Expert Outlines Complexities at Play in South China Sea as Countries Unite to Deter CCP Aggression

And more countries are now joining forces to stand up to the chinese communist party's attempts to control the south china sea Strategists consider the effectiveness of choking off a major trade point for china as a way to deter the regime Joining me now to discuss the various complexities at play is adam savitt He's director of the china policy initiative at the america first policy institute Adam savitt, thank you so much for joining Thanks for having me, of course adam So how would you say the recent joint air and naval exercises by the us australia canada in the philippines? Are adjusting addressing china's threats in the south china sea Well, uh, they are helping a great deal because here's the thing We still have the strongest navy in the world now We don't have the biggest as far as ships china has overtaken us, but we do have the strongest navy However, we have responsibilities. We are deployed across the entire world as we see we have ships moving to the middle east Including an aircraft carrier because of contingencies there because of that we absolutely rely on our regional alliances and especially in asia So whenever we can have these either bilateral trilateral in this case multilateral with four countries We need to leverage the assets of our allies And we also need to make sure that we underline the fact that the south china sea is an international waterway now in this case We stayed within the territorial seas of the philippines But the message that this is sending to china is that free countries are able to traverse the south china sea whether with Military ships or with trade ships. It's crucial that this is an open and free waterway So adam, there's obviously a lot of Posturing and maneuvering in that region. We have what's taking place in the south china sea the philippines heavily involved What are some of the primary challenges and logistical issues that the united states would face in defending taiwan? From a potential military takeover and it's the u.s. Military prepared for a conflict in that area You know to put it simply the biggest Challenge we face is geography The biggest challenge we face is the massive size of the pacific ocean thousands and thousands of miles Now, of course, we do have pre-placed, uh unit Well, of course our indo paycom headquarters are in hawaii. That's sort of halfway there Uh, we have the asset of having a territory in guam, uh, which has uh, military, uh bases We have our basing rights in japan with a with a huge complement of Ships as well as air assets including an aircraft carrier that is based there But when it comes down to it, we need our allies again as I mentioned to uh, we need to leverage our allies that the the good uh, Thing is that many of them are coming more on side? Many of them are building up their military and that's a direct reaction, uh to uh their self-interest when they're facing a radical regime In china in the form of xi, uh, they really have no illusions, especially a country like japan Which has the ability to build up its forces and really be a complementary to our forces But also the philippines which doesn't quite have the gdp doesn't have the oomph in their military, but they've opened up basing rights Uh for us forces and that is crucial as well We need to be able to have as much access as many basing, uh rights as we can because another thing is that china has now hundreds or thousands of standoff missiles missiles that are able to hit Long-range missiles that are able to hit us bases So in response to that we need to disperse our forces in order to preserve them if there is god forbid a preemptive strike on the on behalf of china So adam, you do highlight the pacific ocean in and of itself being the greatest challenge to us logistically Could that possibly be flipped on china given china's reliance on sea? Lines of communication for trade and how effective could a trade denial strategy be in deterring china from its aggression toward taiwan That's a great point. You know, china is resource poor at least compared to its massive population They depend on fossil fuels mostly from the middle east and that is coming around in container ships Around the indian ocean and into the south china sea and that needs to come through a choke point called the malacca straits which is off the coast of singapore, so that is a very vulnerable point and that is something that american and other western strategists point to As a choke point and a way to leverage china a way to choke off their crucial Energy imports and and stop their war machine. Here's the problem Uh, we've tried that with russia and in the case of russia, it's been mixed results at best So when they when they invaded ukraine, uh, we put in place and the europeans especially put in place a set of On paper very tough sanctions preventing their fossil fuels from being exported to europe. So now Those pipelines are going to china. China is actively enabling russia to skirt those sanctions now China is much more embedded in the international trade system, uh and with powerful allies of ours So it may be even harder to get those allies to be on board in in a very economically difficult situation where they're cutting off Chinese exports, uh to their countries, uh, which they rely on Adam sabat really appreciate you joining us. Thank you Thanks very much