Retired U.S. Navy rear admiral Mike Studeman discusses China and Taiwan at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo, Oct. 25, 2024. (Akifumi Ishikawa/Stars and Stripes)
TOKYO — Taiwan is a potential flashpoint in a new Cold War, this time between the United States and China, a former commander of the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence said Friday.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin may use global trends in deglobalization, geopolitical destabilization, depopulation and disinformation to their advantage, according to retired Rear Adm. Mike Studeman, now a national security fellow with MITRE, a nonprofit focused on national security issues.
“I think they see that because of all these trends — some of which they’re abetting — they can advantage themselves and they can pursue their ambitions in a way that they haven’t been able to for some amount of time,” he told reporters at a news conference at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan.
Retired U.S. Navy rear admiral Mike Studeman discusses China and Taiwan at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo, Oct. 25, 2024. (Akifumi Ishikawa/Stars and Stripes)
The situation is comparable in many ways to the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union in the latter half of the 20th century, Studeman said.
“We face in the 21st century a Cold War equivalent — you can call it whatever you like, a ‘great struggle’ or something else – but that’s what we have,” he said. “Until we recognize the massiveness of this problem, I think countries are going to struggle with trying to muster up the ability to communicate the danger to their populations and be able to get organized for success.”
Studeman named Iran, North Korea and Russia, but focused on China, which he said is actively growing into a colonial power that wants to seize formerly held territories like Taiwan and force other nations to be more economically dependent on it.
“They think they need to be the strongest pole in a multipolar world — that’s China’s ambition,” he said.
Leaders in Beijing see Taiwan, a functional democracy separated from China by the 110-mile-wide Taiwan Strait, as a breakaway territory that must be reunified with the mainland, by force if necessary.
China also holds ambitions toward Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan and three Indian territories on the China-India border — collectively known as the Five Fingers of Tibet — and the South China Sea, Studeman told reporters.
Nuclear weapons, which played heavily into the Cold War via an arms race, are also “back with a vengeance,” he said.
“Today, you see the Chinese building up a massive amount of nuclear capability,” he said.
A large nuclear arsenal might deter the U.S. from using nuclear weapons in the case of an invasion of Taiwan, Studeman said.
“They want to essentially lock that out so they can default the fight to a conventional fight where the Chinese think they have an advantage.”
To counter that strategy, the U.S. and its allies must bring more Indo-Pacific countries into the fold and establish economic consequences for aggressive Chinese tactics, Studeman said.
“I believe we’ve been very leery of doing so because of the economic counter costs that we would face from China,” he said.
Investment in counterintelligence is also a critical necessity for the U.S., Studeman added.
“I think we have devalued counterintelligence at our peril, and you may find many companies who have been penetrated and the Chinese have taken that technology and created this juggernaut of capability that you see today in [their army],” he said.
Studeman also called for the global entertainment industry to “find its courage” and make movies that show the “real China.” He said that’s not happening because movies and television typically avoid criticizing Beijing in hopes of selling their products in China.
“So many people in intelligence or in the political or diplomatic and military worlds, they understand the dangers that China poses, Russia poses, etc.,” he said. “Without the entertainment industry to truly educate our populations, I’m afraid we will always be a step behind.”
