← What Really Matters with Walter Russell Mead
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Foreign.
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Welcome back, everybody, to what really Matters. I'm Jeremy Stern with you in Los Angeles and here as always with Walter Russell Mead of tablet, the Wall Street Journal, Hudson Institute and the Hamilton center at the University of Florida. Let's start with this week's news. First story of the week, a spat between China and Japan over Japanese Prime Minister Sanaya Takaichi's Taiwan comments showed no signs of abating this week after a series of vitriolic articles in Chinese state media and threats from China's foreign and commerce ministries to curb trade cooperation. Takaichi sparked the furor with remarks in parliament on November 7 that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could amount to a survival threatening situation for Japan and trigger a potential military response from Tokyo. As of this recording on Friday evening, the latest is that Takaichi has said she wants better ties with China but refuses to retract her comments on Taiwan as Beijing has continued to demand. Walter, is the spat news or FO news?
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I'm afraid it's news. At one level, it's not news that the Kaichi has said that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan could be a threatening situation for Japan. That's why they wrote this law in something like 2015 to allow the Japanese Self Defense Forces, which are only supposed to act in self defense of Japan, to work with the US and other militaries in certain contingencies. And her remarks are actually not that specific and not that, you know, she's still leaving a lot of wiggle room and so on and so forth. It was a step more franker than the Japanese have been in the past, but there was really no need from China for more than a kind of a pro forma, oh, we hate you and we hate your country. You did terrible things in the 40s and you're just bad, bad, bad, bad. I mean, the usual thing that they do all the time, the fact that they've decided they've chosen to blow this up and the demand they're making that she retract the statement and apologize. She would have to resign as prime minister to do that. So they're essentially demanding that Japan change its government to satisfy Chinese Ireland over what is legitimately a matter of survival for Japan. It's unbelievable, but it's typical of Chinese, a lot of Chinese diplomacy. The wolf warriors are back. I think they hope that inside Japan, the more dovish elements of Takachi's Liberal Democratic Party, the ldp, would try to force. They don't like her. They're not happy that she's there. They want A more dovish policy, et cetera. Maybe this could spark some kind of rebellion. If it doesn't, maybe in a few weeks the Chinese will let it drop. But why not give it a try, I think is what they're thinking. But it is a crisis and it points to a pattern of Chinese diplomacy, that it's a crime to try to defend yourself against China. And if you try to do that, they will make your life as difficult as they know how to do.
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For our listeners who are kind of considering the Japan angle of the Taiwan issue, maybe for the first time, why is a potential Chinese annexation or occupation of Taiwan an existential threat to Japan? You kind of look at a map and it seems like, you know, it wouldn't be good for Japan, but there's plenty of ocean. Why would it interrupt their trade routes or anything like that so much? Why is it such a big deal for them?
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It would mean that the South China Sea, East China Sea would, would become de facto Chinese territorial water, which is a problem for Japanese shipping. Also, you look beyond Taiwan, it would mean that the U.S. navy is no longer a factor in Freedom of the Seas, that, that the US Navy really goes back to Guam and you really would have to sail almost halfway across the Pacific as Japanese fleet, and it's just not a great idea. And can you really count if the United States has been beat, beaten back in that way? What is its prestige? What is your belief that the Japanese, that the Americans would come to your rescue. But also the Chinese have claims to okinawa, which before 1895 was sort of in that vague tributary relationship with China that a lot of the region was in. And the Japanese are pretty convinced that what they would immediately do is that the Chinese would begin pushing into Okinawa as well. So for Japan, this feels like an existential crisis. I have had very senior Japanese officials tell me that that's how they view it. So here we are.
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All right, our second story. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said Tuesday during his White House meeting with Donald Trump that Riyadh wants to join the Abraham Accords, but called for the need to secure a path towards a two state solution. First, Saudi Arabia has long told interlocutors it will not normalize relations with Israel absent a credible, time bound and irreversible pathway to a Palestinian state. However, there had been some speculation that progress could be made on the issue, given that another key Saudi condition for a deal appeared to have been met when Trump succeeded in brokering a ceasefire in Gaza last month. MBS is said to have told Confidants that the restoration of Qom in Gaza would also be needed for him to move forward with Jerusalem, as the war has significantly soured the Saudi population's view of Israel. Within the last week, however, Benjamin Netanyahu and other members of his government have reiterated that they will not allow for the establishment of a Palestinian state under any circumstances. Walter was MBS's Oval Office visit News or Fonus.
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I don't think there's anything there that surprised anybody who follows this closely. We've talked, I think, on this podcast before, about how when Israel succeeded in weakening Iran to the extent that it did, paradoxically, it made the Arab countries less needy in terms of their relationship with Israel. And there was a time when the Saudis worried about Iran, worried about America maybe leaving the region, looked at Israel as potentially their only ally in a real crunch. And now they don't see it that way. And furthermore, I think they thought that a relationship with Israel could help them strengthen their relationship with Washington. But they're kind of getting everything they've ever wanted that Trump can deliver from Trump already. So there. And as far as intelligence cooperation with the Israelis or any other kind of cooperation that Saudis might want to do, they're getting a lot of what they would want at no cost now. So why would they pay a very high cost in terms of public opinion in order for really quite limited benefits? That's where we are right now. Now, if I think the Israelis maybe could have found a form of words, we are utterly opposed under current conditions to a Palestinian state or something like that and then create kind of some like, you know, gauzy middle zone where everybody could pretend to ignore the huge gaps in the positions and do what diplomats do best as to say lie. But the Israelis don't want to do that. And again, it's partly because I think the Israeli. Right, a lot of folks there still think, hey, we just want a war. We should be able to get something. And I know what we want. No Palestinian state and maybe the whole west bank and a pony, like the pony being of the relationship with Saudi Arabia. That does not correspond to reality. And it's a hard landing for some people who thought that the Israeli victory in the Middle east would solve a lot of these problems that Israel has faced in the past. Again, this has been the story since 1948, 49. You win a war, you win a war convincingly, you really defeat the other side, and you still can't get the Middle east that you want. I mean, we are. We're Absolutely. Seeing another act in this long running serial.
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Just one follow up. What do you make of the, what are the Abraham Accords at this point? Was this a diplomatic achievement that was a, belonged to a discrete moment in time that was, you know, made possible by the conditions of Trump's first term? Or do you think the Trump team kind of has it right that this is a kind of framework that can still be relevant several years later? We can keep expanding it to more and more countries in the Middle East?
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You know, even if you could, I don't think it matters all that much. You know, the, the interesting part of the government of Sudan recognizes Israel. Well, I'm just, you know, my world has just changed. You know, Morocco was always a kind of a, you know, almost recognized. You know, it was very, very real relations. The UAE thing is interesting. And the UAE actually may be happy that the Saudis are not going to go ahead to full diplomatic relations because there's a very intense UAE Saudi rivalry that goes on. The Saudis sort of want to say, well, we've got all the oil, we've got all the money. All you foreign companies should come and have your headquarters in Riyadh, not in like Abu Dhabi or someplace like that. To which the Emiratis continue to reply. But you really want to live in Riyadh. You know, we've got, we've got. So, you know, nightlife is better, everything is better. Come here. And for a while, what you were seeing and this was doing a lot of the driving the Abraham Accords was this rivalry that a Saudi began to liberalize. Okay, women can drive, mixed couples can have coffee together at Starbucks, et cetera, et cetera. There's actually an attack on the UAE's comparative advantage in the quest for foreign investment, et cetera. And Saudi is like holding sports events. These are things that, these are out of the old UAE playbook, right? And if Saudi really gets into that, it can probably win. And then what happens? You're like a little sand spitting. You don't have all that much oil. Like, what is going on here? And one of the reasons I think that for the Emiratis the Abraham Accords were attractive is like, ha, ha, ha. We have diplomatic relations with Israel. We are more liberal than the Saudis. And not only that, we got a synagogue, we got kosher religious restaurants. We are so far ahead of them. And by the way, they also built a Hindu temple during this time. So this was, this was part of a comparative, you know, their, their demarcation of themselves. And I think now that the Saudis have stepped back from normalization, the Emiratis are breathing a sigh of relief. So I don't think the Abraham Accords ever were this transformational force in the Middle east that were nice and you know, as somebody who occasionally has flown from Australia to Israel, it's really nice that you can fly on Emirates Air and change in, in, in the uae, change planes. It's excellent. But it is not the end of the Arab, Israeli conflict. It's not the start yet of a new peaceful Middle East. I think we are, we are still history has not ended in the Middle east, even now, even with the Abraham Accords.
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All right, final story of the week. The days when Silicon Valley and leading American universities led the way in shaping the future of science may be ending as China overtakes the United States not only in research output, but in some cutting edge fields. According to the editor of Swiss based Frontiers, one of the world's leading academic publishers, by 2024, Chinese researchers had published 1.1 million articles, compared to 880,000 from their US count counterparts. And China's share of papers in the medical field has risen to just over 50%. In energy research, China is already the clear global Leader, producing around 35% of all papers in the field and with significant impact. Quote. There is no doubt that China is now the leader in scientific publishing and output. The editor said other indicators such as patents, further reinforce that China has surpassed the US not only in volume but also in high quality scientific production. Close quote. Walter, is this news or faux news?
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I think it's, it's kind of, it seems a little alarmist and overdone to me. Definitely China is moving up the, you know, evolutionary scale here and, and producing more stuff and better stuff. But I think we have to understand too that what, what happens in China is that in Beijing they issue an edict that our universities must all be world leaders in publication of scientific papers. And so bang, we're just going to, we're going to do all the scientific papers anybody ever saw patents. And you can manipulate these indices, you can manipulate, you can, like, you know that you're going to have to make sure that your papers are cited a number of times, certain X number of times. So they get, so I think we, you know, it's a little bit like the Chinese mortgage, mortgage market in some ways and is maybe no more reliable than that. Now, you know, that said, it would be a huge mistake to be complacent. I just feel that, that maintaining a balance, a sober balance between Complacency, which is bad. And then, you know, hair. Some self interested scientific publisher, you know, wants everybody to see that they've got, you know, the boy, our statistics, what we do determines the balance of world power. Forget about it. Also, what about sociology, huh? You know, I, I don't, I think the Chinese lag so far behind us in DEI type publications. It's just amazing. Gender justice. Nothing. All right, they're pathetic.
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All right, that does it for the news this week. Let's have the big conversation. So there was an interesting article in the Times this week, Walter, that made the rounds about the rise of converts in America to Orthodox Christianity. Let me just quote from the article here and then have you react to it. Something is changing in an otherwise quiet corner of Christianity in the United States, one that prides itself on how little it has changed over time. Across the country, the ancient tradition of Orthodox Christianity is attracting energetic new adherents, especially among conservative young men. Men they are drawn to what they describe as a more demanding, even difficult practice of Christianity. Echoing some of the rhetoric of the so called manosphere, new waves of young converts say Orthodoxy offers them hard truths and affirms their masculinity. In the United States, Orthodox Christianity is by far the smallest and least known of the three major branches of Christianity, representing about 1% of the population, compared with about 40% who are Protestant and 20% who are Catholic. Orthodox pews here have historically been occupied by immigrants from Ukraine, Greece and other countries with large Orthodox populations. Their American born children have often drifted to other churches. But a homegrown Orthodox Christianity is strikingly emergent. Close quote. So Walter, this seems like an interesting trend potentially that you might be well positioned to explain to us. So I guess first of all, for our primarily non Orthodox Christian audience, what is Orthodox Christianity in the Eastern Church? And then how durable do you expect its appeal to young men, young conservative men and perhaps beyond in America to be? Rather than just being a kind of.
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Passing fad, you know, we start with talking about Orthodoxy. It comes to us through the churches of the Christian east, especially the church of the Eastern Roman Empire centered in Constantinople, the patriarch of Constantinople. Traditionally, in the Christian Church there were sort of five leading patriarchs who ranked above the others. And the two that ended up kind of contending for supremacy were Old Rome and New Rome, Rome and Constantinople. And over the years, as the kind of Byzantine civilization, Eastern Roman civilization went one way and Western civilization went another, they began to diverge. Honestly, I think for those of our listeners who read Greek and Latin, if you look at the New Testament in Greek, the original language. That Greek is a very kind of fluid, mystical reading language. Lots of syllables, short syllables, vowels flowing. Latin is very declarative, logical kind of language. And there is a sense in which the spirit of Orthodoxy reflects a bit that Greek sensibility and the sort of more formalized in some ways. Latin Christianity of the west has a different ethos to it and historical rivalries and different political events kind of exacerbated it. Ultimately, the two churches split officially, I think, and finally in 1071 or something like that over the. I, I think I'll probably spare the readers the theological niceties here, but there was a. In the west, when you say the Nicene Creed, you say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. In Latin that's filioque and the Son. In the Eastern Church, you do not say this and you do you believe that the Holy Spirit proceeds only from the Father. Again, quite technical distinction. And my suspicion is that a number of the new converts to Orthodoxy have not profoundly studied this or profoundly understood it but, but can argue it, you know, as, as people do. And I think what you see in America is a lot of people who are coming from Protestant churches, either originally very, you know, sort of mainstream mainline churches that have become very liberal or where you have younger people drifting away from the church completely or else looking for something that isn't liberal, you know, a kind of Christianity that isn't liberal. It feels a little tougher. Or you have evangelicals who are, you know, who feel a certain thinness in evangelical Christian culture. Many of those go to Catholicism and, and a certain fraction of those then go on to Orthodoxy. That's a pattern. I mean I had college friends who, who became Orthodox Christians. People became Catholics too. It was a. And pretty much in those proportions. I think the numbers here are, you know, this is one of those articles that if, you know, you've got three examples its trend and I think this phrase waves of converts. We didn't get many measurements there about how high these waves are. So that would be my, my first point that it and probably not sufficient and people who know more about the religious demographics can tell me I'm wrong and will but probably not enough to offset in terms of numbers the immigrant, the descendants of the original immigrants who sort of go out of that church either into other churches or into nothing at all. It's a bit like the, you know, the Catholic, very trendy sort of ultra integralist Catholicism that you see, which you hear a lot about and See a lot about online. But if people who actually measure religious demographics say it has not changed in any way, shape or form the trajectory of what's happening in American Catholicism or Protestantism for that matter. So this, you know, I. Who knows, this could grow into a much larger trend. My guess is that it probably won't, but we'll see. And it becomes. Some people will settle into this trend. Some people will keep looking very hard to. The seeker serially goes through a number of churches, then often goes out, often into another religion. No religion goes back. It's complicated. This is how human beings are. So I don't. Of all the scenarios I see for the United States in 2100, sort of an America in which 25% of Americans think of themselves as Orthodox Eastern Christians is maybe one of the less likely scenarios to come to pass.
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One final question. You know, we've talked a lot on the show about the issue of young men in America, many of whom feel lost and who are experimenting with different lifestyles or ideologies that are, you know, they're looking to. For institutions or ways of life in which they feel like maybe they're more valued or something like.
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Like that.
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Would you, you know, to the extent that there is some movement of some young men into the Orthodox Church or I guess into any church, is that an encouraging sign or is this something that you'd expect them to, as you said, kind of bounce around between experiments before finally settling on something that has more historical precedent in America?
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Well, look, again, I think it's. These kinds of things get very individual in the end. It's like one person with their history and, you know, what is their experience of life as an Orthodox Christian, et cetera, et cetera. Certainly, I would say an America in which millions of young men were experimenting with orthodox Christianity was a lot better than an American which millions of young men are experimenting with Nazism, let's just be clear. Or communism. And this is, this is a much, you know, this, all of the searching, even when it goes to places that I personally really dislike, is a sign of life and health and vitality. You know, it's like I'm aware that my life, there's something missing in my life, and I want to find it. Well, that's, that's actually a good thing. It's a good thing that people often make a lot of mistakes or kiss a lot of frogs before they find a prince normal part of, part of life. So I find it difficult to get super excited in a sense either way about this. There has always been, because Orthodoxy is so small and sort of so exotic to, to the average American. This has always had a kind of a niche appeal to somebody who, you know, doesn't want to do, like, the ordinary thing that a dissatisfied Protestant might do and as we say, you know, swim the Tiber and go to Rome. This is, like, much cooler than just going to Rome. So there's a. There's a bit of a coolness factor here. And again, I say this, I do not mean to speak against the spirituality of, Of a particular person who's making this kind of journey, but just if you stand back and look at cultural phenomena, I think it's, you know, this is, this is the one who doesn't settle for the ordinary blue jeans that everyone is wearing, but, you know, for the, like, super special ones that in some very, very subtle way convey to the eye of the sophisticated beholder. This person is special, this person is different.
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All right, that does it for the big conversation. Let's end on the tip of the week. Walter, do you have a favorite Orthodox church in the world in Russia or Eastern Europe or the Middle East? I'm sure you've seen plenty.
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Well, if you mean by, you know, buildings as opposed to.
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Yes, not congregation.
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Because, you know, the Orthodox churches or as they say, autocephalous, which is a wonderful word that means that, you know, they run them. They're, you know, the patriarch at Constantinople doesn't run the national Orthodox branches of Orthodoxy the way the, the Pope, you know, can appoint. Bish does appoint bishops all over the world and so on. So when I first read that, I thought, huh, interesting question. If you're talking about buildings, I think I really, you know, I'm, I'm a sucker here. Hagia Sophia in Istanbul originally, Constantinople, is a pretty impressive building, I think. Also, I really like the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, which, you know, was. It's kind of a cool church in part because when the Persians came through the palace then Palestine in something like the 6th century, 7th, early 7th century A.D. they burned a lot of. Destroyed a lot of the old churches. But this one they left standing because the, the magi, you know, the three wise men who come to see the baby Jesus in Bethlehem. The. There's a mosaic of them on. I think it's a mosaic on the front of the entrance of the church, and they're dressed as Persian holy men. So they thought, okay, well, this one is different. And what that means is it is one of the, you know, it actually is one of the oldest standing Christian churches in the world so that I. I find that really kind of cool.
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All right, there you have it. Thanks to our producer, Josh Cross, thanks to Alex Vatanov at Hudson, and my co host, Walter Russell Mead. I'm Jeremy Stern. We'll see you next week. And until then, please go rate and review us. This helps other people find the show.
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Okay. All right.