以下为英文原文：

Rudyard Griffith: Zhou Bo, welcome to the Munk dialogues.

Zhou Bo: Hi, Rudyard. Nice to be here.

Rudyard Griffith: Would you characterize the increasingly uncertain status of Taiwan as China's biggest national security issue at this time?

Zhou Bo: Well, Taiwan is always the biggest national security concern for China. The reason is very simple, actually. For all the militaries around the world, territorial and national defense is top priority. What makes China different is that it has some other missions, being a major power. China has a very unique role. First, as a major power, it is not reunified. This is extremely rare among major powers. And besides, it has to go abroad, it has interests overseas. So we are talking about a major power that is so sophisticated and complicated.

This is a kind of natural feeling for Chinese, to have a peaceful reunification with Taiwan. Then there are a number of questions. First, are we becoming impatient? This is actually a big question. I would say we're still patient. For example, in October 2022， in President Xi Jinping's report to the Chinese Communist Parties Congress, he still talked about Taiwan issue using two phrases that impress me most. That is, we still have the utmost sincerity, and we would make utmost efforts in the peaceful reunification.

Then, Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan invited a massive Chinese PLA drill around the island with live firing of missiles and so on so forth. But during Tsai Ingwen’s meeting with Kevin McCarthy in California, we again did exercise, but that exercise was only simulated attack without firing a bullet. So there is great subtlety. That means we know how to handle the situation, or at least our measures are cautious and measured.

Rudyard Griffith: What is the feeling in China amongst the national security establishment regarding the increasing arming of Taiwan by the United States with sophisticated weapon systems, most notably promises of surface to sea missiles that could allow Taiwan, should it wish, in some unfortunate set of circumstances, attack and potentially sink Chinese vessels off its shores？ Are these types of actions by the United States perceived as provocative in China or they are just seen more as a nuisance, a pattern of behavior that you've seen in the past and that you're not giving any more priority to now than you did previously?

Zhou Bo: I think they're certainly considered provocative, but the question is, do they really matter or not? I don't think they would matter tremendously. For example, Taiwan recently made the first indigenous submarine, and they're going to make about eight. But how important are these submarines? From my experience as a serviceman, I know the submarine is much more sophisticated than an aircraft. I came from Air Force. I'm not a pilot, but I know normally aircraft can never be said to be mature until a pilot has flown it for many years. That means it was produced, it was trialed, but then only the pilot can tell you how many problems it really has. So with the first conventional submarine, I'm sure there's a lot of problems. And actually it was delivered in a hurry because this would be a kind of a political legacy of Tsai Ingwen. Even if they could produce 8 submarines, would that matter? Yes, it could complicate decision making in the PLA. But generally speaking, in comparison with China's military advances by leap and bonds, it doesn't really matter.

I think the United States is now adopting a strategy of turning Taiwan into a “porcupine”. But do they really believe Taiwan could be such a powerful porcupine? I doubt about it, but it serves their interest to show that what they’re supporting a so-called democracy, it serves the interest of the American military industrial complex of selling weapons, why not if it is such a good opportunity? I think it also serve them as kind of bargaining chips in this ever sophisticated relationship between China and the United States.

I think Americans actually have made some progress through learning from the failures. For example, “decoupling” now looks totally like nonsense. So they called it “de-risking”, which is actually the term borrowed from Von der Leyen. But why do they call it de-risking? Because it sounds okay, more moderate, because decoupling is impossible. But what does de-risking mean? I think they would have to search their own souls to find out, because even de-risking in semiconductors and chips, they would find it increasingly difficult. It's not that we are asking them to do what they don't want to do, it’s the chips manufacturers. They would put pressure on the White House because they're losing Chinese market.

I think the United States is actually having a problem with its One China policy, because internally, we know, people like Richard Haas, the former president of American Council of Foreign Relations, has written an article about how American policy toward China should turn from ambiguity to clarity. But some other scholars disagree with him, because this kind of clarity actually would make the situation more dangerous. Why is this kind of debate happening? I believe that is because the strength of the PRC is growing, because in the past, PRC was weak, that even if they maintained a policy of ambiguity, you don't know what kind of attitude they're having. And you're in doubt, you're constantly guessing. But because mainland’s strength is growing, they're afraid that unless they make it clear that they would defend Taiwan militarily, probably mainland China would launch attack on Taiwan first. But if they make this kind of policy with clarity, some people are afraid this may just invite a preemptive strike from the mainland in the first place. So I think they're now caught in this dilemma.

And look at the American domestic situation. The Biden administration is weak and this kind of bipartisan rivalry is extreme. Economically speaking, it is doing good, but if you listen to Donald Trump, American's whole situation is “carnage”. Liberal democracy has been in steady decline for 17 years. And who did that? Apparently, it has nothing to do with China or Russia. And for Chinese like me, or anybody, it's so appalling to see an American president would ask protesters to take over Capitol Hill. This is unbelievable. This is an eye opener. And this won't even happen in an African country. So putting all this together, how confident are we in a stable American policy toward China on Taiwan? I really have serious doubt.

Rudyard Griffith: You mentioned the debate in American political circles; some Republicans are arguing there should be an explicit US security guarantee extended to Taiwan, similar to an Article 5 type commitment within NATO. What would be Beijing's reaction if that policy came into force? Would that be seen as provocative?

Zhou Bo: Let's first look into the debate about One China policy, or about ambiguity versus clarity. Eventually, they still talk about One China. Why? Because they're actually hollowing out this concept, but they still put it as a big basket, because this would make things easier for them, they can just use endless different explanations to explain what is One China. If you do not say it is One China, then of course that is kind of earthquake for them and for us.

I think we can learn from Nancy Pelosi's visit that we're serious about it. Some people asked me, what would happen if a new American House speaker visit Taiwan. I said I don't know because, certainly we have a Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, but I can guess out of my gut feeling that our response has to be greater. Otherwise, how can we just tell ourselves that we're doing the right thing?

I doubt they would actually openly support Taiwan’s independence in such a manner, but I'm fully confident that Chinese Mainland being stronger now has more means to handle this.

Rudyard Griffith: This debate over American posture towards Taiwan is unfolding within a larger American strategy in the South Pacific, AUKUS. Around that, there is an effort to develop closer security ties with Japan, the Philippines, to a certain extent, South Korea. How is this being perceived by Chinese security officials? Is there a feeling of encroachment here, a feeling of an adversary setting up a concerted opposition against China's rise, China's expansion?

Zhou Bo: Let me start by talking a bit about the American's grand strategy. I believe the fact that the United States is focusing on Asia-Pacific, or what American call Indo-Pacific, is actually a reflection of the fact that American strength has really declined. So that is why you would find American officials talking about importance of allies and partners, because their own strength is not enough; they have to rely on these allies and partners.

You have mentioned all these people and different situations. I believe this, generally speaking, is an American effort to contain China in this region. The problem is, after I read the Indo-Pacific strategy, I found that they have many purposes, but without adequate tools.

No nations are stupid in black-and-white manner. I believe the world has entered into an era that all countries are picking sides with issues rather than with sides. But when it comes to Japan, which has treaty obligation to support the United States should there be a conflict in Taiwan Strait in terms of logistic supply, Japan would have to do that. But for Australia, they talked about it, but it's hard to say. You won't know what a man really wants to do unless it comes to the final moment. If you examine the history of Australia, you would find this country very interesting in that, historically, it always fought other people's wars elsewhere, in Gallipoli, Afghanistan or somewhere far away from continental Australia, except during the Second World War when Japanese bombed Darwin. So this is an interesting country, always fighting other people's war. But now 1/3 of their export goes to China. And yes, they are buying eight submarines. But how important are these eight submarines? It's almost like the submarines in Taiwan, they could complicate decision making in Beijing, but it's not a big deal, because in terms of number of ships, we're already the largest in the world, and these eight submarines will be delivered probably after 10 to 15 years, to say the least. By then, how much stronger the PLA will become? I think this has a lot to do with the Morrison government. Right now, the Albanese government is also making changes. So this whole picture is not so black and white.

The Philippines is interesting, in that President Marcos’ policy toward China seems to be a U-turn from his predecessor. I personally ask myself, why is this? Because President Duterte certainly has curried a lot of favor with China, even if he himself would support the ruling of the tribunal that was in favor of the Philippines. So on this policy issue, he actually did not mention it so often, but he certainly was supportive of the tribunal ruling. But then, knowing this, he just went along to have good relations with China for some other benefits. But when it came to President Marcos, it's difficult for me to understand because I believe there are something to do with his personal background, because of his firmer or stronger connection with the United States and the Filipino military, basically, all the senior officers were more or less trained in the United States. Still, it doesn't make sense to me, because China has never threatened to use force against any of the claimants in the South China Sea.

China actually has laid down three conditions when it might adopt non-peaceful means regarding the Taiwan issue. But on the South China Sea, China has never threatened any other country. So if all of a sudden the Filipino government would open up nine bases for American use, then we would ask, why? This doesn't really make sense. Actually, it would make the Philippines more vulnerable, because if Americans use these as a kind of a forefront battlefields, then, of course, the territories of the Philippines become targets, is that in their interests?

Rudyard Griffith: What are the lessons that Chinese leaders are drawing from the war in Ukraine? There is an argument that part of what provoked Putin into his invasion was a perception on his part of NATO and western powers arming Ukraine, supporting political movements and political actors that were not in Russia's interests, and that ultimately Ukraine was becoming a security risk for Russia because of its proximity to Moscow and other decision making centers in the country. So does China feel similarly that there's a risk here, a pattern that had unfolded in Ukraine could potentially unfold in Taiwan or the South China Sea, is history gonna

Zhou Bo: Well, on the war in Ukraine, I would say if Putin knows what would happen, he probably would adopt a different strategy. Whether that strategy is war or not, I just don't know. But of course, there is a reason why he would have to do this. The truth is actually from all the Soviet and Russian leaders, starting from like Gorbachev to Yeltsin and Putin all warned against nato’s expansion. So he's not the first person to make a warning, but he's the first person to say enough is enough. The Russian military has proven to be extremely resilient, but was not fighting so well in the beginning.

I would not say that this has any direct link with the Taiwan issue, because that actually is recognized by more than 180 countries to be China's internal affair. As I said in the beginning, I believe the Chinese government is still patient. Some people in Washington believe this kind of conflict is inevitable. I actually have some doubts, even by quoting what Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said himself. I was in last year’s Shangri-La Dialogue. What impressed me most is that he talked about conflict being not imminent, not inevitable. The background is, before his remarks, there were quite a few remarks made by some American generals talking about 2025 scenario or 2027 scenario that Mainland China would definitely launch attacks or so on and so forth. But because America’s secretary of defense should have all the intelligence information to support his argument, so it is important for him to make it clear on such an important meeting.

Some people say Taiwanese people do not want to be integrated with you. And I believe this may not be so true. Before Covid, actually more than 1.5 million Taiwanese people were living in Mainland China, mostly around Shanghai. And that would be more than 6% of the Taiwanese population. What does that mean? If the Chinese Mainland can provide Taiwanese with better opportunities of employment, or making money, these people actually don't care so much to live in a different society with different systems, right? So could Chinese Mainland continue to provide this kind of environment? I believe it is possible. Because first of all, Chinese economy is so integrated with the rest of the world, China has to open up. And China wants to continue to open up. And so long as China continues to opens up while the world is becoming smaller because of globalization, the speed of people's interaction will simply become faster. This kind of integration between Mainland China and Taiwan will also become faster. So it is in this logic, I believe this kind of integration is inevitable. And finally, the Chinese Mainland has never announced a timetable to reunify. So we're still patient. I believe time might just give us the best help in this regard.

Rudyard Griffith: We're coming to the end of our time, so let me just ask some final bigger picture questions. We've talked a lot about China's rise, its status as a civilizational power in the 21st century. To what extent are your colleagues, senior security officials in China, concerned that you now face an adversary in the United States who is trying across a series of domains, military, technological and economic, to prevent China's rise, to thwart your ascension to potentially becoming the world's dominant power. Is that on people's minds or is this more of a western misinterpretation of what your people are actually thinking and what you're actually concerned about?

Zhou Bo: This is really the biggest questions, and out of this question, there could be dozens of smaller questions and each one of them could be extremely important. Let me repeat what I said to some people, that is whether we have entered into a new cold war, for example. My answer is very simple: we won't know until we have avoided a hot war, because this is exactly what happened during the Cold War. Every day people actually were preparing for a hot war, right? But people went through it and had a big relief, okay, we didn't have a hot war, so what happened was a cold war. My argument is, we never know the future and we would only know the future when we have gone through it.

So this kind of question is meaningless, but apparently there are so many different things from this kind of competition between China and the US and the one during the cold war between the two superpowers. I think what happened is that, if you look at China's policy toward the United States, it has been fairly consistent. It didn't change tone much, and the United States would behave like a roller coaster, that's much more difficult to predict. I think that has a lot of things to do with their own mentality, because that country wrongly believe that they're the City upon the Hill. I tell people, where is the city upon the hill? The Parthenon is the only city upon the hill, it is empty, broken.

Recently, Biden repeated how the United States is indispensable. That is right. But every nation is indispensable. In my view, it is indispensable for people to know that there is a small country called The Maldives deep in the Indian Ocean. It is so beautiful. It is so important for human beings to remember that this whole human society is just like a forest that has different fauna and flora, and that is why the world is beautiful. It is fine that the United States has NBA, McDonald, Hollywood, but so what? The Maldivians don't have any of these, but they just know every morning thousands of tourists would come and just tell them how beautiful their country is.

Finally, back to your question in the beginning. So far, China's rise is very peaceful and this is unprecedented in human history. In China's rise of 40 year and plus, the only sacrifice we made is four soldiers on our side and 20 Indian soldiers on the other side, because of a clash along the border. But it is interesting because they were not shooting at each other, they were fighting physically with each other. The two modern militaries were fighting each other in a manner found in the Stone Age. Why is that? War is not popular, and people from both side know that in any circumstances, we should not shoot at each other.

So back to your question, China's rise is peaceful and probably in less than 10 years’ time, China may become the largest economy in the world. This then would be unprecedented in human history to see a country reaching the Apogee of fame, of glory, without firing a bullet. This still stands. We didn't find a bullet. How unbelievable that is. In human history, people gave all kind of reasons or justifications for all kinds of war. But eventually, who remember all these reasons that have caused people to die? Nobody gives a damn about the reason. Look at the United States, how many people have died because of them? They may give reasons, but people died.

China has made a difference. The Chinese military is remarkable overseas in that it only commits itself to humanitarian operations, be it peacekeeping, counterpiracy or disaster relief. As an ex-serviceman, as a veteran, my hope for my country is China continues to rise peacefully and China's PLA will only conduct humanitarian operations overseas. In that way, you just provide assistance to people around the world. You're not killing anyone. For a country that rises to the top of the world, and for its military to behave so mildly overseas, isn't the world lucky to have such a power? So my hope is, I don't know whether the world would become more beautiful, but I hope with China's rise, China can actually make the world safer.

Rudyard Griffith: Zhou Bo, those are great words for us to end this fascinating conversation on. I really appreciate your time coming to us from China to have this conversation with us today. It's an important one and your messages are heard and received. And let's keep these dialogues going because I think that's really what is important for us to do is to have conversations, to expose each other to different ideas, and through those ideas come conversations, and through conversations hopefully come understanding. So thank you for your contributions today.

Zhou Bo: Thank you, Rudyard, for this conversation.

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