A Strategic Deep Dive on TikTok, The Boiling Moat of Taiwan, and China’s Subsequent-Gen Statecraft — Matt Pottinger, Former U.S. Deputy Nationwide Safety Advisor (#736)

“As a former Marine, Deputy Nationwide Safety Advisor, I used to be juggling probably the most severe nationwide safety threats going through the USA. I feel TikTok is close to the highest. Close to the highest, okay? Suppose for a second how preposterous it’s that we’re in a scenario the place the primary platform is managed by a hostile totalitarian authorities. The principle platform by which a complete technology of People talk and purchase their information.”
— Matt Pottinger

Matt Pottinger is a distinguished visiting fellow on the Hoover Establishment and chairman of the China Program on the Basis for Protection of Democracies.

Matt served as U.S. Deputy Nationwide Safety Advisor from 2019 to 2021. In that function, Matt coordinated the total spectrum of nationwide safety coverage.  Earlier than that, he served because the NSC’s senior director for Asia, the place he led the administration’s work on the Indo-Pacific area, and particularly its shift on China coverage.

Earlier than his White Home service, Matt spent the late Nineties and early 2000s in China as a reporter for Reuters and The Wall Avenue Journal. He then fought in Iraq and Afghanistan as a U.S. Marine throughout three fight deployments between 2007 and 2010. Following energetic responsibility, Matt ran Asia analysis at Davidson Kempner Capital Administration, a multi-strategy funding fund in New York.

Matt’s new guide, The Boiling Moat: Pressing Steps to Defend Taiwan, is popping out July 1st.

Please take pleasure in!

Take heed to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Audible, or in your favourite podcast platform. Watch the interview on YouTube right here.

Delivered to you by Wealthfront high-yield financial savings account, Helix Sleep premium mattresses, and Shopify world commerce platform, offering instruments to begin, develop, market, and handle a retail enterprise

Pay attention onApple Podcasts

Pay attention onSpotify

Pay attention onOvercast

This episode is delivered to you by Helix Sleep! Helix was chosen as the most effective general mattress of 2022 by GQ journal, Wired, and House Remedy. With Helix, there’s a particular mattress to satisfy each physique’s distinctive consolation wants. Simply take their quiz—solely two minutes to finish—that matches your physique kind and sleep preferences to the proper mattress for you. They’ve a 10-year guarantee, and also you get to attempt it out for 100 nights, risk-free. They’ll even decide it up from you in case you don’t like it. And now, Helix is providing 20% off all mattress orders plus two free pillows at HelixSleep.com/Tim.

This episode is delivered to you by Shopify! Shopify is certainly one of my favourite platforms and certainly one of my favourite firms. Shopify is designed for anybody to promote wherever, giving entrepreneurs the sources as soon as reserved for giant enterprise. Very quickly flat, you possibly can have a great-looking on-line retailer that brings your concepts to life, and you may have the instruments to handle your day-to-day and drive gross sales. No coding or design expertise required.

Go to shopify.com/Tim to enroll in a one-dollar-per-month trial interval. It’s an awesome deal for an awesome service, so I encourage you to test it out. Take your corporation to the following degree in the present day by visiting shopify.com/Tim.

This episode is delivered to you by Wealthfront! Wealthfront is an app that helps you save and make investments your cash. Proper now, you possibly can earn 5% APY—that’s the Annual Proportion Yield—with the Wealthfront Money Account. That’s greater than ten occasions extra curiosity than in case you left your cash in a financial savings account on the common financial institution, in keeping with FDIC.gov. 

It takes only a few minutes to enroll, and you then’ll instantly begin incomes 5% curiosity in your financial savings. And while you open an account in the present day, you’ll get an additional fifty-dollar bonus with a deposit of 5 hundred {dollars} or extra. Go to Wealthfront.com/Tim to get began.

What was your favourite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know within the feedback.

Wish to hear one other episode that examines the intricacies of US-China relations? Take heed to my dialog with Niall Ferguson right here by which we mentioned retaining the Chilly Battle II from heating up into World Battle III, life beneath fatwa, understanding historical past to vary the world for the higher, an urge for food for tweed, and far more.

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

• The Boiling Moat: Pressing Steps to Defend Taiwan by Matt Pottinger | Amazon
• Congressional Testimony Home Choose Committee on the Strategic Competitors Between the USA and the Chinese language Communist Celebration | Congress.gov
• Remarks by Deputy Nationwide Safety Advisor Matt Pottinger to London-Based mostly Coverage Change | The White Home
• 1989 Tiananmen Sq. Protests | Amnesty Worldwide UK
• Bao Tong, 90, Dies; Prime Chinese language Official Imprisoned After Tiananmen | The New York Instances
• Imperial Examination | Wikipedia
• Asian Languages & Civilizations | Amherst Faculty
• Beowulf | Amazon
• Gwoyeu Romatzyh — Higher Than Pinyin? | East Asia Scholar
• Romanization of Japanese | Wikipedia
• One Piece Wiki | Fandom
• TikTok: What It Is, How It Works, and Why It’s Widespread | Investopedia
• What to Know Concerning the TikTok Safety Issues | Time
• TikTok Admits Utilizing Its App to Spy on Reporters in Effort to Monitor Leaks | The Guardian
• China Has a Sweeping Imaginative and prescient to Reshape the World – And Nations Are Listening | CNN
• TikTok Isn’t Foolish. It’s Critical | The Economist
• TikTok Faces Requires Ban amid Claims of Anti-Israel ‘Indoctrination’ | Al Jazeera
• Xi and Biden’s Diplomatic Dance: APEC Summit and the Way forward for U.S.-China Relations | FDD
• Biden Reiterated US Issues over TikTok in Name with XI, White Home Says | Reuters
• Xi Jinping | Wikiquote
• Folks’s Every day | Wikipedia
• Wars Are Fought on ‘Smokeless Battlefields’ | Taipei Instances
• 5 Issues to Know About ByteDance, TikTok’s Mother or father Firm | FDD
• Australian Safety Adviser Instructed Author To not Fly to China | AP Information
• Is Tiktok’s Mother or father Firm an Agent of the Chinese language State? In China Inc., It’s a Little Extra Sophisticated | The Dialog
• Chinese language Social Media Platforms Are Now Awash with Antisemitism | The Diplomat
• Blinken Accuses China of Uyghur Genocide in Xinjiang | FP
• Teen’s TikTok Video about China’s Muslim Camps Goes Viral | BBC Information
• Vandenberg rRsolution | Wikipedia
• Senate Passes Invoice Banning TikTok If Mother or father Firm Does Not Promote It | The Guardian
• TikTok Dominates Media Shops as Information Supply for Gen Z | Axios
• TikTok Is Turning Its Customers into Lobbyists, Similar to Uber Did. | Slate
• Why Is Taiwan Vital to the USA? | Council on International Relations
• Why Taiwan Issues to the World | Monetary Instances
• Better East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere | Wikipedia
• Whilst Taiwan Perfects Its Democracy, China Is Sabotaging It | The Economist
• Democracy Index 2023 | Economist Intelligence Unit
• Taiwan’s Dominance of the Chip Business Makes It Extra Vital | The Economist
• Deterrence and Dissuasion within the Taiwan Strait | International Coverage Analysis Institute
• Saving Personal Ryan | Prime Video
• Taiwan’s Dominance of the Chip Business Makes It Extra Vital | Monetary Instances
• The Bold Dragon: Beijing’s Calculus for Invading Taiwan by 2030 | Division of Protection
• Taiwan International Minister Warns of Battle with China in 2027 | The Guardian
• Ahead Alliance | Wikipedia
• Russia and China Are Successful the Propaganda Battle | The Atlantic
• China Says Ally Venezuela, Guyana Should Resolve Border Dispute | Barron’s
• Xi and Putin Flaunt Deepening Ties, Flout the US-led Order | United States Institute of Peace
• Antifragile: Issues That Acquire from Dysfunction by Nassim Nicholas Taleb | Amazon
• The Folks Onscreen Are Pretend. The Disinformation Is Actual. | The New York Instances
• ‘Chinese language Spy’ Focused 1000’s over LinkedIn | BBC Information
• Choose Committee Unveils CCP Affect Memo, “United Entrance 101” | Choose Committee on the CCP
• What to Make of China’s Large Cyber-Espionage Marketing campaign | The Economist
• Limiting Chinese language Affect Operations – U.S.-China Technological “Decoupling”: A Technique and Coverage Framework | Carnegie Endowment for Worldwide Peace
• Gold Bars and Tokyo Flats: How Cash Is Flowing Out of China. | The New York Instances
• AlphaGo | Google DeepMind
• Reagan, “Evil Empire,” Speech Textual content | Voices of Democracy
• How bin Laden Catapulted One Man Into Battle | WSJ

SHOW NOTES

• [05:55] Bao Tong’s calligraphy.
• [08:20] Matt’s determination to check East Asian languages.
• [10:13] Learning with Perry Hyperlink and the challenges of studying Chinese language.
• [12:19] Suggestions for studying Chinese language and different languages.
• [17:17] How TikTok has been weaponized by the Chinese language Communist Celebration.
• [20:58] The origins of TikTok and its obfuscatory possession construction.
• [26:30] How sowing chaos within the West serves the CCP’s goals.
• [31:37] “Politics stops on the water’s edge.”
• [33:11] How ought to the US rein in TikTok’s affect over its inhabitants?
• [40:23] The importance of Taiwan geographically, ideologically, and economically.
• [49:59] The semiconductor trade in Taiwan and its world significance.
• [52:07] Deterring China from attacking or coercing Taiwan.
• [58:51] Cultivating social depth in Taiwan.
• [1:01:09] Guessing at Xi Jinping’s timeline.
• [1:05:33] Demonstrating the desire to match the capability of following by.
• [1:07:47] Matt’s prime priorities for stemming Chinese language ambitions.
• [1:10:15] Architects of chaos.
• [1:14:21] Staying alert towards informational warfare and united entrance exercise.
• [1:21:00] Countering China’s affect on its Western-based residents.
• [1:25:05] Checkers vs. Go.
• [1:26:56] How can the US reassert its place as a beacon of democracy?
• [1:33:05] What prompted Matt to affix the Marine Corps at age 32?
• [1:38:50] Getting in form for the event.
• [1:40:45] Management classes discovered.
• [1:46:59] The Boiling Moat, the significance of public service, and parting ideas.

MORE MATT POTTINGER QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“As a former Marine, Deputy Nationwide Safety Advisor, I used to be juggling probably the most severe nationwide safety threats going through the USA. I feel TikTok is close to the highest. Close to the highest, okay? Suppose for a second how preposterous it’s that we’re in a scenario the place the primary platform is managed by a hostile totalitarian authorities. The principle platform by which a complete technology of People talk and purchase their information.”

— Matt Pottinger

“We ought to be issuing a smartphone to each scholar who arrives from an authoritarian nation in the USA, make it a college program to say, ‘That is your freedom telephone. You’ll be able to put any apps on right here that you really want. Don’t put any Chinese language apps on right here. Don’t put TikTok on right here. They’ll see the whole lot. Don’t put WeChat, Weixin” — the Chinese language app which is used additionally as a surveillance software — ‘Don’t put that on right here. Put all of your free society issues onto this telephone after which know that your different one is being monitored by Beijing, by the social gathering.’ So we ought to be doing far more for the Chinese language diaspora that comes right here to check. We ought to be giving them a shot at really breaking free from this bubble of surveillance and censorship that follows them after they come to the USA. We ought to be breaking out of that.”

— Matt Pottinger

“Vandenberg had a well-known line, he mentioned, ‘Politics stops on the water’s edge.’ It means we will have bitter debates internally between left and proper, Democrats, Republicans, independents, Trump, Biden, however in the case of our nationwide curiosity, there should be a normal consensus that prevails that we’re on the identical group, and that there must be some predictability and continuity in our insurance policies.”

— Matt Pottinger

“The Marine Corps talks lots about each bodily braveness but in addition ethical braveness. So ethical braveness is extra vital. It’s this concept that you’ll do the suitable factor when nobody’s trying, the concept you’ll sacrifice your self and never your integrity or your honor, however your place with a purpose to be sure that the suitable factor will get achieved, even when it exposes you to ridicule.”

— Matt Pottinger

“Public service is among the finest errors I stumbled into in my life. I joined the Marine Corps at 32, and I wouldn’t commerce that have for something.”

— Matt Pottinger

PEOPLE MENTIONED

Associated and Really useful

The Tim Ferriss Present is one of the most well-liked podcasts on the earth with a couple of billion downloads. It has been chosen for “Better of Apple Podcasts” thrice, it’s typically the #1 interview podcast throughout all of Apple Podcasts, and it has been ranked #1 out of 400,000+ podcasts on many events. To hearken to any of the previous episodes totally free, take a look at this web page.