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and we saw in Russia a kind of uh mephistophilian compact between the state and these hacker groups [Music] Nigel Inkster welcome to how the light gets in thank you very much nice to be here so I want to talk a little bit about your most recent book The Great decoupling China America and the struggle for technological Supremacy I want to ask you firstly what led you

to zoom in on China and more specifically its rise to cyberpower in your work yeah well I at the time um that I started thinking about these things I was working full time for The International Institute for strategic studies you know focusing on conflict International Security and I think it was 2010 I set up a cyber security program for the Institute as it became apparent to

me that the Cyber domain was becoming a zone of international contestation that had very palpable geopolitical and International Security aspects to it and the minute I did that that I realized that China was going to be critical in the evolution or of this Nexus of technology and power because it had moved within a relatively short period of time from being technologically backward to embracing modern information

communication Technologies and moving forward very rapidly and with big Ambitions and you know it was already clear that this was starting to become a particular rubbing point between the United States as the first mover in these Technologies and China as you know the country that was running very rapidly to catch up and behind all of that you know there there is a complex Nexus of historical

cultural and and political issues um and when I was actually asked to write the book that became the great decoupling it was actually the Publishers asked me to do it initially I thought well I've written about this already I did an earlier book China cyberpower and I thought how I got anything new to say and it turned out that actually there was a lot and what

really drove it for me was the awareness that um within U.S policy circles in particular there were a lot of people talking very confidently and assertively about China what China was and wasn't what it wasn't wasn't doing without any real historical or cultural context you know it was as if the whole issue had you know sprung fully formed from the womb and I thought that it

might be useful to try and set what China is doing in this broader cultural and historical context and to go right back to the beginning you know to period when China had been arguably the engineering if not scientific Global superpower responsible in the pre-industrial revolution era for about 50 percent of the world's inventions including all the ones that made possible the age of exploration so looking

at that and then seeing um how and why you know China firstly why why China was so successful as a Technology power but never really developing a scientific method in the way that the West was able to do why was that and um what were the implications of that and that you know takes you back in to the you know early era of Chinese philosophy about

the same time as that was you know flowering in In classical Athens you know same sort of thing you know same sort of processes same sort of questions um how these two Traditions had developed diverged um and then so to speak China's fall from Greece due to the fact that China missed out on the Age of Exploration and more importantly missed out on the Industrial Revolution

so when confronted with Western powers that were you know enabled by you know modern steam driven and electric technology you know um Iron clad warships modern artillery repeating rifles all this sort of thing they really had no answer and this kind of plunged China into a kind of existential crisis and it's been this you know this you know concern about how China could re-establish itself as

a major civilizational power without compromising on it so you know cultural essence and this has been a long you know a prolonged and difficult struggle and it's still ongoing you know we're we're we're we're seeing manifestations of that today so this was really what drove me to write the book that I you know I ended up writing and you talk about how the um how technology

is shaping the geopolitical stage and the geopolitical conflict between the US and China do you think there's someone coming out on top at the moment do you think recent events have shifted that balance well that is in a way the kind of sixty four thousand dollar question and it's very I keep getting asked this question who's on top is it America is it China is China

catching up is it overtaking it's a very difficult question to answer you know the Technologies don't stand still the Technologies aren't predictable in in their development uh sometimes you get technologies that look you know very promising and then progress stalls others move in surprising directions and open up new possibilities so it's very very difficult to make confident predictions about these things uh what I would say

is that China has um made remarkable progress in catching up with the United States in in many areas and in some areas arguably it's ahead you know Quantum uh encryption for example is an area where China constitutes a global Center of Excellence Chinese Engineers have shown a remarkable Ingenuity and facility in developing um ingenious applications of existing Technologies to produce you know consumer facing products that

do it that way but there are still question marks about China's um strength in foundational science I mean a country of 1.4 billion people has produced precisely three Nobel Prize winners thus far and two of them are actually expatriate Chinese and I remember a couple of years ago watching um a YouTube lecture by the senior editor of China Science and Technology daily um making exactly this

point he said China is an engineering uh culture but we have not yet developed a real culture of foundational science this is a serious vulnerability that needs to be addressed and there are some key areas where China is behind the United States and potentially may never catch up an obvious case in point being microprocessors you know the most advanced microprocessors at five and three nanometer production

nodes not much bigger than the size of a silicon atom um uh are beyond the reach of Chinese companies you know they just can't you know they haven't got the technology and the United States has denied them access to the ultraviolet lithography technology that would enable them in principle to do that I was more complicated than that because this you know this technology isn't just about

having the care it's about having what the Germans call fingerspitz cthu this instinctive knowledge you know the the the that only comes from doing uh and it's also about developing complex uh Supply chains in critical inputs and ingredients so in areas like this China is still struggling to to catch up um it's very difficult to gauge where China is because the country you know the the

Chinese party State tends to oscillate between periods of sort of techno exuberance you know where they're sort of saying look at China aren't we doing brilliantly um combined with periods of um you know almost despair you know all we ever going to make it or we ever go to catch up and it's very very difficult to get the other point is that these Technologies are not

confined to specific Nations you know progress in this range of Technologies uh information Communications artificial intelligence broadly defined Quantum are the product of international collaborations um and complex International relationships and separating those out and kind of trying to repatriate them is going to be a very difficult thing to do yeah and um interestingly on that I want to move a little bit away from China and

the US and talk about other Global Powers so for example Russia has dominated a lot of the world news are there is there any technological capabilities that Russia or indeed other powers have been developing yeah that could make them key players on the global stage that we're perhaps not paying as much attention to as we should well I think the short answer is at the moment

no if we look at Russia you know it's a country that has a very strong tradition in mathematics and hard science you know the Soviet education system was very strong in this regard and you know Soviet science did produce some remarkable achievements um but at the same time the Soviet Union um was subject to Western technology embargoes which meant that they never got access to the

big cray computers which were you know the big story in the 1980s that drove them to do some very in Innovative foundational science um which when we found out about it really kind of took us took us by surprise but they never really got um Computing and they certainly didn't get computer networking which was kind of antithetical to the Soviets um preoccupation with protecting information not

sharing information so when Russia you know emerged um in the modern world so to speak um they had a lot of really bright young graduates in maths physics Etc um you know the the we saw a lot of uh interesting software developments but none of this was ever commercialized you know there are no Russian or there are Russian operating systems but nobody other than Russia would

ever buy them there is a Russian equivalent of Facebook there isn't a Russian equivalent of uh Google um but you know these are specific to Russia nobody else would use them and what we found is that a lot of these Bright Young graduates lacking the ability to um apply their skills um in a sort of productive um commercially oriented activities went to the dark side um

and began engaging in cyber criminality and we saw in Russia a kind of uh mephistophilian compact between the state and these hacker groups you know as long as they were attacking non-russian targets and as long as they were making their expertise available to the Russian State when required they were pretty left left alone to get on with it so the net result that all we've really

seen come out of Russia and these Technologies is malware and I think you know as much as 80 percent of all the malware on the planet um originates from Russia and Kaspersky you know and could you talk uh in in a little bit more detail about what cyber Espionage looks like in today's Global stage between the US China and Russia yeah well it's very difficult to

form a comprehensive picture mainly because the United States and its five eyes allies are pretty um laconic about what they themselves are engaged in and you know there there is a very you know there there is a lot of difference um China is driven primarily by the need to catch up with the West so what we saw emerging in the early 2000s was you know effectively

pervasive um almost kind of wild west approach to um state-sponsored um site you know cyber Espionage everyone was doing it um eventually you know China was put under pressure to kind of tighten up um and um you know shall we say be more professional about it in the early days you know you saw the these exploits taking place and nobody seemed you know concerned about concealing

the fact that it was China doing it we've now seen a tightening up of tradecraft it's better but it's still pretty obvious that this is this is China and this is very much driven by the need to meet some very demanding targets for China's own indigenous technology programs so it's still very much about catching up with the West at the same time China China's intelligence Services

have realized that there is a lot of potential to be derived from Simply stealing large Western data sets um which is what they're doing um really promiscuously sometimes for counter Espionage purposes some sometimes kind of attitude it will get this data and then we'll work out what we're going to do with it later so you know there is that but China is working with purpose um

and strategy Russia is essentially a disruptive power Russia is a power that defines its security as a function of everybody else's insecurity so Russia you know you know we see Russia on the international cyber stage engaging in a lot of disruptive activity the main aim of which is is to weaken and put opponents off balance when you look at the United States and its five eyes

allies you know they are you know doing things in a rather different way focusing on uh very much State targets focusing on the ability to do real damage if they need to but most of the time keeping their powder dry and there is I think an interesting Nexus a kind of inverse ratio between a state's capacity for soft power and its propensity to engage in cyber

Espionage so you look at China which struggles to you know achieve real traction on on soft power um you know there's a lot of this stuff going on you look at the United States which is a kind of soft power giant still and Europe um and and the impetus to engage in malign activity in the Cyber domain seems to me you know it seems to be

much less and moving a little bit away from the Cyber domain and let's talking more about military strategy so many have argued and it seems that since the Russian invasion of Ukraine Russia have been made to look weak or their military looks slightly weaker than otherwise was and some say that's now deterring China from wanting to invade Taiwan do you agree with this analysis and what

do you think okay not in the slightest I mean it's been very interesting to you know to to watch Russia's performance so yeah a much vaunted military modernization program turns out to be you know a rather pachomkin exercise um and as Western experts uh examine um captured Uh Russian Munitions from the Ukraine conflict it's becoming increasingly clear that Russia is heavily dependent on Western technology inputs

and not being able to access these because of sanctions is going to cramp Russia's style very significantly but the real problem with Russian military performance in Ukraine is about you know the fundamental military culture is less about technology it's about you know you know this rather toxic military culture of um you know casual violence bullying and a Soviet mindset which dictates that units have to wait

from for orders from the top now China is looking at all of these things and China has been very systematically and very methodically pursuing military modernization basically since the first Gulf War when they got the shock of their lives on seeing you know U.S Precision guided convey additionally our Munitions more or less you know sort of doing everything except stopping at the red traffic lights in

downtown Baghdad and they realized you know they've got a lot of catching up to do and then the Taiwan Straits crisis in 1995-96 gave them a focus for that you know this is you know every Everything became about how would we deter the United States from engaging um in a war with about Taiwan long enough for us to achieve our strategic objective and this has led

you know in into you know major transformation in terms of military technology capabilities but also a shift away from a military Doctrine based on people's War land-based Mass mobilization uh to to a military that is now capable of conducting uh um complex all arms operations technologically enabled and technology is absolutely you know front and center of of you know the the people's Liberation Army's uh approach

to these things so basically you know the pla are looking at what's happened in Ukraine you know they're learning every lesson there is to learn um and of course at the same time the con the two conflicts are very different you know Russia Russia Russia has invaded Ukraine as a land-based army invading Taiwan is going to be a very different proposition for for the pla you've

got 110 miles of uh rather choppy and unpredictable sea you've got um a very different difficult topography in Taiwan I mean the Americans thought about uh an amphibious assault on Taiwan during World War II and concluded it would require more resources than the Normandy Landings so you know moved in another Direction so you know the China is going to do this very differently they're certainly not

you know going to try and avoid making the mistakes that Russia made though whether they will be able to develop the military culture um needed to do this I mean one of the key things for any effective military is the non-commissioned officers you know ncos you know these are people who don't go through you know a particular training College um they're not selected they select themselves

you know they emerge as the natural leaders um and the critical interface between the office decor and the troops China has only a very embryonic NCO culture they've only had it you know that for you know relatively short period of time so I think there is still a big question mark about whether the pla in a combat situation would be able to manifest the local autonomy

and Agility um that Modern Warfare requires you know or whether they would have to sit there and wait for orders to come from on high there were rumors that after the Russia invasion of Ukraine China actually delayed their Invasion into Taiwan and we're going to launch some kind of military offensive at least those rumors have been flying about what's the source of those rumors and what

would your comments be I have no idea what the source of the rumors is but my comments are I think is it it's mostly nonsense um you know I've been watching the Taiwan situation uh very closely one of the exercises I do for in order company I work with is for a select group of clients a monthly Taiwan watch where we you know monitor this month

in month out what's changed you know how does that you know affect the you know the the risk in terms of hard numbers at the moment I think it is still the case that China um wants to be able to recover Taiwan without having to resort to force that possibility is receding Over the Horizon I think there's no question about it I don't yet think that

the Chinese leadership have reached the Tipping Point at which they conclude peaceful reunification is no longer an option I think they are coming closer to that and I think they are coming closer to it as a result of recent American activities um both you know independently and in collaboration with with allies and I think it may well be the case that the Chinese leadership will soon

come to that conclusion I don't think they have yet but it is something you know that's very important for Xi Jinping as the current leader he has said in terms that the great Rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is kind of signature policy if you will cannot be achieved without National reunification so Taiwan has got to be recovered and Xi Jinping is a man with a sense

of his own destiny he will hope that this can be done in his lifetime and what sort of policy or military action taken by the U.S could push China to the point where they think that peaceful reunification with Taiwan is no longer an option that is an almost impossible question to ask actually um but I think it is a combination of supplying ever more sophisticated equipment

to Taiwan such that Taiwan would be able to deploy a so-called porcupine strategy using asymmetric capabilities to make the pla's life very difficult combined with with actions that would suggest to China unequivocally that the U.S and allies would be willing to intervene militarily in support of Taiwan I think there's those two things coming together I mean the other thing is Declaration of Independence by Taiwan but

that is the most unlikely contingency the irony in all of this is the biggest thing stopping the DPP the ruling Taiwan party from declaring independence is the United States telling them don't you you know don't you dare do this so what should the US's strategy be then well that is very interesting because I think the USA has kind of got themselves you know out on a

limb here and it goes to the point that the sort of U.S focus in the Asia Pacific and as they now like to call the indo-pacific Region is very much dominated by the military option and it was a great shame that um well you never remember the exact um acronym for this organization that Obama suggested the Trade Organization of the Asia Pacific region CPE PCC I

think that that that's it it was something that Donald Trump pulled out of uh because this is I think the big thing that's lacking in in U.S policy in the region is is a convincing um commercial and economic presence that would actually act as an alternative pull to to China's attraction Biden Administration is now trying to put something in place but at the moment it looks

pretty anemic quite honestly really offering these countries what they what they want um the other thing I you know and so I think this problem is that you know the the USA has now sort of caught up in this um Dynamic the the determination to remain the hegemonic power which is kind of understandable um is driving this and in that context you know it's important to

bear in mind taiwan's role as part of the first island chain you know they're this line of islands from Japan through the Philippines through Taiwan to Borneo that runs right along China's Eastern Seaboard and potentially uh constrained China's you know freedom for Action um in Naval terms losing Taiwan breaches the first island chain and fundamentally reshapes the geopolitics of the Asia Pacific region and this is

something that you know obviously the United States is anxious to avoid you know worth is to be breached you know relations with key allies notably Japan South Korea would be quite fundamentally changed Donald Trump um during his presidency decided to launch a series of aggressive trade Wars yes against China and in the chronology of the US's relationship with China how did that affect it and what

impacts is that still happening today well um you know in in a sense I think you know the trade and Tech was that Donald Trump launched kind of had to come because China was you know fairly shamelessly gaming the International System and had been since it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001 you know it was taking everything and you know not giving much back in

terms of offering Market access exchange rates um you know openness you know um you know opening you know capital accounts all of these things China you know didn't do that and you know precisely because China didn't do that um you know we we saw the emergence of a massive savings club that provoked the 2008 financial crisis so though you know obviously the main blame for that

has to lie with feckless and irresponsible um U.S Bankers uh China's own behavior was not you know China was not Guiltless in this you know that date 2008 was I think think a Tipping Point a moment of epiphany for the Chinese leadership a moment at which they concluded the Washington consensus was a false god and they needed to do something different and better and it was

a point at which a lot of pent-up pressures in the U.S China relationship kind of burst out and at that point we began to see a China that was much more assertive Unapologetic about what it was and what it aspired to be and more explicitly and overtly challenging U.S Global hegemony and you know the U.S led International order which is where we are now and we

you know what we've you know been seeing for the last sort of 12 15 years is essentially a sort of Progressive development of these Trends so I think where we are now is is in a very bad place in a very worrying place um I think that the Chinese leaders the current Chinese leadership um increasingly sees relations with the United States in zero sometimes everything that

they now say about the United States is negative and critical um you know they they they perceive that the United States will do anything it can to prevent China from achieving its you know our apotheosis if you like you know emerging on on the global stage as as a major civilizational power and there are low China you know they're they're you know Mantra is you know

the East is rising the West is in Decline they see United States as a power in terminal decline this has become Dogma unassailable you know the fact is they do realize that the United States still has the capacity to frustrate China from what it's trying to do and I think this is you know one of the drivers for the um so-called No Limits relationship with Russia

that was declared you know earlier this year just before the Ukrainian invasion you know I mean this is a marriage of convenience you know between Russia and China but they share the same objective which is to Break um you know the U.S hegemonic hold on the world and to Institute a new Global Order driven by a small number of great Powers China Russia and yes the

United States each with its own sphere of influence and able to activate on act unconstrained within that sphere of influence such as the sort of vision I think that they're they are now pursuing and talking about this China Russia Alliance so where do you think the threat of that stand in the context of where their economies are at the moment is it underestimated or is it

quite no I think as long as Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are in their respective positions you know this um you know the commitment of the mutual commitment will will be undiminished um I mean I think China is probably pretty unhappy about the way you know the Ukraine conflict has progressed so I'm pretty sure Putin told them that it was going to be over in three

days a quick decapitation and then you know back to business as usual and they will you know China's leadership will have been dismayed and discontinence firstly by the fact of Russian incompetence but secondly by an unexpected show of Western determination and and resilience which clearly gives China a pause for thought but no I mean I think you know the the if you look at the kind

of geopolitics of it um this relationship makes perfect sense and and it does you know over the long term offer considerable Mutual benefit firstly having a good relationship with Russia frees China up from the need to heavily police this long land border and you know gives them the license that they needed to to focus their efforts on developing Maritime military capabilities so you know that that

in itself is a major plus secondly there is a degree of complementarity uh China you know is energy hungry Russia is energy rich um Russia is actually you know uh behind China in terms of commercialized modern technology hence benefits from this you know the military relationship is you know a bit more fraught with particularly in in relation to arms sales because until recently Russia has been

the dominant player in arms sales China is now catching up and overtaking Russia and I think the Russian state is kind of resigned to the inevitability that over time China will you know replace um Russia as as a major arms manufacturer and arms purveyor but they can kind of live with that and I think essentially what you've got is a situation in which both parties realize

that Russia is a junior partner China is smart enough not to rub Russia's nose in it um you know there is quite a lot of complementarity um but you know this the the the there's always this like the artificial forced element to this bear in mind that China has irredentous claims on large sways of uh Russian territory in Siberia and if you read Colin thubran's latest

book along the Amor you realize that there are people to people basis there is no love lost between the two where does the Middle East lie in all of this and what's their significance will the Middle East in a very interesting area it depends which bit of it you're talking about um but the kind of you know um actually the the sort of you know sort

of economic political and Military you know Power Center is Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States you know these wealthy you know oil-based economies um and they I think are in an interesting state of geopolitical flux for some while now they've been questioning the reliability of the U.S security guarantee and increasingly thinking that they have to strike out on their own and we've seen some very you

know significant developments not always particularly successful I mean Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen being a classic example of kind of how not to do it uh but the fact is they've done it you know they've exercised strategic autonomy they've taken the decision to do this we're seeing you know the United Arab Emirates um ingata making kind of independent plays in in various uh regards militarily economically

and I think we will see more of this you know we're seeing it's very interesting for example that um you know Saudi Arabia The Keeper of the two holy places of Islam had nothing to say about what China was doing to co-religionaries uh in xinjiang nothing at all um and then this is simply a function of geopolitical pragmatism you know they they need China um they

need a a good and collaborative uh relationship with China you know China needs a you know oil and gas you know they need Chinese investment um so you know they are going to pursue this very pragmatic and unideological course in developing relations with China and I think you know they are a kind of extreme example of the dilemma and challenge but also opportunity that most medium-sized

Powers now face you know coming under pressure to choose not wanting to do so and looking to create um space for autonomous Behavior either individually or in um you know ad hoc and pragmatic alliances with other like-minded players and I think that's what we're now seeing Nigel internet thank you very much for more debates talks and interviews subscribe today to The Institute of Arts and ideas

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