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

“As a former Marine, Deputy National Security Advisor, I was juggling the most serious national security threats facing the United States. I think TikTok is near the top. Near the top, okay? Think for a moment how preposterous it is that we are in a situation where the main platform is controlled by a hostile totalitarian government. The main platform by which a whole generation of Americans communicate and acquire their news.”
— Matt Pottinger

Matt Pottinger is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution and chairman of the China Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Matt served as U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor from 2019 to 2021. In that role, Matt coordinated the full spectrum of national security policy.  Before that, he served as the NSC’s senior director for Asia, where he led the administration’s work on the Indo-Pacific region, and in particular its shift on China policy.

Before his White House service, Matt spent the late 1990s and early 2000s in China as a reporter for Reuters and The Wall Street Journal. He then fought in Iraq and Afghanistan as a U.S. Marine during three combat deployments between 2007 and 2010. Following active duty, Matt ran Asia research at Davidson Kempner Capital Management, a multi-strategy investment fund in New York.

Matt’s new book, The Boiling Moat: Urgent Steps to Defend Taiwan, is coming out July 1st.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Audible, or on your favorite podcast platform. Watch the interview on YouTube here.

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The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

Want to hear another episode that examines the intricacies of US-China relations? Listen to my conversation with Niall Ferguson here, in which we discussed keeping the Cold War II from heating up into World War III, life under fatwa, understanding history to change the world for the better, an appetite for tweed, and much more.

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

• The Boiling Moat: Urgent Steps to Defend Taiwan by Matt Pottinger | Amazon
• Congressional Testimony House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party | Congress.gov
• Remarks by Deputy National Security Advisor Matt Pottinger to London-Based Policy Exchange | The White House
• 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests | Amnesty International UK
• Bao Tong, 90, Dies; Top Chinese Official Imprisoned After Tiananmen | The New York Times
• Imperial Examination | Wikipedia
• Asian Languages & Civilizations | Amherst College
• Beowulf | Amazon
• Gwoyeu Romatzyh — Better Than Pinyin? | East Asia Student
• Romanization of Japanese | Wikipedia
• One Piece Wiki | Fandom
• TikTok: What It Is, How It Works, and Why It’s Popular | Investopedia
• What to Know About the TikTok Security Concerns | Time
• TikTok Admits Using Its App to Spy on Reporters in Effort to Track Leaks | The Guardian
• China Has a Sweeping Vision to Reshape the World – And Countries Are Listening | CNN
• TikTok Isn’t Silly. It’s Serious | The Economist
• TikTok Faces Calls for Ban amid Claims of Anti-Israel ‘Indoctrination’ | Al Jazeera
• Xi and Biden’s Diplomatic Dance: APEC Summit and the Future of U.S.-China Relations | FDD
• Biden Reiterated US Concerns over TikTok in Call with XI, White House Says | Reuters
• Xi Jinping | Wikiquote
• People’s Daily | Wikipedia
• Wars Are Fought on ‘Smokeless Battlefields’ | Taipei Times
• 5 Things to Know About ByteDance, TikTok’s Parent Company | FDD
• Australian Security Adviser Told Writer Not to Fly to China | AP News
• Is Tiktok’s Parent Company an Agent of the Chinese State? In China Inc., It’s a Little More Complicated | The Conversation
• Chinese Social Media Platforms Are Now Awash with Antisemitism | The Diplomat
• Blinken Accuses China of Uyghur Genocide in Xinjiang | FP
• Teen’s TikTok Video about China’s Muslim Camps Goes Viral | BBC News
• Vandenberg rRsolution | Wikipedia
• Senate Passes Bill Banning TikTok If Parent Company Does Not Sell It | The Guardian
• TikTok Dominates Media Outlets as News Source for Gen Z | Axios
• TikTok Is Turning Its Users into Lobbyists, Just like Uber Did. | Slate
• Why Is Taiwan Important to the United States? | Council on Foreign Relations
• Why Taiwan Matters to the World | Financial Times
• Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere | Wikipedia
• Even as Taiwan Perfects Its Democracy, China Is Sabotaging It | The Economist
• Democracy Index 2023 | Economist Intelligence Unit
• Taiwan’s Dominance of the Chip Industry Makes It More Important | The Economist
• Deterrence and Dissuasion in the Taiwan Strait | Foreign Policy Research Institute
• Saving Private Ryan | Prime Video
• Taiwan’s Dominance of the Chip Industry Makes It More Important | Financial Times
• The Ambitious Dragon: Beijing’s Calculus for Invading Taiwan by 2030 | Department of Defense
• Taiwan Foreign Minister Warns of Conflict with China in 2027 | The Guardian
• Forward Alliance | Wikipedia
• Russia and China Are Winning the Propaganda War | The Atlantic
• China Says Ally Venezuela, Guyana Must Resolve Border Dispute | Barron’s
• Xi and Putin Flaunt Deepening Ties, Flout the US-led Order | United States Institute of Peace
• Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb | Amazon
• The People Onscreen Are Fake. The Disinformation Is Real. | The New York Times
• ‘Chinese Spy’ Targeted Thousands over LinkedIn | BBC News
• Select Committee Unveils CCP Influence Memo, “United Front 101” | Select Committee on the CCP
• What to Make of China’s Massive Cyber-Espionage Campaign | The Economist
• Limiting Chinese Influence Operations – U.S.-China Technological “Decoupling”: A Strategy and Policy Framework | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Gold Bars and Tokyo Apartments: How Money Is Flowing Out of China. | The New York Times
• AlphaGo | Google DeepMind
• Reagan, “Evil Empire,” Speech Text | Voices of Democracy
• How bin Laden Catapulted One Man Into War | WSJ

SHOW NOTES

• [05:55] Bao Tong’s calligraphy.
• [08:20] Matt’s decision to study East Asian languages.
• [10:13] Studying with Perry Link and the challenges of learning Chinese.
• [12:19] Tips for learning Chinese and other languages.
• [17:17] How TikTok has been weaponized by the Chinese Communist Party.
• [20:58] The origins of TikTok and its obfuscatory ownership structure.
• [26:30] How sowing chaos in the West serves the CCP’s aims.
• [31:37] “Politics stops at the water’s edge.”
• [33:11] How should the US rein in TikTok’s influence over its population?
• [40:23] The significance of Taiwan geographically, ideologically, and economically.
• [49:59] The semiconductor industry in Taiwan and its global importance.
• [52:07] Deterring China from attacking or coercing Taiwan.
• [58:51] Cultivating social depth in Taiwan.
• [1:01:09] Guessing at Xi Jinping’s timeline.
• [1:05:33] Demonstrating the will to match the capacity of following through.
• [1:07:47] Matt’s top priorities for stemming Chinese ambitions.
• [1:10:15] Architects of chaos.
• [1:14:21] Staying alert against informational warfare and united front activity.
• [1:21:00] Countering China’s influence on its Western-based citizens.
• [1:25:05] Checkers vs. Go.
• [1:26:56] How can the US reassert its position as a beacon of democracy?
• [1:33:05] What prompted Matt to join the Marine Corps at age 32?
• [1:38:50] Getting in shape for the occasion.
• [1:40:45] Leadership lessons learned.
• [1:46:59] The Boiling Moat, the importance of public service, and parting thoughts.

MORE MATT POTTINGER QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“As a former Marine, Deputy National Security Advisor, I was juggling the most serious national security threats facing the United States. I think TikTok is near the top. Near the top, okay? Think for a moment how preposterous it is that we are in a situation where the main platform is controlled by a hostile totalitarian government. The main platform by which a whole generation of Americans communicate and acquire their news.”

— Matt Pottinger

“We should be issuing a smartphone to every student who arrives from an authoritarian country in the United States, make it a university program to say, ‘This is your freedom phone. You can put any apps on here that you want. Don’t put any Chinese apps on here. Don’t put TikTok on here. They’ll see everything. Don’t put WeChat, Weixin” — the Chinese app which is used also as a surveillance tool — ‘Don’t put that on here. Put all your free society things onto this phone and then know that your other one is being monitored by Beijing, by the party.’ So we should be doing much more for the Chinese diaspora that comes here to study. We should be giving them a shot at actually breaking free from this bubble of surveillance and censorship that follows them when they come to the United States. We should be breaking out of that.”

— Matt Pottinger

“Vandenberg had a famous line. He said, ‘Politics stops at the water’s edge.’ It means we can have bitter debates internally between left and right, Democrats, Republicans, independents, Trump, Biden, but when it comes to our national interest, there must be a general consensus that prevails that we are on the same team and that there needs to be some predictability and continuity in our policies.”

— Matt Pottinger

“The Marine Corps talks a lot about both physical courage but also moral courage. So moral courage is more important. It’s this idea that you will do the right thing when no one’s looking, the idea that you will sacrifice yourself and not your integrity or your honor, but your position, in order to make sure that the right thing gets done, even when it exposes you to ridicule.”

— Matt Pottinger

“Public service is one of the best mistakes I stumbled into in my life. I joined the Marine Corps at 32, and I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything.”

— Matt Pottinger

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