Interview suggestion: Admiral Owens Admiral William A. Owens is the Executive chairman of Red Bison Advisory Group, a company which identifies opportunities with proven enterprises in China, the Middle East, and the United States, and Red Bison Technology Group which installs and operates high speed networks in large office complexes. He was the long-time Chairman of CenturyLink Telecom, the third largest telecommunications company in the United States. Owens serves on the board of directors at Wipro Technologies and is a director of several private companies. He serves on the non profit boards of EastWest Institute, Seattle University, the Center for Excellence in Education, and several others. He is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations. Until 2015, Owens was the Chairman and Senior Partner of AEA Investors Asia, in Hong Kong, and Vice Chairman of the NYSE for Asia. Owens served as the Chairman of Eastern Airlines as well as 23 public boards including Daimler, British American Tobacco, Telstra, Nortel Networks, and Polycom. Owens was the CEO of Nortel, a Fortune 500 Telecoms company, CEO/Chairman of Teledesic LLC, a Bill Gates/Craig McCaw company, was the President of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). And served on the boards of the non-for-profit organizations; Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Brookings Institution, and RAND Corporation. Owens is a four-star US Navy veteran. He was Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the second-ranking United States military officer. He is widely recognized for bringing commercial high-grade technology into the Department of Defense for military applications. Owens was the architect of the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA), an advanced systems technology approach to military operations, the most significant change in the system of requirements, budgets and technology for the four armed forces since World War II. He served as Commander of the U.S. Sixth Fleet from 1990 to 1992, which included Operation Desert Storm. Owens also served as the deputy chief of Naval Operations for Resources. Owens was senior military assistant to two Secretaries of Defense (Cheney and Carlucci). He was a nuclear submariner. Including tours as Commanding Officer aboard the USS Sam Houston, USS Michigan, and USS City of Corpus Christi. Owens is a 1962 honor graduate of the United States Naval Academy, has a BA/MA from Oxford University, and an MBA from George Washington University. He has written more than 50 articles on national security and authored the book “High Seas.” His book, “Lifting the Fog of War,” was published in April 2000 with a revision published in Mandarin in 2009. Owens has received numerous recognitions and awards: the “Légiond’Honneur” by France, and the highest awards given to foreigners by the countries of Indonesia and Sweden. He was named as one of The 50 Most Powerful People in Networking by Network World, one of the 100 Best Board Members in the United States for 2011 and again in 2016 awarded by NACD, and the Intrepid Salute Award in recognition of his business achievements and support of important philanthropic activities. Owens is active in philanthropy to foster Chinese-American relations including over 10 years of dialogues between the most senior retired officers in the United States and Chinese militaries.

Great Interview. China is more dangerous threat to Uyghur Nation and the world than Nazi did To Jews and the world about 100 years ago. I guess every hundred year or so a totalitarian super power emerges but ultimately world waken to it after a period of denial.

Is the average RV subscriber really that interested in listening to a talking head with no skin in the game? It might have been interesting if there were some discussion about ramifications of RCEP but I guess that would have burst the beltway bubble so was off limits for this talk. I've read the book and while it does collect interesting pieces of information about China's espionage capabilities, any claims that the US has moral high ground are deeply hypocritical considering that even more intrusive capabilities have been deployed against friend and foe alike since the beginning of the Cold War. The scale of China's human rights abuses are comparable to the abuses suffered by Native Americans, African-Americans and other minorities throughout American history. I'd really like to see less of this pointless China bashing content.

Mike, yammering about personal freedoms means nothing if you're dead. As long as the word "contagion" is a meaningful threat, our political hobbyhorses are meaningless, if not outright counter-productive. Moving two years down the line, once this pandemic is past us, it should be obvious that the United States is about the least hospitable ground for collectivism on Earth. The U.S. has repeatedly flirted with fascism - Sinclair Lewis saw it, Trump has articulated it. Every attempt to adapt government to the needs of the 99% has been greeted with reactionary cries of "socialism." If there is a menace to American electoral democracy, it comes from the right, not the left. Since opposition to China is bi-partisan, I don't see any reason to doubt Biden's resolve to confront the problem, even if his remedies do not echo Trump's brain-dead tariffs. Industry understands the need to reconfigure supply chains, and they tend to dictate to government, not the other way round. This is a golden opportunity to suspend judgment.

I lived in Hong Kong for 16 years working in areas of strategy both with private sector and regional governments. For a useful corrective to this type of academic American policy activism, look to the range of videos available from the Foreign Correspondents Club in Hong Kong. The FCC has a Youtube channel with many relevant videos from much less biased and better qualified people. A good start would be with the recent interview of Admiral Bill Owens: "Are China and the United States destined for conflict or cooperation? No other geopolitical question is perhaps more pressing in our time. Join us for a conversation with Bill Owens, whose new book US-China 2039: The Endgame? looks at the next two decades of foreign policy between the superpowers and gives a view of “what it will be like then.” Admiral Bill Owens provides 12 policy recommendations in that time to avoid future conflict and confrontation, with the hope that a constructive relationship could be developed between the world’s two largest economies. Moderated by FCC president, Jodi Schneider." https://youtu.be/cN6S1KOtmOM

Very Good Conversations enough of agreements and disagreements between the two Experts on China for a viewer to get a fair idea of what is going on nice choice of Guest and Host

From an Europe perspective: US has bullied us around big time the last four years (tariffs, Nord Stream2, TTIP, etc). Many people are very disappointed about the US and the tone from Washington. It is so obvious, that China already is to strong to be stopped. US has so many problems internally, that there is no way, that the US can stop the rise of China. And Europe won’t jump on the US side. They will try to stay as neutral as possible.

The entire conversation is quite biased and it's starting to look like a conspiracy theory throughout the video. As a citizen of Europe (Russia), I can see US invading multiple countries without a legal ground by UN, killing officials from other countries at it's own will, incarcerating millions of it's own citizens (leading the world with that number), demonstrating shocking examples of police brutality, secretly spying on it's own citizens and the rest of the world, etc. I can also see China performing multiple human rights violations as well. I don't see much difference from my perspective. Selling the idea that Chinese are "the baddies" compared to the US needs to come with some better arguments.

Fascinating conversation. They do have a demographic time bomb about to go off. Thanks to their one child policy.

Great message from Chamath in his interview with Raoul: "There is always a vocal minority who basically needs to have a view to sound smart. Most of the time, they are pretty fucking stupid. To be honest with you. The loudest people are never the smartest people. They are just the ones that want to be heard because they want attention for some other set of reasons that come from their own psychology and insecurity. Anybody who spends the time to learn about anything always comes off as pretty moderate and boring because they tend to just come to a balanced perspective. The more you learn, the more confusing things are, so that the more almost conservative in the presentation of the facts one is. It is when you are just starting to learn about something and you think that you can be heard that you start to just spout off and frankly, to the people that know more, you just sound like a dumbass."

The "Inside-the-Beltway-bubble" thinking (represented by Ward) seems totally at odds with the "Davos-crowd-Big-Reset" thinking. The Laurentian elites (our Deep State) in Canada (and our prime minister) have pretty much already been captured and compromised by Chinese money. China is facing a Western "Maginot Line" built of "Swiss cheese". They won't even have to go around it. They may already have an invitation to the Oval Office from Hunter Biden.

This guy Ward is a war hawk himself, he can't possibly understand the world in any other way. Too bad RV has someone like him spreading false narrative. The Chinese just starting to have a good life, what incentives do they have to get in a war and ruin their future?

Completely agree with this esp Mike Green. I work with Chinese- extremely xenophobic - China first, family second, self third. All married to expansion and subordination of democratic institutions. I find them very racist. Frankly they just laugh at us.

I think of you read history for a very long time, the idea of unified approach, Calais system, all your basic discussions have been part of the dynastic culture for time immemorial. They have never adopted the western ways.

I'm confused as to why Real Vision, a global financial analysis platform, keeps allowing itself to be used for anti-China / pro U.S. hegemony propaganda. Here Mike Green is suggesting we do not invest in Chinese stocks despite their good performance so the U.S. does not have to worry about competition from China. Does anyone else think that is wrong? Mike, how about a world including China and Russia instead of a world of just U.S. hegemony? Have you considered that?

Mike the Keto diet is making your eyes super blue lol.

Why is he whispering?

Mike, have a chat to Peter Zeihan for a different perspective on China's future and the geopolitical/geographic realities it faces. You've raised many valid points here, particularly regarding China's human rights abuses but I don't believe that the world is in any danger of being dominated by China. The greatest barrier to confronting the CCP over it's human rights violations is our own greed, it is certainly not their military might or strategic position both of which are wildly overblown. One has to wonder if that greed is not at least subconsciously influencing the latter misconception.

I've traveled regularly to China, > 4x per year for the past decade. I speak Mandarin and can understand fluently. Jonathan's understanding of "talk of war" is not quite nuanced enough. When Chinese speak of war, it often starts with commentary on America's wars and shifts to what happens if America turns its military industrial complex (the Chinese have a mature understanding of this dynamic) to China. Very few Chinese citizens speak of war as a positive goal, even against Taiwan. My understanding is unprovoked, proactive, colonial style war is simply not in the Chinese DNA, CCP or otherwise.

Wow. The fight is coming.

Reading "The Hundred-Year Marathon". some similarities , but this book is now on my to read list. 👍

Thanks Mike ..... you are doing an awesome job. Another great book is "Hidden Hand" by Clive Hamilton and Mareike Ohlberg. Clive is professor of public ethics at Charles Sturt University in Canberra, Australia. His Twitter handle is @CliveCHamilton. His website is www.clivehamilton.com. Would be great to have Clive on RV. 🙏🙏🙏

Fantastic deep-dive!

Second the comment below.. I’m pro American and democracratic institutions, but... It’s easily arguable that the Communist Party is the greatest thing to happen to the Chinese nation since the Tang Dynasty. This is not a political statement. It’s humanitarian. Highlighting Xinjiang, Tibet etc. ignores the fact that hundreds of millions of Chinese, in one generation, have been lifted from agrarian poverty into the advanced, comfortable modern world - all while manufacturing your Air Jordans and iPhones for you. It also ignores the humanitarian record of the United States (i.e. Black Lives Matter - slavery is still the elephant in the room). All great powers do bad things. It’s also worth noting that India’s democracy has been far less effective than China’s Communist governance since WW2. Where’s the discussion of the enormous challenge of uniting 1.3bn people in a cohesive society? There are uncomfortable strategies that need to be used, similar to those used in the US - militaristic, patriotic language is fundamental to certain national identities. The simple comment that China ‘is dangerous’ overlooks its long history. China’s historical periods of meek, disengaged foreign policy led to poor outcomes - this is an inconvenient fact for observers of China when fearful of its current, aggressive stance. It never benefited from the colonisation of an enormous, virgin, resource-rich, continent, like the US, which swept native people under the rug, used race-based slavery to build its economy and usurped proven British governance institutions for the sole benefit of its landed gentry. Realvision is a wonderful resource, but obnoxious hypocrisy in an interview that intends to be an intellectual discussion is not ideal.

Objective non-US observers are aware that both the US & China are violent and repressive empires in the global sense. The US arguably far more violent than China. The framework for this interview seems very much US interest-focused. Non-US viewers may be more circumspect about which empire is more of a net negative for the world.

As a European it is pretty amusing listening to number one complaining about number two. The US is not even allowing Germany to build North Stream2 or has apologised for spying with NSA in their allies. To interview an European Expert about the rising power of China is much more neutral and objective.

Let me share a different perspective for the international RV subs to consider, IMHO most americans have already made up their mind re: China ("the enemy is at the gate") from comments on prior video's. When smart people like Mike Green, Kyle Bass have such conviction in their belief (which doesn't align with my feet on the streets view in HK/China/Asia) I pay attention re: how does this affect the investment landscape and where should I invest. TLDR: - This interview and others, if reflective of US future policy direction, supports Louis Gave view that there will be 3 eco-zones in the future, Asia/China, Europe, US/Americas. What reinforces this view, is throughout the interview, it's "containment", maintain our influence, etc, etc which just justifies China policy in pursuing self-reliance. Not about co-existence, or welcome to the big boys league, it's containment = how do we maintain our superpower position. which other country can provide alternative GPS system, swift, etc? Europe has to get agreement with too many countries, realistically only USA and China (maybe in the future, Russia again, or India). - I don't think western countries understand China's relationships in Asia. Chinese mercantilists are in every asian country, and have been trading for longer than US has been a country. What we call the "wa qui'", the chinese that have become indonesian, malaysian, filipino, thai with local names, etc dominate the businesses there. IE, good luck painting China/chinese people as the enemy. This is important because it means Asia will continue to trade with China (both because it's a big market, and because of cultural ties). OBOR will have some success. - Asian countries want a strong China to counter-balance USA. Not sure why americans would think asian countries view USA as the better option, in general there's been no choice. It's only been ~70 years re: Japan and ~ 50 re: Vietnam wars, asians tend to have long memories. - There's been a shift in perception from "USA is the world protector" to a wariness of USA motives. Trump's MAGA approach just ripped the blindfold off, but it's been eroding since Iraq/WMD, Snowden/NSA eavesdropping, US disregard for world organizations rulings/held to accountability (WTO, WHO, etc), weaponizing what was perceived to be global systems, ie SWIFT with Iraq, or with the Asian crisis forcing asian countries to suffer through currency devaluations but print like crazy for their own crisis, etc. Loss of credibility. - The chinese are students of history, you can bet they've studied how misguided the USA policy was towards Japan in the 80's, with a group of Japan hands (not unlike Dr. Ward's being a china hand) driving policy decisions. R.Taggart Murphy's book "Japan and the shackles of the past" gives insight to this. Or the south american campaigns, or the middle east conflicts, etc. or "The American Trap" by Frederic Pierucci (Alstom), eerily similar to the current Huawei / Meng Wanzhou issue. - You can view China's actions as wanting to dethrone USA, or you can take George Friedman's geo-political analysis that China understands it needs to secure it's access (sea and land) to avoid being contained in war scenarios. Not sure if americans understand how locals perceive US warships in close waters would be like seeing russian subs/ships in the waters off Cuba. - Judging by the flow of money flowing into HK for chinese company IPO's, so much that HKMA is intervening to sell HKD to prevent it from getting too strong, and no exodus of companies leaving China, it seems the risk (from being an outsider in HK) is USA trying to create a flashpoint (per Mike Green comment to rally other countries) and unintentionally starting a more serious conflict, not just with China, but in Asia. I would be very interested to see RV interview people like Kishore Mahbubani ("Has China Won?" and "Has the West Lost it?") of Singapore, or Kai-Fu Lee ("AI Superpowers"), whom will provide IMHO a different perspective. If China continues to execute and OBOR moves ahead, then all asian countries economies will do well, ie, good investment opps vs the wild casino that is the us markets today. RV seems to be much less international and more US-centric (no doubt due to the majority of viewers), I would like to get more of the old RV, when you had Raoul do a piece on India/Monsoon, or Grant Williams interviews, or investing in Africa/emerging markets... oh well.

It would be interesting to get an alternative view on this topic from people such as Chinese or other east asian nationals who don't have too much skin in the game.

That was a great interview Mike. I'm grateful that you are educating the RV audience and others about the CCP. I hope the RV audience takes your concerns to heart and allocates capital accordingly. In my view, this topic is far more important than making money.

"The Thucydides trap is not going to age well," says 30-ish yeah old man about 2500-year-old observations.

The Biden family are business partners with China. Rotating my investment portfolio to the Middle Kingdom. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

We would not have had to give up our economy and/or freedom during COVID Times if we would have acted quickly and followed the science like Taiwan - never locked down, seven deaths, 25 million population. Both Europe and the US choose to ignore science on national and personal basis. Superspreader events like vacation are not except by science. We are paying the price for disregarding Mother Nature. Not our finest hour. We will get through it. We will fight the next pandemic better. DLS

The best wild card in the deck is the US will now be able to construct longer-term policies with our European allies. They are worried about China as well. It is going to take a lot of strategic and practical planning in the West to peacefully balance China's current plan. We abandoned our long-term allies and befriended possible enemies in the last four years. The wars that Mr. Green is talking about are already happening like China vs. India. The tide is turning. Southeast Asia needs and wants to trade with China, but they are worried about Chinese dominance. If all goes well, China may realize that governing 1.5 billion people may be a big enough job. China has already built the second largest economy in the world. DLS

This discussion was interesting and enjoyable, but I think the discussion of containment is a moot point: the genie is already out of the bottle, and there will be "an event" or a series of them. Dr. Ward clearly has deep knowledge and understanding of this whole area, but his recommendations, I feel, are likely "too little, too late." Cheers.

I would like to compliment all the staff who write the lead-in summaries. They are always helpful and keep my attention focused on the issue at hand. I read them before and after listening to each presentation. Well done! DLS

A useful reminder on the topic of containment strategy during the Cold War era, are the writings of Gaddis and the Long Peace - i.e. effectively how the Cold War stand-off and containment policy arguable led to a longer period of peace then during any other time prior to WW2. Arguable because of course there were "hot" proxy wars (Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, not to mention subversion of split countries and governments towards communism and capitalism, South American countries) but avoided nuclear warfare and MAD (mutually assured destruction). Mike Green is awesome, never ceases to amaze me how he can handle any topic from geopolitical affairs, economic history and complex derivatives strategy! Great job sir! Interesting insight on his former employer - would be interesting to hear more about his background and role at Thiel Capital

Appeasing China is a recipe for disaster. Mr. Ward's thesis is more cogently articulated here -- https://www.the-american-interest.com/2018/03/26/end-losing-game-china/ In short, American businesses are blinded by greed and rationalize pumping funds into China in hopes of capturing a small fraction of their massive population. Its all about money flows, and has zero to do with ethics. Unfortunately, this supplicating strategy only allows China to advance -- and critically replenish their capital reserves of dollars -- to continue their oppressive rule at home and beyond. I don't see anyone in the US Financial industry save a few, that are willing to stand up and state the obvious - that any dollars flowing into China enables a repressive regime that has numerous human rights violations and is currently in the process of stamping out democratic rule in Hong Kong, violating the agreement signed with the UK regarding the "One Country, Two Systems" provisions. The idea that containment and appeasement can be proffered as a controlling effort overlooks the true crisis, that millions of Chinese have been subjugated and denied their basic human rights. Any corporation that turns a blind eye to this avalanche of human cruelty certainly deserves to reap the results of such ethical lapse - utter obliteration, economically and literally. The CCP has proven time and time again that they will say anything to gain agreements and compromises, while stabbing their trading partner in the back and stealing whatever isn't nailed down in the process. It would benefit the world if the CCP were defeated, so the Chinese people could finally live in freedom and peace.

The one point I would like to make is : Chinese nationalism and empire building mentality is by far more important than communism ideology. Russians adopted Greek Orthodox religion to be different from the West Catholic religion, and so was communism adopted to be different from the West by Chinese. Just a historical example. What drives them is strategic desire of world dominance Communism was tactical adaptation to express the long ng strategical view

He seems to have no knowledge of anything about China.... I am aware that this question is rude... but ... can he even speak either Cantonese or Mandarin? I am VERY curious about where he distilled his thought...

Drinking game is back on, every time Mike says “dynamic” or “function” it’s a shot.

China Govt. is a corrupt murderous country. They don’t care about the people. They harvest live organs. Wonder why Israel is the only country will not let there citizens travel there for transplants.

The US would do good to develop a deeper economic relationship with India. Can only see this as the counterbalance to China.

"Becoming China?" Don’t we have significant elements of our national political parties that have lost faith in the two-party system and openly aspire to achieve one party rule through policies like Court packing, immigration and citizenship policy and jerrymandering? Where we create universal reliance on the ruling party through universal basic handouts; Where the population is trained to vote and act based on dictated group identities reinforced by national propaganda machines acting in the service of the party, and morals and values are centralized with competing and independent value structures (Religion and history) systematically undermined, or co-opted for the national one-party project? How can we confront China for global leadership when our house is so divided?

As we see from below comments..very conflicting views on China's historical perspective..My prescription is a pay per view "Triple Threat Steel Cage Match" with Ray Dalio..

China suffered centuries of exploitation and humiliation at the hands of westerners. Primarily the UK and USA who, in order to pursue their interests, got millions of people, quite literally, addicted to drugs. "What's Past is Prologue". Should China not want to make positively sure that the past does not repeat itself? It is preposterous that a basic measure of historical perspective is missing from this pseudo "analysis". Frankly it should have been far more useful and informative if a more balanced counterpart was to interview, and challenge, Mr Ward. I hope RV can do better than this when it comes to the very important topic of China.

For someone from Asia - I've a very different perspective than the guests. Instead - I'll put forth a very different question. If we put US in the shoe of China - how will it manage the country and establish its mid-term plan? I'll be interested to hear from an American strategist on how US should evolve the country if it is in China's shoe - then we can take some of these suggestions toward the current / past conditions and limitations, and we can then objectively validate whether these are workable.

I am sure Dr Ward is an expert but there was little depth in this interview. Don't disagree with the expert at a high level, but detailed nuance of the topic was missing.

Thank you for this interview on a very important and pressing topic.

Look into Mike's eyes

The number one always considers the number two a the biggest threat.

Can we get Peter Zeihan back on to talk about his views on the region? I think he'd have some very interesting thoughts.

Fantastic policy expert. More interviews from policy experts like him is appreciated.