0:00:00: Defence analyst Michael Clark, just to get a little bit of analysis on what we've been hearing there,

0:00:05: Michael, pretty sort of wide-ranging speech there, fairly sort of high-level statements

0:00:11: about a number of different aspects of US-China bilateral relations.

0:00:17: What really pricked my ears up, though, was when he was talking about

0:00:21: what he said to President Xi about China supplying these components that are ending up in Russian

0:00:27: weapons in their assault against Ukraine. What did you make of that?

0:00:30: Yeah, and just now, Sam, in answer to a question, he said again, he said,

0:00:35: we were very specific, he said, we gave them in detail what our complaints were,

0:00:40: and essentially they come to two things. One, he said machine tools,

0:00:42: that Chinese machine tools are going to Russia to power up Russia's war economy, and components.

0:00:48: And sometimes these are not particularly sophisticated components, they're just the

0:00:51: sort of components that they need for missiles and for high-tech weapons. And it's been known

0:00:56: for a long time that the Chinese are supplying these. They're not supplying Russia with weapons

0:01:00: because they're frightened of American sanctions. They're certainly frightened of secondary

0:01:05: sanctions whereby the Americans can sanction a company dealing with a company that supplies

0:01:10: stuff to Russia. So the Chinese are generally frightened about sanctions, secondary sanctions,

0:01:15: but they've gone right up to the line in assisting Russia without obviously sending them weapons.

0:01:21: And even then, they are facilitating the supply of weapons from North Korea to Russia.

0:01:26: They help these ships that shuttle backwards and forwards from North Korea to Russian ports

0:01:32: are facilitated by China. And again, the Americans have been pointing that out to them as well.

0:01:36: And in terms of the relations, they've been going through a fairly rocky patch,

0:01:41: haven't they, between the US and China. How would you characterise where they stand today?

0:01:47: I mean, we heard not very thinly veiled threats from Blinken there towards the Chinese.

0:01:53: No, and I think you're absolutely right. They're trying to establish what is the natural

0:01:56: level of relationships. I mean, the trade between China and America used to be about

0:02:02: a trillion dollars a year. It's now down to about five or six hundred billion a year,

0:02:07: which is more than twice the trade that China does with Russia. And the trade with Russia

0:02:12: has doubled. So Russia does about 250 billion a year trade with China. The Americans do five

0:02:17: to six hundred billion trade with China. Europe does even more than that with China. So China's

0:02:22: trading partners are overwhelmingly United States and Europe. And yet there they are supporting

0:02:28: the Russians. And both sides have got real issues to air, as it were. And I think both sides are

0:02:35: trying to establish what is the natural level of our relationship. So the Americans in 2021

0:02:41: introduced very severe export controls on technologies that helped the Chinese build

0:02:46: very high value microprocessors because these were going into weapons of all sorts. And the

0:02:52: Americans are now chasing those export controls around other companies in the world, including

0:02:55: European companies. So the US is getting more protectionist about certain strategic products

0:03:01: that they don't want the Chinese to develop or steal from them. And China finds that very

0:03:06: objectionable. And of course, China is looking for new markets elsewhere in the world. So I think

0:03:10: both sides, they know that their relations have gone through a rocky patch. They both know that

0:03:15: in the scheme of things, they want them to be better because these are the two powers for the

0:03:19: 21st century. This century will be dominated by what happens in America, what happens in China.

0:03:25: What happens in Europe is not really, it's not unimportant, but it won't make the weather for

0:03:30: the rest of the world. The political weather for the rest of the world is Russia, is China and

0:03:35: United States, with Russia and India also having something to say about that. And so they're both

0:03:40: trying to find a level of relationship which they think is stable. At the moment, they can't

0:03:45: find that sort of sweet spot of stability. All right. I knew that you would have some

0:03:50: pretty comprehensive analysis about that, Michael. How did I guess? Thank you very much indeed.