Kyi won't be front and center for a lot of those discussions.
56:39.7
Thank you very much.
56:41.7
I think that perfectly sets the tone, hopefully, for our next catch up, maybe just before or right after the Trilateral Summit.
56:47.7
Now it's official.
56:48.7
I think some of us have been informed about this for quite some time.
56:51.7
But it's official.
56:53.7
So there will be a Trilateral Summit in the White House, Japan, Philippines, U.S.
56:57.7
And this looks like a new era whereby it's not just bilateral.
57:01.7
It's just not big power, small power.
57:03.7
It's really trilateral.
57:05.7
And it's getting increasingly symmetrical and collaborative.
57:08.7
And obviously, that also has to do one thing or another with Taiwan, which is something that we can also discuss more in the hopefully next episodes.
57:15.7
Thank you so much, Raymond Powell from Gordian Knott Center for National Security Innovation.
57:19.7
A volunteer, right?
57:20.7
Not the Chinese militia style of volunteer, though.
57:23.7
A very dedicated volunteer.
57:25.7
Although, if Mark Lopez has any idea where that $500 million propaganda budget I'm supposed to be directing is, I'd appreciate it if you could put me in that direction.
57:33.7
Oh my God. Why do these people airtight?
57:36.7
They don't exist, all right?
57:39.7
Is this Kim Jong Un?
57:42.7
I'm going to be political.
57:44.7
I'm sorry about that.
57:45.7
Thank you so much, Raymond, for joining us.
57:48.7
How can folks reach your Twitter?
57:52.7
But also, more importantly, C-Light.
57:54.7
Where can they reach your updates, the maps, everything that you shared with us a while ago?
57:59.7
It's C-Light.live.
58:01.7
We weren't able to get the .org or the .com, but we got C-Light.live.
58:05.7
So that's where they can find our website.
58:07.7
And of course, at Gordian Knott Ray on Twitter or X is where you can find my ramblings, which actually is probably...
58:16.7
I put a lot more, as does everybody.
58:19.7
I put a lot more out on the social media just because it's a lot less work than making a blog post.
58:25.7
But both the blog on C-Light.live.
58:28.7
And by the way, we have a lot of resources on C-Light.live.
58:31.7
If you go to the resources page, we connect to things like the Arbitral Tribunal ruling and other important works that have been written about the South China Sea and the West Philippine Sea and China's maritime militia and all of that stuff.
58:42.7
So there's a lot there that people can look at.
58:45.7
Thank you very much for that, Raymond.
58:47.7
Again, I hope this is just the beginning of a longer series of conversation, especially as we head into your interesting elections in November.
58:56.7
But so much, so much is going on.
58:57.7
And hopefully, we can discuss about the broader region beyond our countries and the Philippines and the U.S.
59:03.7
Because South China Sea is also about a whole range of other issues.
59:07.7
Thank you so much again, Raymond.
59:08.7
And catch you soon.
59:09.7
Have a beautiful morning there in California.
59:12.7
All right. Thanks, Richard.
59:13.7
This has been a lot of fun.
59:15.7
Thank you very much.
