“Chance of Spying: 100%”

Hosted by Christina Ruffini and Sir Richard Dearlove

Guest

Charles Dunne

Charles Dunne is an expert and longtime diplomat discussing China's investments globally and expansion into the Middle East.

Episode Summary

China has been getting everywhere.  Investing in virtually every corner of the globe.  And now, the Middle East.  With 5G, and beyond. 
Expert and longtime diplomat Charles Dunne-- along with Britain’s former head of Mi6—get real, about what this means for the West.

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Transcript

COLD OPEN

Kosinski: Coming up on One Decision.

Dunn: Ports, infrastructure, industrial zones. There are military aspects to this. It has implications for whether The United States remains a superpower or does not.

Dearlove: And they're trying to persuade us that this isn't a threat to our security. What rubbish.

Kosinski: How certain are you that Huawei 5G is going to, if it's not already, be used for spying?

Dearlove: A 100%.

INTRODUCTION

Kosinski: Welcome back to One Decision. I'm Michelle Kosinski. So you may be aware of China's growing presence in all kinds of corners of industry all over the world. They seem to be everywhere in Africa, South America. Now that investment is also rapidly building in The Middle East and in some very sensitive sectors like 5G, internet, artificial intelligence, defense deals. So is this decision by China to go there and by countries like Saudi Arabia and The UAE to accept disturbing for Western democracies and The United States? Should it be? We're diving deep into this with a man named Charles Dunn, who knows this area inside and out. First, but let's check in with someone pretty vocal on the risks of such deals, Britain's former head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove.

ANALYSIS WITH SIR RICHARD DEARLOVE

Dearlove: Hi, Michelle.

Kosinski: First of all, Richard, what does China really want with The Middle East? In Africa, they also found governments in need of cash, but much different dynamic here.

Dearlove: Oh, it's a totally different dynamic. But I mean, it wants influence. It wants purchase. I think it wants privileged access to energy supplies, which is already done of course with Iran. I mean the Iranian door was wide open. So I think this actually is a pretty crucial and important issue, and I mean I've dealt extensively with the governing families in The Middle East, whether it was Saudi Arabia, UAE, but they love to remind you that, you know, they can do things differently, can talk to different people, and they just love to sort of jab you in the ribs, and can be pretty damned unpleasant in the way that they do it. For example, you know the Brits have always been weapons suppliers to The UAE, and we've had a privileged relationship with them, but then they go off and buy French stuff, and you know, basically thumb their nose at you and say, well we decided to buy French because we just wanted to make you think that, you know, we're not always gonna lean on you as a supplier. So, I mean, they they're up to this all the time.

Kosinski: What do they get out of a relationship with China?

Dearlove: Yeah. It's another friend. It's another ally. It's another source of investment. But, you know, it's complicated by the fact that China at the moment has a pretty privileged relationship with Iran with a massive trade deal. So the Chinese are playing all of their options.

Kosinski: Now during the Obama administration, when I covered the White House, I feel like every day somebody in that administration would say, we have no problem with a rising China. But they said it so often that you just felt like, wow. They have a huge problem with a rising China. They don't know what to do about it.

Dearlove: Yeah. Well, I think that Obama didn't really work this out, did he? And I mean, let's take, he tried with the TPP. That was his baby. He got part way there. But, I mean, I do think that Obama's foreign policy team was weak. And they just didn't hack it, didn't get it right.

Kosinski: But then Trump's foreign policy team was, like, on crack.

Dearlove: They were on crack. But, you know, the irony is that Trump did actually end up doing some good things. Maybe by accident. But he started a freaking trade war with China.

Kosinski: Do you think that needed to happen? Did that shake China up a little bit?

Dearlove: Yeah. I think it needed. We needed to shake up the relationship with China. We certainly don't want a trade war with them, and in fact, you know, maybe Trump overdid it.

Kosinski: So people like to talk about the risks of China getting into places. And The Middle East is a particularly prickly one for so many reasons. Do you see risks in China's gaining influence there?

Dearlove: Yeah, I think, you know, because it's really been a bailiwick where Western influence is dominated, and, you know, once the Chinese get their foot in the door, they're very good at exploiting that wedge and widening the door and buying friends and influence and using their money to build friendships.

Kosinski: Definitely. I mean, they want world domination. Right? Isn't that their stated goal?

Dearlove: Well, I guess they want to be the dominant superpower, and of course they get on like a house on fire with regimes that are autocratic, that don't turn around and criticize them for their human rights records. You know, the Chinese are super sensitive about being criticized on human rights.

Kosinski: So when you look into your crystal, your spy crystal ball, twenty five years down the road, do you see all of these autocratic regimes just teaming up and being vastly more powerful and influential and militarily strong than the Western democracies?

Dearlove: Yeah. I think that they will become more awkward partners, and I think they'll care less what we think about their style of government and their tendency to lock up people who disagree with the way they want to run the country.

Kosinski: None of this is a good sign for human rights, and society is becoming nicer and more open to their citizens. None of this sounds great.

Dearlove: No, none of it sounds great. And you know, the Chinese very successfully have shown that you can use technology to increase the power of central government in controlling the population. I mean, we have used technology in the West really to empower the individual. So power has diffused away from governments, and all sorts of little groups can organize, express themselves, make problems, you know, we're massively empowered by technology. I mean someone was telling me the other day, he was in, I think Shanghai, and he had crossed the street illegally, i.e. not at the traffic lights, and this had been picked up on cameras, and his image had been projected onto a big screen somewhere on the street to show people around that this particular individual was not obeying the rules. And I mean, I'm sure you're aware that the Chinese are building a system where every member of the population has a file and a point score, and you get bonus points for doing good things like giving blood or volunteering to sweep the staircase if you live in a communal block, and you get minus points if you're socially misbehaving or doing things which are disapproved of by the local party organization. I mean, it really is big brother stuff.

Kosinski: So right. And for a spymaster to feel that way about it, it has to be concerning. Okay, Richard, we're going to talk a lot more about 5G and the risks there. I know you have a lot to say about that. So everyone stick around. But let's bring in Charles Dunn, a veteran of the State Department, Pentagon, and National Security Council, currently with the Middle East Institute. He's also worked for the human rights group Freedom House and has written extensively on Chinese investment. In fact, he's just done a piece on global competition in the Red Sea. Welcome, Charles. Great to have you and your vast knowledge on here.

INTERVIEW WITH CHARLES DUNN

Dunn: Thank you very much. Good to be here. When I was in the foreign service on the policy planning staff at the State Department, there wasn't too much concern about what was going on with China in the region. That time is long in the past. So, this is becoming an increasingly important issue, I think, because of the nature of the global competition between The United States and China, and particularly because of the Biden administration's intention to pay more attention to the Indo-Pacific region and less to the security and diplomacy of the Middle East, which creates a much bigger potential opening for Beijing, I think.

Kosinski: Since he left the State Department in 2009, China has made moves all over the place, an enormous one being, of course, its Belt and Road Initiative to build all sorts of infrastructure and links spanning Africa, Asia, Europe, and The Middle East, more than 125 countries involved in one way or another, trillions of dollars of investment and partnerships with a completion date of 2049. Again, the long game that so few others are playing. Definitely not The United States. When did it start becoming concerning to you that you thought, wait a second, this could actually pose some problems?

Dunn: Well, I started first thinking and writing a little bit about this issue a couple of years ago. It was the height of the Trump administration and relations between the two countries were deteriorating. In the meantime, the interest of the Gulf countries in the Middle East to build closer economic, technological and political ties with China seemed to be rising. That seemed to me a strategic issue of pretty major importance.

Kosinski: So what are the biggest issues for you in terms of what the Chinese are investing in and the willingness of Middle Eastern countries to have this?

Dunn: Ports, infrastructure, industrial zones, there are military aspects to this. The Chinese have invested a considerable amount of money in the Gwadar Port in Pakistan, which potentially has military implications. The same is being done in Duqm, which is in Oman. There could eventually be military elements to that. And of course, the Chinese have a pretty significant military base, their first in the region, in Djibouti, where they exist within a couple of miles of The United States base, which has made for some tension there. And that could conceivably be expanded as Chinese interests expand in the region.

Kosinski: Do the Chinese have political interests in The Middle East, or are they pretty much willing to do business with anyone who will have them?

Dunn: This is one of the interesting things. They do seem to want to do business with anybody who would like to do business with them, which is pretty much all of the countries in the region. So obviously, for example, Saudi Arabia and Iran are locked in a struggle for strategic influence in the region. So China has to be very careful if it has interest in Saudi Arabia, which it does, not to seem to take Iran's side in political issues or overinvest in a way that advantages Iran at Saudi Arabia's expense. China has taken over management of Israel's port of Haifa where the US Sixth Fleet also frequently docks. Again, another example of tension potentially between China and The United States militarily in the region. But expanding relations politically, economically, militarily with Israel is obviously a source of concern to a number of countries in The Middle East. But the situation is very delicate.

Kosinski: Would you say that it's a conscious decision to choose for these investments China over another country like The United States? Or in many cases, is China the only one making these kinds of grand gestures of cooperation?

Dunn: China has decided to adopt an overall policy of stressing dignity, mutual respect, and non-interference, which is the phrase. This is extremely appealing to a lot of the countries in The Middle East who don't like, for example, US involvement in their countries coming with human rights strings attached or other political considerations. Also, some of the governments in the region with which they do the most business, UAE, for example, and Saudi Arabia for another, are autocratic. They are comfortable doing business with other autocratic powers. They are not overly concerned with transparency in the business arrangements that they may engage in.

Kosinski: They certainly have the means to do big projects on their own. What are they getting out of an investment relationship with China?

Dunn: Well, first of all, they're getting a very solid market for their products, which consists mainly of petroleum. China depends on the Middle East for around half of its petroleum imports. And in some cases, the Chinese have made arrangements with countries such as Iran or Saudi Arabia to guarantee these exports into the foreseeable future. For their part, the Middle Eastern countries, and particularly in The Gulf, have received access to important Chinese technology that in some cases faces restrictions if they were to try to import it from The United States or the European Union. I'm thinking here of, for example, armed drones, which China is eagerly signing deals with several Gulf countries to supply. The other thing the Middle Eastern countries get is a huge amount of foreign direct investment from the Chinese. And in 2016, China became the leading provider of foreign direct investment to the Middle East.

Kosinski: And as for strings attached, the crushing debt we've seen happen in countries of Africa, South America, and beyond. Zambia just defaulted on its massive Chinese loans. Sri Lanka needed a bailout after borrowing to build a port. A Chinese firm then ended up buying the controlling stake in it. Middle Eastern countries aren't worried about that, though, or about all the foreign workers brought in or their living and working conditions or a potential military aspect.

Dunn: While they're doing business with China, the Saudis, for example, are still dependent on The US security umbrella. So they know who's gonna back them up in the event of some kind of dispute.

Kosinski: So what, if any, threat is this to The US?

Dunn: Well, I think, first of all, we know The United States is worried about the proximity of Chinese naval facilities, for example, for conducting intelligence operations against The United States. This is true in Djibouti, but it's also true in Israel where the Trump administration was really concerned about the implications of Chinese port management in Haifa and intelligence collection against the Sixth Fleet. But those are minor concerns compared to the future of, say, Gulf security and the key shipping routes that go through the Red Sea. There's no indication at the moment that China wants to assume a more major role, but they may be poised to do so. If The US actually does begin to draw down military assets in a significant way from the Middle East, there may be more pressure on Beijing to increase its own protection of the sea lanes, which would obviously have implications for increasing Chinese diplomatic presence, activities, and certainly influence with some of these capitals.

Kosinski: Why hasn't the US been a better competitor to China in not just The Middle East, but also Africa and South America?

Dunn: The US isn't terribly good at grand strategy. We've done it once in a while. The Marshall Plan being a primary example. But in general, The US isn't all that good at long term strategic thinking in part because governments change fairly frequently and sometimes policies change as a result of that. So what one administration considers a threat or something that's highly important, another administration doesn't. That's the major thing. Second of all, the level of investment to quote unquote counter China in The Middle East, not to mention elsewhere, is extremely daunting. In a country, The US, that's already running a major budget deficit. There's one other thing that I'd like to mention, which is I don't believe there's unanimity among The US foreign policy establishment on whether such things as the Belt and Road Initiative or the Chinese presence at the port in Djibouti necessarily is a strategic threat. There also may be openings for The United States to encourage US business to essentially piggyback on the investments that the Chinese are already making, use their infrastructure to advantage US businesses.

Kosinski: What about Middle Eastern investment in Chinese technology like 5G, Huawei, AI, drones? That seems to be of concern.

Dunn: That is a major concern. And in fact, China has 5G development agreements with every country in the Persian Gulf, at least in the Arabian Peninsula. The UAE and Saudi Arabia in particular are investing heavily in this. But there are implications for the surveillance state and for the human rights community. These countries' investment in Chinese AI and drones are and should be very concerning.

Kosinski: Are they not concerned about how that could affect their relationship with The US?

Dunn: They are concerned about The US reaction to a certain extent, particularly if they feel they might get caught up in Washington sanctions against Chinese companies with which they're doing business. But they are engaged in the constant process of gauging Washington's rhetoric about human rights, about security issues, about cooperation with China and the implications of that to see if Washington is very serious. And I don't think they've made up their mind right now. The Biden administration has talked a lot, for example, about cracking down on international corruption, cracking down on human rights abusers. In practice, they've done very little of that so far in the administration. I think some of the Middle East countries are breathing a little bit easier.

Kosinski: To what extent would you say that this arrangement with so much Chinese investment there has affected The US's relationship with these Middle Eastern countries?

Dunn: So far, I don't think it has affected its relationship to any significant degree. The Gulf States continue to depend very heavily on US arms sales, although China is becoming a major arms dealer to the region. And they have extremely deep relationships with key elements of the US government. Administrations come and go, but the Pentagon and the CIA are forever.

Kosinski: So why do you think, for our listeners, why should people care about this?

Dunn: Because it has implications for whether The United States remains a superpower or is not. The Middle East continues to be critically important to the world economy even if The United States is a net exporter of oil and doesn't depend on Middle East oil anymore. The world economy does. So who holds major influence in that region has a lot of implications for who the major superpower in the world is. Now maybe Americans don't care if The United States remains a major superpower. That's fine too. But if you are looking to advance democracy, if you're looking to advance human rights, if you're looking to advance US economic interests and advantages to American consumers, it is an important issue.

Kosinski: There have been some high level meetings between The US and UAE on this very subject. Plus, The UAE will have a temporary seat next year on the UN Security Council, where China and Russia tend to team up and veto things the West wants. Will countries like this now feel more pull from China on those important decisions? And Saudi Arabia has tied its own long term strategic vision to partnerships with China. It's all becoming too close in some cases, Charles Dunn would say, to overlapping sensitive US interests. So what do you think people ought to know about these kinds of deals that China is going after?

Dunn: Well, I think people should try to understand the pervasiveness and the scope of what China is accomplishing. Let's just take for example, Belt and Road Initiative projects like $2 trillion in the next five to seven years. And the AI business in The Middle East is currently valued at hundreds of billions of dollars. And that's expected to take off exponentially. Americans should understand that China right now sees itself as having a major competitive advantage in the region. And it is trying to exploit that advantage while Washington is not making the same level of investments and incentives for its own businesses to compete with China. And there are huge markets that they might eventually be missing out on.

Kosinski: What worries you most?

Dunn: What worries me the most is the human rights factor. How the Chinese government is using AI to monitor citizens through facial recognition, for example. I think a number of autocrats in the Gulf Region would be very happy to adapt that same technology, which probably The United States wouldn't be willing to sell them, to develop a totalitarian system of monitoring their citizens and locking in autocracy for the very long term, especially when we have seen these same countries such as Saudi Arabia, The UAE backing military regimes to destroy democratic transitions like we just saw in Sudan and providing quiet behind the scenes assistance to the coup in Tunisia as well. And that does worry me for the political future.

Kosinski: Is it going to weaken the partnerships between these countries and The US?

Dunn: There's an element of uncertainty. I think we've sent, I wouldn't even describe it as mixed signals. We've sent the wrong signals to Saudi Arabia and other authoritarians in the region definitely pick up on those signals and apply it to their own behavior. And I don't think, for example, Riyadh is overly concerned that its cooperation on, you know, security AI, even if it is used to abuse human rights, is going to draw a very strong reaction from Washington.

Kosinski: But as for a security threat to the West, Charles feels the biggest risk is in Chinese expansion of ports, airport systems, and other infrastructure that could be an easy front for intelligence gathering.

Dunn: The United States could be more assertive in making sure that these countries understand US security concerns about Chinese intelligence operations and the dangers of increasing Chinese military involvement in the region. And so far, this has not really been done, about whether some of these projects can be militarized by the Chinese government if necessary in the future. A smaller, but nevertheless significant security concern is the dangers of The United States and China operating their naval forces in close proximity to one another. There are dangers of miscalculation and tension. We saw that in Djibouti a few years ago when The US accused China operating out of their base in Djibouti of using lasers to flash at US aircraft. That's just one small example of what could go wrong and potentially lead to something bigger.

Kosinski: As China gains influence, does US leverage necessarily decrease?

Dunn: It does, but it's a very slow rate of decrease at this point. The US military and diplomatic relations with many of these countries are very deep, very long standing, much more so than these countries' relationship with China. If The United States decides to execute what Barack Obama called a pivot to Asia, that is gonna create something of a political vacuum that somebody is gonna have to fill. And that has direct implications for the political and economic stability, not only of that region, but for, in some senses, the world economy. That's the thing that I would be most worried about as we watch how US-Chinese competition takes shape in The Middle East over the next five years or so.

Kosinski: It also seems like in the world today, all of the autocrats have found ways to get together and make each other stronger and make a bigger case for not democracy in the world.

Dunn: Yeah. That is definitely true. There's a process known in literature as authoritarian learning in which authoritarian governments exchange best practices, protect each other in international fora, try to shape world norms in ways that benefit themselves. That has definitely been going on in The Middle East. Countries have learned and cooperated with China on many of these things. The Chinese, as you know, have been trying and trying to use COVID and internal politics to show that democracy no longer works. And I think one of the major challenges for the Biden administration is to make good on its strategy to improve democracy's brand worldwide, to push back against authoritarianism. That has implications for the political future of The Middle East and whether people are gonna continue to live in oppression, which 83% of the region does according to Freedom House where I used to work, or whether there can be significant reform leading to democracy.

Kosinski: There are people out there who see all of these moves China is making and they think, my god, China is taking over the world and The US is missing out. Is there some truth to that?

Dunn: In the 1980s, people thought the same about Japan, and that was a source of huge controversy in The United States when Japanese firms were buying up major real estate all over the country and so on. Then they entered a long term economic stagnation. And there's certainly some concern that China may be headed in that direction as well, given its real estate woes.

Kosinski: But when China doesn't call a country out like Saudi Arabia for human rights issues and provides an alternative to The US, does that have the risk of down the road changing The US's stance on those things as regards some of these countries?

Dunn: I think we saw that certainly in the Trump administration.

Kosinski: Absolutely.

Dunn: When the president refused to hold arms sales to Saudi Arabia after the Khashoggi murder, specifically saying that, well, if we don't sell arms, Russia and China will. So yes, I think there's a very real risk for any administration that realpolitik will take over when you have a meaningful economic decision, including a major arms sale to some of these countries.

Kosinski: Showing our allies, Saudi Arabia and The UAE, armed drones from China. How much does that bother you?

Dunn: Well, it bothers me a lot inasmuch as we've seen what armed drones can do in places like Yemen and so on. And it's a major humanitarian and human rights threat. They can be used for internal oppression just as easily as they can be used for foreign adventurism. And this is something that you have to think about if you worry whether The United States security umbrella and footprint in the region is gonna get a little bit lighter. And some of these countries decide they have to do more in their own defense.

Kosinski: What kind of influence does The US have anymore in preventing those kinds of things from happening?

Dunn: I think The US has more influence than it thinks it does. If it chooses to make these cooperation issues a much bigger element of the bilateral relationship, that can scare away some of these countries from getting in too deep with China. I think the Biden administration could make an ally of Congress on some of these issues, doing more on human rights and doing more on arms sales to the region. And I don't think that's been leveraged at all. And that could be very influential, I believe, in Gulf capitals. I don't think they believe that the Chinese government can provide them some of the same things that The US has been more than willing to do for quite some time. And this does include essentially a defense umbrella, political assistance against their enemy in Iran and other things that I don't think Beijing has any interest in doing.

Kosinski: It's been such a pleasure picking your brain on these matters.

Dunn: You're very welcome. My pleasure.

ANALYSIS WITH SIR RICHARD DEARLOVE

Kosinski: Let's bring in our favorite spymaster, Sir Richard Dearlove again, who naturally has some real worries about Chinese spying through its deal making. Ain't that right, Richard? I mean, it's pretty scary. I mean, it's extraordinarily sad. What is the biggest risk to a country like The US in this?

Dearlove: Well, that it loses its ability to project influence. And okay, I know a lot of people will be sort of anti-American in their concept of American influence and how it's been exercised, but I think now, you know, you and I do understand that there's a lot about American principles and liberal democracy which is important for the future of humanity, for the future of government. And there's a risk that in chunks of the world, particularly if you get a prolonged bout of American isolationism, that these liberal Western principles get displaced and devalued, and an awful lot of people out there are going to have pretty miserable lives because they're going to be subject to very repressive controlling regimes where they have no say, where they can't get rid of their rulers, not question governmental decisions.

Kosinski: And I know you have a lot to say about China's 5G technology through Huawei, which The US has banned.

Dearlove: Well, I mean, Huawei, their model, what you do is you heavily subsidize its manufacturing, the state does, so they produce very effective, very cheap technology, they put their competitors out of business by undercutting them, and slowly this spider creeps across the international telecommunications system, and lo and behold, a lot of people's vital communications are suddenly in Chinese hands, and they're trying to persuade us that this isn't a threat to our security. God, what rubbish. I mean, if you read any Chinese military document, it talks about the fusion of civil and military power. Someone recently did an analysis, 22 of the top officials in Huawei have been trained in military universities in China. I mean it's crazy, and then, you know, even The UK, god, I'm so ashamed what they did.

Kosinski: But okay. So they were fine with it for a while, but then was it you who was instrumental in talking them out of it?

Dearlove: Well, I'm certainly one of the key people. When I was the head of SIS, BT, British Telecom, the main, what had been the general post office, that was privatized as British Telecom, signed the first big deal with Huawei. And they didn't even ask government ministers about it. And some of us in the intelligence community said to BT, you must be off your heads, what are you doing? And we just got ignored and suppressed, as it were, because you're bit players, this is a big commercial deal. I was extremely vocal personally, and people were furious with me. And in the meantime, Huawei had created an advisory board called, you know, the Club of forty-nine or whatever, and signed up the top 50 British business people in The UK for whom they were paying ridiculous advisory fees, so that they would have this sort of political lobby. They should all be ashamed of themselves. They've all disappeared into the woodwork now and won't talk about it. But I mean it was disgusting what happened here. I mean the fact is they've lost the 5G contract, but part of the problem now is finding alternative companies that have the technology which Huawei was able to offer.

Kosinski: So as a former spymaster, how certain are you that Huawei 5G is going to, if it's not already, be used for spying?

Dearlove: A 100%.

Kosinski: Oh. What makes you so certain? I love it.

Dearlove: Put it like this. If the Chinese state says to Huawei, jump, it jumps. If the need arises, which it would inevitably in the future, then you have an insecure communication system. It's as simple as that.

Kosinski: And it's almost like a villain, like a James Bond villain. Like, they know how to get in there, and you have no idea what they're gonna do next.

Dearlove: I had a lobby of intelligence and security people shouting at me saying, oh we've looked at this, it's all quite safe. It's complete rubbish. And as AI becomes more capable, oh god, we're gonna be wide open.

Kosinski: Yeah. And how much does, when China is now making those very deals for 5G with every country in The Middle East, for AI, for drones, you name it. How much does that muddy up the exposure that US companies have when they're doing business with the same people?

Dearlove: Well, I think they've got to be very careful when there are overlaps. And I mean it's like selling F-35 aircraft to The UAE, and then The UAE employing Chinese technicians in their air force because they're servicing other planes, can get round to the next hangar and have a good look at bits of the F-35 which they may have not seen before. I mean, that's a rather banal example, but you can see what I mean. Believe you me, if you want to collect information on other people's, let's say, technology or weapon systems, it's very much easier to do it in the third country than it is in the primary country. And don't ask me too many questions about that.

Kosinski: Yeah. You notice the awkward silence after that statement. You see these deals being made, for example, AI and 5G throughout The Middle East. That doesn't bode well for personal freedom there, does it?

Dearlove: No. I think if you spend time in Saudi Arabia, you just understand how authoritarian, instinctively authoritarian and controlling these regimes are, when they feel threatened, when they disagree with criticism, in the most banal and extraordinary ways, and you're much more likely to nip around the corner and get one of your people to speak to the Chinese ambassador or the Chinese local security people, say, can you help us solve this technical problem, particularly if it's about control, have you got some kit that we can buy?

Kosinski: Exactly. Because the Americans can say, well hang on a moment, we're not doing that.

Dearlove: We're not selling you this stuff, or we're not going to sell you this weapons system because you may use it internally to suppress your population. I mean, this comes up all the time in The UK. Maybe the Saudis will feel a hell of a lot more comfortable dealing with people who are never going to criticize their human rights records. Don't talk about COVID, they're much more worried about the virus of democracy. They can control COVID. What they can't control so easily is the democratic spirit if it gets injected into young people in China.

Kosinski: So you still think that democracy is the best way that humans govern themselves, Richard?

Dearlove: I think I agree. I can't remember what Churchill said about democracy, but there's a great quotation about it being the least effective but only system, you know. It is a hell of a problem to make it work, let's all be fair about that. I mean look at the pain in Washington. It's so much wasted time. And look at the pain in all of our countries, but it's better than any other system.

Kosinski: I'm glad you think so. Thank you, Good Sir, and thank you for joining us today on One Decision. Follow us anywhere you find your podcast and on social media, where we'd love to hear your ideas as well. I'm Michelle Kosinski, here at One Decision.