China's growing influence in the Pacific

Speaker 1 [00:00:07] Welcome to the World of Intelligence, a podcast for you to discover the latest analysis of global military and security trends within the open- source defense intelligence community. Now, onto the episode.
Kate Cox [00:00:19] Hello, I'm Kate Cox, your host for today, and this is the World of Intelligence at Janes. I'd like to welcome again my esteemed co- host, Sean Corbett, the chair of the Janes Advisory Board. Hello, Sean.
Sean Corbett [00:00:31] Hi, Kate.
Kate Cox [00:00:32] Hi. For today's episode, we'll look at China's expanding influence in the Pacific and what this means for international security. To take us through this important topic, I'm delighted to welcome two expert guests, Dr. Greg Brown and Claire Chu. So Greg is joining us from ASPI USA, where he is a senior fellow and director of regional cooperation and coordination, together with his adjunct professor role at Georgetown University. Welcome, Greg.
Greg Brown [00:01:01] Thanks, Kate. Happy to be here.
Kate Cox [00:01:03] For long- time listeners, you'll know Claire, a senior China analyst at Janes, who's been on the podcast several times now to share her expertise on China's geopolitical influence. It's good to have you back, Claire.
Claire Chu [00:01:15] Thank you, Kate. Great to talk to you again, Sean.
Sean Corbett [00:01:18] And you, Claire.
Kate Cox [00:01:20] Excellent. So China's interest in the Pacific is not new, but we are seeing that it's increasingly asserting influence through diplomatic, economic, and military activities. Today, we'll unpack why it is that China is so invested in the region, the wider security impacts of its actions, and of course, how OSINT can help us better understand the great power dynamics at play. So to help us set the scene, Sean, I'll come to you first. Why is the Pacific strategically significant, and what interest does China have in the region?
Sean Corbett [00:01:52] Well, that's a huge question to start off with, and I could probably take the entire podcast to do, but I won't do that. It's probably worth mentioning that it's not only just a huge issue, but it's also a huge part of the planet, the Pacific. So really, my comments are going to be confined to the Indo- Pacific and the South China Sea for obvious reasons. But I think in a nutshell, for the question, I think there's two linked elements, really. The first is, of course, strategic geopolitics, if you like. It's not a great phrase, but it's the new great game that we're seeing with China intent not only to maintain, increase its role as a regional hegemon, which is as we've spoken about before, has been something in their very deep and past history, but also its aspirations to compete with the US for global dominance and to be part of that new world order. And the second thing, which is intimately linked really, so the Indo- Pacific is really the fault line of that relationship, if you like, and the second piece, really and of course, is the economic importance of the whole region. It encompasses a critical trade route linking Western Pacific to the Indian Ocean. There's something like, I think I read recently, $ 3 trillion worth of trade transiting each year, something like 30% of global trade passes through. And then, you've got the resource perspective, which you've got something like 11 billion barrels of untapped oil, 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the South China Sea, all with competing claimants, which I know we'll go and talk about in a moment. Fishing remains important, economic source of income, as does the presence of deep sea minerals. And then, there's the deep sea cables thing, which is a particular interest of mine. It's a huge but often understated issue, actually. I've seen one stated statistic, albeit uncorroborated, that undersea cables carry something like 95% of all intercontinental internet traffic, and from the region, you're talking about something like$ 10 trillion in financial transactions. How they work that out, I don't know, and I haven't done the assured piece as far as Janes is concerned, but it's a good statistic, and it's certainly the most active region for subsea cable construction. So in a nutshell, this area is basically China's strategic depth.
Kate Cox [00:04:18] I'm thinking about some of the geopolitical tensions. We'll come back to that in a moment. Greg, did you have a point to make there?
Greg Brown [00:04:25] Yeah, I just think Sean has really laid it out for us the growing list of fundamentally changed policy options and challenges for the West as we look at the region. I know that in the West, we do tend to look at the Pacific as a chess board where the pieces are constantly moving, but I think the game has fundamentally changed. We are not dealing with traditional territorial disputes over rocks or reefs. Those still exist, of course, in the region, but it's rather a more sophisticated competition over influence and access and strategic positioning. If I look at the Pacific, and I know we're going to get into this in a little bit, but take Kiribati's rumored 99- year lease for discussion with China or the Solomon Island Security Pact that essentially invited Chinese police into domestic affairs. These aren't conquests of territory or land. They're invitations, which makes them, of course, far more durable and also more legally complex to reverse.
Kate Cox [00:05:23] So you talked there, Greg, about competition over influence and access. What's the current status of the territorial claims and disputes in the Pacific?
Greg Brown [00:05:34] It's an interesting question because I think in the Pacific itself, if we're looking at Pacific Islands, we're not actually talking about these territorial claims. Those are basically set. People understand this. Certainly, we can get into seabed mining where there's discussion about who has access or licenses to this or that, but if we're thinking about the region as strategic significance and those Chinese interests, I think the Pacific isn't strategically significant because it appears empty to us. It's significant because it is empty to us. Water, of course, doesn't vote, but it does provide this ultimate highway for rejecting power across the world's largest ocean. And from my perspective, China's interest isn't romantic. It's ruthlessly practical in how it approaches this. Beijing's strategy as I see it, and I think revealed in its own strategic thinking, at least what we can see and what we can read, is that Beijing operates on dual tracks in the Pacific, short- term. They're looking to fracture US alliances and partnerships, I think particularly in the compact or free association states of Palau, the Marshall Islands, and Micronesia, but also in the US territories in places like the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and the American Samoa. Long- term, I think that China's looking to become the indispensable partner for the region that effectively would make the Pacific a Chinese lake as it were.
Kate Cox [00:06:57] Interesting. So turning to some of the more recent developments, this year, we've seen China signing agreements with the Cook Islands, announcing a powerful new deep sea cable cutter, and hosting senior diplomats from various Pacific nations. Claire, do you see these as new developments or a part of a longer term trend, and what do these types of activities signal to the international community?
Claire Chu [00:07:23] Yeah. I mean, like Greg said, there has been a lot of change in the last few years in how China is interacting with these countries, but more importantly, how many of these local governments are responding to the offers of investment, of economic opportunity from China while balancing those with traditional relationships with Western countries and with long- standing development partners like Australia and New Zealand, Japan in some cases the United States. And so, for many of these countries, the desired policy is to remain friends to all and not necessarily to choose one or the other, which I think is a broader trend as well in other parts of the world, including in South America. We're seeing with countries like Colombia that are deciding it's no longer enough to rely solely on, say, the United States as a security guarantor or as an economic partner of choice. There is a world in which it is ultimately most beneficial to work alongside and partner with, again, the US, Australia, and these countries with China as an economic presence, but also as a provider of technological progress, of technical training, of resources, of assets. And so, it's interesting because as Pacific island nations are looking to balance these relationships with great powers, there are still three Pacific island nations that are allies of Taiwan, and that is something, I think, Greg, you can speak to a bit more, complicating how this balance is ultimately going to work and what does that word ally really mean in this sense. But quickly, I'll talk a little bit more about some of the other trends that we've noticed economically as well. There are these traditional development partners I mentioned like Australia, which are still the primary funders of infrastructure and a lot of other development in countries like, say, Nauru or the Solomon Islands or the Papua New Guinea. But this desire for almost immediate or faster revenue generation for all these countries that are seeing traditional resources like in Nauru, for example, phosphate reserves are drying out. In places like Solomon Islands, fishing is not sustainable. They're looking to other venues for development and to fund domestic activities. China's search for natural resources to sustain its high- level industrial consumption are a clear match. Even if a lot of that consumption is not necessarily sustainable if it's not always economically or environmentally sound, it is undeniable for a lot of these countries. And so, we're seeing this balance also between short- term immediate profit with a lot of Chinese projects where countries at times end up leasing their own land and their own critical infrastructure to Chinese companies. They end up granting permits or prospecting licenses to foreign companies that have little experience or a few assets or a few credentials in the sector. They're very opportunistic to seeing unregulated activity in a lot of very environmentally or unstable situations like in logging and in fishing and whatnot. And so, there is this opportunity, I think, for a lot of traditional development partners in the West to still remain involved and remain engaged despite what is perceived to be a flood of Chinese investment in many of these countries.
Sean Corbett [00:11:05] I think you both brought a really important nuance there that it's not necessarily a bipolar issue at all. It is not China versus America and her allies or China and allies. It can vary almost on a daily basis depending on the issue that's being discussed and depending on national interests, all of which are intertwined and all the rest of it. For example, Japan is now selling military equipment to the Philippines and Vietnam to both improve their maritime security capacity, but also in terms of its military export as well. So you've got to look at these almost on an individual basis, and it gets quite a complicated wiring diagram at that stage.
Claire Chu [00:11:44] Absolutely. And very quickly too, I think one of the reasons why Chinese companies appear to have this outsized presence in a lot of the countries is because the projects are involved even if financially, they're of lower value than some that Australia proposes. They are very visible, and I think that is very intentional. So for example, stadium diplomacy, wherein national- level facilities have been funded and built by Chinese companies everywhere from Papua New Guinea, Solomon Island, Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu. There's one that is being built right now in Nauru. Smaller facilities in countries like Kiribati and Fiji, they serve as a symbol of diplomatic cooperation, but also Chinese influence and capabilities in global infrastructure developments. We're also seeing a lot of government buildings which are very, very visible as well. Even in Southeast Asia, in the Pacific, more or less, the presidential palace, the Defense Force building, Ministry of Foreign Affairs buildings were all constructed by Chinese companies. And so, I think that visibility and prominence coupled with the intimacy of other Chinese projects is one of the reasons why the influence factor is so great. And when I say intimacy, I'm talking about things like handheld devices, telecommunications, things that impact, influence and facilitate everyday life and activity in business for the people, and that's not to mention the kinship element as well. For a lot of local businesses that are dominated or have a lot of foreign investment from, not saying Chinese businesses, but Chinese businessmen who have been naturalized or people who are of Chinese or Hong Kong heritage who have been in, say, the Solomon Islands for a long time and are very active now in tuna processing. And even though they're very much a naturalized Solomon Islander at this point, they are also often a point of contact for Chinese missions or chambers of commerce that are seeking to expand those relationships or to visit and meet with elites. So it's quite complicated and it's not always the same as you mentioned, Sean, the same situation in every country. But I think, again, this visibility of the projects, the intimacy of investment, and also the elite capture kinship element are three of the reasons why China's influence in the islands is perceived as so significant compared to a lot of long- standing allies and partners.
Greg Brown [00:14:08] Claire, inaudible
Kate Cox [00:14:08] Now, a number of-
Greg Brown [00:14:10] Oh, I'm sorry, Kate.
Kate Cox [00:14:11] No, please go on. Please go on.
Greg Brown [00:14:13] So Claire, I think you really hit it on the head there with we're looking from the outside in. We tend to think that a lot of these places are quite small, and therefore, they must be simple. But in fact, because they're small, that's why the relationships are so intricate and complex, which I think inaudible Sean's earlier point that, again, from the outside in, we want to look at the region as a whole as if they're all the same because we have so many countries, and many of them are either small states or microstates, but you have to just peel it back just one or two layers of that onion, and you see that they have their own independent national interest. Naturally, so just like any great power or large power would. They're not different in that way. And Claire, to your point, I think with all the outside powers and players in the region, many of which have been there for a very long time help us understand that even the smallest states and the elites in those states are very educated and knowledgeable about great power politics and international relations. They've been playing in part of this game for a very long time, so what we're looking at here is something that looks like it's mirroring in some cases the kind of competition, the pre- ops on the 19th century, and those stories are told from generation to generation across the Pacific Islands. This is not new to them. These pressures are not new to them. We should probably recognize that from the West looking in. They might appear small, but they still have one vote at the UN, each one of them. And again, the importance for what they mean about getting not from, say, the United States, West Coast to Asia, you can just go over the top, but so much of the time, you have to go through this location and that becomes ever more important, and so I appreciate the comes from both of you.
Kate Cox [00:15:56] Yeah, really interesting points there on the response side, and back to your point, Claire, on the desired policy for maintaining friends tool and taking that kind of pragmatic approach. It's also interesting to see how other actors are responding to China's influence activities. Greg, could you tell us a little bit more about that, both in terms of international responses, so what we're seeing from the US, Australia, and other allies, and then at the more local level for Pacific nations themselves, how local populations are responding to great power activity?
Greg Brown [00:16:29] Right. Thanks, Kate. I think to get that started, we have to begin with, again, maybe this change of lens on what we think that China might be doing to understand and what the Western response has been. And from where I sit, it looks like the old Chinese approach of hide your strength, bide your time in the Pacific has been replaced by what appears to be show your strength and seize your time, and this may reflect a shift in the confidence in China, that the window for American counteraction in the region is closing, which could be disturbing for those of us in the West. But it does mean that I think what we've seen is a Western response that's been reactive rather than proactive. In some sense, I think we're playing catch up with Chinese initiatives rather than anticipating them. And of course the US has increased funding over the last eight to 10 years in the region. There's more diplomatic attention than there was 10 or 15 years ago. We have opened some new embassies. They're very lightly populated, but there is attempt there. There's also, and I think, an attempt to try to rebuild influence with some money large infrastructure projects, many of which may be still coming down the pike. But China is building its own influence in the region. Of course, it has been quite strategically patient, and I think in most cases, China actually has the narrative control. In some sense, I think Australia's response has been more sophisticated than the United States or some of the other traditional partners. I think Canberra does recognize that this is not just about money, but it's about just demonstrating reliability, understanding local needs, listening. However, Canberra faces the same problems as all the rest of us, and that's the fundamental challenge of asking the Pacific countries to choose sides, not out loud, but they know that that's what the West is asking, in a competition in which they would prefer things not to be asked or they prefer to avoid that discussion altogether. In some sense, the Pacific Islands being forgotten for so long, have appreciated the attention they receive because of great power competition. Now, they have many people bidding for the influence and attention, and that is something that cuts both ways, I think, in the islands. So I do think that inaudible the most effective counter- strategy has been supporting issues such as independent media and civil society in the islands. If this is a long- term game, China is playing to win that. Now, it's in changing and helping elements within the Pacific Island societies that are more Western- oriented develop and grow and sustain themselves. The challenge, of course, is that a lot of the Chinese development, as Claire mentioned, is highly visible. The bridges, they have a Chinese flag on the bridge. There's a big sign that says who built it. Western assistance and particularly US assistance often disappears into a general budget, likewise with a lot of Australian support, right? It goes to pay for things like salaries that don't get mentioned. And this is where, of course, the local population presents a very complex picture, I think, as we've outlined. Many Pacific Islanders, they appreciate the Chinese investment while remaining very wary of Chinese intentions. The key insight, I think, from analysis that we've done at ASPI in the recent years is that China really doesn't need universal popularity across the islands. Their approach, their strategy, and their tactics suggest that China only needs to capture political elites, as Claire mentioned, and to create economic dependencies that make reversing course economically painful. And so, domestic instability in some sense, I think benefits China's strategy. Weak governance creates opportunities for China to position itself inside a society as a stabilizing force. We've seen that most particularly in the Solomon Islands, where the police forces come in is basically there to buttress an existing government. This is what the journalist and analyst, Cleo Paskal, calls entropic warfare, China benefiting from chaos rather than creating order.
Kate Cox [00:20:34] So thanks for talking us through some of those responses and the nuance of the great power dynamics. I'll come to you next, Claire, on our tradecraft, but Sean, I think you had a point to make first.
Sean Corbett [00:20:44] Yeah, I just wanted to first start that it is really interesting, isn't it? From there, they have definitely moved strategy from hide strength to show strength, and the worry is why in order, too. Now, it could well be it just supports all those diplomatic and political activities that we've been talking about, but there is no question that their military capability is ramping up. Interesting that you use the word catch up. Now, catch up certainly politically and diplomatically catch up in terms of what they're doing in their backyard, if you want to call it that, which is a ridiculous thing to say because there's a huge amount of space there. But the areas that they can influence, I just look at the way that they're developing things like the blue- water navy. They've got some like 400 hulls now, something like that. It gives them a great, and I don't want to trivialize it, but playgrounds to not just show strength, but actually to train, make sure they're interoperable with themselves, night flying, all that sort of stuff. And then, if you look at the corollary, now, there is no question that the US might militarily is more than a match for that, but the logistics tale is huge. It's about the political will. And then, you've got things like AUKUS, which is really important particularly for the Australians, but is slightly getting bogged down in, we'll just say, some politics perhaps and security issues. So what is the western counter- strategy to that show of strength? These are all questions with no answers at the moment.
Kate Cox [00:22:21] So Claire, how can OSINT help us get to some of these answers? What's the value of OSINT when we're looking at China's influence in the Pacific?
Claire Chu [00:22:32] Absolutely. I mean, some of these countries have relatively closed information environments on which can make it challenging to access local reporting, access updated news, and also to really understand local actors and participants. A lot of the public reporting available is done by watchdog groups like environmentalists and activists. There is quite a bit on social media, but it's not quite the same as some other countries where we might be doing analysis, and I speak as a Janes analyst, and so some of the ways that as an analyst, I think my colleagues and I are trying to understand China's activities in the Pacific and track them on a very granular basis, involve tracking trends really across the PMESII framework. Economically, we're looking at trends and patterns in foreign direct investments, transactions, contracts being signed like mining licenses and prospecting licenses and things like that? Company registrations... Who is registering these companies? What else are they doing in this country? Where else are they operating? Where are their assets coming from? So that is important for us to understand the types of economic engagement, areas of potential coercion, or further influence. We are tracking resource, commercial resources, and attractive interests alongside China's strategic interests and objectives to understand, again, who was doing what, where, and why because often, this then ties us to political and diplomatic interests as well and exchanges of allegiance of support and multilateral institutions in terms of votes and otherwise. So my colleagues and I also track diplomatic shifts, and we're tracking official language and statements. We are tracking visits. Who was actually going where to meet with whom to understand political pressures at play, not just geopolitically, but also local political pressures, which are often tied to these key industries that are so significant for local governments. We're trying to understand as well infrastructure and landscape, and we're analyzing infrastructure construction using satellite imagery and other resources available to us, open source, to understand, as Sean mentioned, what is the potential for dual- use activity in the region? What are the implications for China's blue- water navy? As we know, 2025 is the year in which China plans to launch its fully integrated, fully networked blue- water navy. And to a certain extent, China has done a pretty successful job building out the fleet, not just in terms of the naval fleet, but also the non- military, right, the Merchant Marine as well. So it helps us understand the extent of China's naval access, power projection, and ability to utilize a lot of the critical infrastructure being built across the Pacific for potential conflicts or contingency scenarios.
Kate Cox [00:25:42] Right. So we've touched on various planned initiatives involving China this year in the Pacific. Sean, looking ahead in terms of what all this means, what lies ahead, what would you say China's likely to do next in the region, and what impacts would increasing Chinese influence continue to have?
Sean Corbett [00:26:02] Right. That's another huge question, and of course, that's going to depend on lots of global factors, but it is the exam question, the predictive intelligence. As you know, I'm always going on about, " That's where we should be going. What's going to happen? Don't read me the news, tell me what's going to happen." What I would say, just giving a punt there if you like, is as things stand right now, I would think you're going to see some of the fairly similar things, but actually increased. So I think the PLA Navy capacity will continue to grow. As Claire said, blue- water ops south of the equator are going to become normalized, and normalization, as we've spoken before, actually is part of the way to lull people into thinking it's all okay when it's not. Long ranges, exercises, that sort of thing, I think that's going to be combined with a ramping up of deliberate Coast Guard militia provocation and lawfare and all the stuff that goes with that. But I think that that's a strategic intent. So a lot of people talk about tactical miscalculations. I don't get particularly excited about those because normally, if there's something happened at a tactical level and it happens all the time there, it kind of like, " Oh, yeah." It gets deescalated pretty quickly, but I think this is strategic intent here. So all of these events will add up and multiply. At the same time, I think China's going to expand its political and economic efforts to increase the influence and pressure on its neighbors, which we're talking about previously, locking things like infrastructure projects, inaudible facilities, trading arrangements, all that sort of stuff. It's just extension of their Belt and Road Initiative really, isn't it? And then, I think looking at the other side of things, I think the allies such as the US, Australia, Japan, we talked about all of them already. They're going to look to counter economically and politically again with increased cooperation, arms, sales, joint exercising, all of which we're seeing already, of course, and I've already mentioned AUKUS, which is if it delivers anything like it's promised to, then it could alter the calculus terms in terms of the security in some of that region through the nuclear power submarine project. I do think, I've got to say this, the undersea infrastructure battle space will become more prevalent, and there's going to be lots of that going on actually, and we're seeing it in terms of the capability development by China now and a little bit of the counter development we're going on. So I think that's the most likely course of action, if you like. What could change that though? Well, Claire and I and yourself have talked about the Taiwan issue several times on these podcasts, and I would commend them., Claire knows her stuff there. I think I concluded that the global economic shock of an invasion certainly right now is acting as a significant deterrent to that. But if that calculation changes, I would love to have been fly in the wall this last week with the gathering in Beijing of Xi, Putin, and Kim Jong- un. If that calculation changes in terms of we could ride out the economic outfall of an invasion or if the US, for whatever reason, loses interest, maybe they start developing their own chips, et cetera, et cetera, then that could change the equation significantly. I don't think that's anytime soon, but it could do. And then, it might surprise you to think. I think the other factor that might change the calculus is to look at the high north, particularly those northern sea lines of communication. If and when they fully open up and become even six months of the year negotiable, then that has the potential to... I'm not normally positive on these things, but potentially reduce the strategic importance of the Indo- Pacific from a lines of communication thing, but I don't really believe that.
Kate Cox [00:29:49] Very interesting. All right, so to finish up the podcast, let's close with one short takeaway from each of us. So if there's one thing you would like to leave our listeners with from today's conversation, what would that be? So I'll come to you first, Claire, and then to Greg and to Sean, and I'll finish with one, too. So Claire, what's your key takeaway?
Claire Chu [00:30:12] This is always tough, but I mean, in general, I think it's important to recognize, and I made this point earlier, that this is no longer, and when I say this, I mean, just geopolitics broadly, a zero- sum equation, recognizing that when we're talking about competition in different regions in the world, including the Pacific, different countries have their own needs, whether they're security requirements or economic revenue backed requirements as well. Governments need to perform, and they need to serve their communities. And so, to understand ways to engage impactfully, it really has to be on a country- to- country basis. And there has to be high- level engagement and presence, which is what China is doing and has been doing in a lot with a lot of Pacific Island nations. We're starting to see more of that outreach as Greg mentioned. Germany has established, I think, an embassy in Fiji, establishing an embassy in Jerusalem. There's a bit more of that diplomatic back and forth. I hope that that's a trend that continues and with greater visibility and greater prioritization from these other governments are interacting and also just recognizing that to invest and to continue to engage in these countries and to build influence and support to help local governments secure long- term control of their assets and their infrastructure. That's something that is not so guaranteed when it comes to Chinese investment and Chinese presence. So that means developing downstream processing, supporting skilled labor developments, technological advancements, that's something that the US, the Australia, Japan can visibly and impactfully bring to the table. That's an area where I think countering China is possible while still providing that benefit to the local communities. Also, figuring out, again, in the zero- sum environment, there are going to be scenarios where Chinese partners are on the ground. And for a long time, that was not necessarily acceptable, I think, to certain western governments. But with the knowledge that Chinese companies are already very integrated in local industry, in the value chain, what are the thresholds of involvement that are acceptable? Are there areas where, say, the US is willing to partner with a Chinese company? And maybe the answer is no, but if the answer is no, what are the alternatives that we can bring to the table? And I think that's really important to consider when we talk about competition. I think it's just a very different landscape today than it was 10 years ago. And thinking of the countries in question, what do they actually need and what can we do and why would they choose us?
Kate Cox [00:33:06] Great. Thanks, Claire. Greg, what's your takeaway?
Greg Brown [00:33:09] Thanks, Kate. I think if there was one key message, it would be that the Pacific does appear remote, but its strategic value is incalculable. I mean, this is vital space, and remember that it's not just the space, but there are people who live there, and they have a decision to make as well. They are part of this conversation. I think the current trajectory points unfortunately towards more bifurcated Pacific. Some of these locations will fall into China's orbit. Others will maintain their Western ties. In that sense, I don't think the question is... Can somebody ensure that the Pacific Island states will maintain the connection with DC that we'd all like to see, or with Australia that Australians would like to see, but there is going to be continuing competition. The question, therefore, is whether China's influence will expand, it probably will, but that doesn't necessarily mean that China will become a hegemon in the region. And then, can the great powers that look in appreciate that the Pacific Island states themselves have their own interests and actually help meet those interests? I think China's next moves actually will be focusing on some of the diplomatic holdouts that we see in the region. That's Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands, and Palau. I think in particular, in the Marshall Islands where debt pressures and political instability create opportunities for China to carve out parts of those societies and bring them into its own orbit will be interesting. I also think it's important to remember that Beijing takes a generational approach to this region. It's building relationships with multiple political factions across the entire region to ensure its own influence regardless of electoral outcomes. And in that sense, this probably requires that the West also takes a broader approach to not just focus on freedom of movement across the seas or military assets in the region and projecting power. China is doing that. The United States and others are doing that as well. But there's a different game being played, and this is political warfare. In many of these locations, of course, Beijing is already inside the wire. So the game is not how you provide ships that project power as they face off against each other, but how do you get people on the ground that could provide you with the assets that you need to inaudible safely and securely, to gather that intelligence, to build relationships over time? And in that sense, I think there's a great example, and there's a famous picture looking down in Saipan. So this is in the United States in the Mariana Islands. You look down on the city there in Saipan. It's about 40, 000 people. And if you look out off the coastline, you can see three US prepositioned naval ships there, ready for some sort of conflict at the seas to protect the US homeland there in Saipan. And if you look downtown at the buildings, you see that there's one building that's taller than the others. It just happens to be a casino. It's a casino built by the Chinese, and where most of the punters are themselves Chinese, they're able to visit CNMI for two weeks without a visa, coming to the United States without one. And for me, that's the game. If you have a short story to tell the larger story, it's that there's a different game being played. I think the West probably needs to wake up and start playing a different game and maybe set the table for itself rather than be respond and continually do what the Chinese might do.
Kate Cox [00:36:34] Very interesting. Thank you. And Sean?
Sean Corbett [00:36:38] Two great, great points, and I knew you'd make me go last, so my sandwich was beaten. So I'm going to go slightly off- piste on this one and just go into how we look at something like this as an intelligence problem set from an analyst perspective. The way I would equate it's like looking through a pair of binoculars. How we see it will depend on the magnification. If we zoom in tightly, then you can see lots of detail, but no context. But if you zoom right out, the context becomes obvious, but the details are missing, and the trick in any intelligent problem state is to get that focus right. The challenge in this part of the world, of course, particularly through a Chinese lens, is that you need both, and it's incredibly complex. And so, that means it's an unbelievably resource intensive. So it is one of the hardest intelligent problem sets. Going back to what Claire was saying about the tradecraft side of things, I do quite a lot on North Korea, and it is challenging because it's just not an open society, but by reading stuff in that is quite often it's as valuable or as informative, realize what's not been said as what is said and who they're talking to and when and why, and all the rest of it. So incredibly complex challenge, but as always, we've got good people looking at it.
Kate Cox [00:38:01] Great. Thanks, Sean. My takeaway is also tradecraft related and goes back to Claire's earlier points. So I think we've covered quite a few recent podcasts with closed OSINT environments, looking at Yemen, Myanmar, the US- Mexico border security, and this seems to be a similar problem set in that respect. But yeah, in terms of the OSINT tools we have at our disposal and some of the wider security avenues that we can explore, helpfully highlighted a number of ways that we can use the PMESII framework to look at this and better understand China's strategic content. So with that, thanks to Sean and thanks to our guests, Claire and Greg, for the insightful discussion. And thank you as always to our listeners for joining. If you have comments, questions, or other topics you'd like to hear more about, please do let us know. But for now, thank you for listening and goodbye.
Greg Brown [00:38:57] Thank you everyone.
Claire Chu [00:39:00] Thank you.
Speaker 1 [00:39:06] Thanks for joining us this week on the World of Intelligence. Make sure to visit our website, janes. com/ podcast, or you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts, so you'll never miss an episode.