Trump's Beijing Detour & China's Role in the Iran Endgame: Craig Singleton

weaponize it more and Beijing needs to preserve that dependence because of the power it provides, and that sort of intention in the current relationship today. I'm host Michael Allen with Beaking Global Strategies. Today I'm joined by Mr. Craig Singleton, Senior Director for China, and Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracy. Before joining the Foundation, he spent more than a decade

serving in national security roles with the U.S. government. Mr. Singleton joins us today to discuss President Trump's upcoming summit with PRC leader G. Jean-Peng, including expectations for the meeting and its broader geopolitical implications. Stay with us as we speak with Craig Singleton. Craig Singleton, welcome back to NetSec matters. Thanks so much. It's great to be back.

Well, we're so glad to have you, you're the perfect person to preview this week's coming attraction, which is President Trump's trip to China and a summit that he's having with

G. Jean-Peng. I'd love to talk a little bit at first about the biggest topic internationally,

and that's the war with Iran. Of course, the President's weighing whether to resume an escort mission. He's got a blockade on and he seems to be weighing the employment of additional force to try and get the Iranians to the negotiating table in a sincere way. What role, if any, do you think

“Jean-Peng might play in this? And what have you been able to discern about their diplomacy so far?”

Yeah, I mean, the Iran war adds a volatile external pressure point to an already fragile summit. You know, China does not want a wider, middle-east war. It does not want sustained energy disruption, even if it is better positioned than I think a lot of other countries to absorb some of the short-term shocks. It's clear that Beijing wants the straight-of-hormous reopens. They want shipping flow stabilized because China's export economy depends on predictable energy and transport and insurance.

I think the longer the conflict drags on, the more uncertainty gets priced into China's trade model. The harder issue now is that the U.S. pressure campaign on Iran now runs directly through China's interests. Washington is sanctioned. A number of Chinese entities tied to Iranian oil. It's threatened broader secondary sanctions. Even this Treasury Secretary used in pretty sharp language about China's purchases of Iranian crude, equating that to supporting terrorism. I think

from Beijing's perspective, though, that doesn't look like Iran policy. It looks like pressure on China's energy security. So I think, while China's going to keep calling for calm and broader de-escalation, I wouldn't expect Beijing to stick its neck out to solve a war. It didn't start and won that it doesn't control. Yeah, I think you're right. I can't see them doing much to help the U.S. position here. But you don't, is there a point at which, and I've seen some articles

suggesting that rising oil and edge of gas prices are beginning the way on the Chinese economy? Is there a point at which they go kind of get off the fence and start messaging the Iranians

“that you need to make some real concessions sooner rather than later, because we need out of this,”

or you do think that that's just not in the cards. I wouldn't expect China to play some sort of grand peacemaking role here, at least not publicly. I think China's position is practical, not heroic.

Ultimately, I think that Chinese will be seen or they'll be keen, I think, to probably put some

quiet pressure on the Iranians to return to the negotiating table to negotiate honestly and fairly at the same time that they're probably not going to want to be publicly seen as doing Trump's bidding. And striking that balance for the Chinese is probably something that they're going to have to figure out on the next few weeks as the blockade drags on. Okay, we'll come back around to Iran in terms of what lessons China may be learning from this conflict. But let's talk about the

ostensible agenda of the summit. And as I understand it, and I'd love to hear from you on this, it's mostly about some commercial purchases that the Chinese are going to make from American agriculture and maybe bowing airplanes. But explain to us the essence of this and explain how it's

the first in a series of meetings where the two leaders are going to get together in this calendar

“year. Yeah, I think when I think about this summit, it's really a stability exercise. There's very”

little chance for a structural reset. It's about this summit is about preserving calm, not producing

cleanly, but too competitive to reset meaningfully. So the summit is really less about solving

“this rivalry than staging some stability around it. And so I think this summit, if we want to put”

it into context, it's really just a continuation of last fall's tactical trade truce, which was negotiated in Busan in South Korea. The tariff and the trade lanes are being protected because both leaders need predictability. And both sides have this interest in keeping the commercial floor from collapsing, but competition continues on technology and Taiwan and sanctions and supply

trainings and critical minerals and Iran. And so I'd really best to think about it like

compartmentalized competition, tariff and trade lanes stay protected, everything else is up for grabs. So the Busan truce, I guess we definitely needed to do it because we had levy tariffs against the Chinese and they went for the jugular and cut off critical mineral exports about to the world, but especially to the United States. And that caused us to turn around pretty quickly,

“didn't it? And what else did we actually agree to in the Busan truce? Yeah, when I think about the”

Busan truce, I think about this again, like very short-term trade tactical trade truce. And the reason I think that is because it created this, it wasn't about to taunt, right? It was about Washington, lowered some fentanyl-related tariff rates on Chinese imports. I think it was from 20

percent to 10 percent. The U.S. agreed to maintain rotter yet still elevated tariff levels. We

paused for one year a draft commerce school that would have expanded export control restrictions to majority owned affiliate sub-black listed Chinese firms for its part Beijing suspended rare earth export controls that they had announced before the summit. They put them on hold. They eased some tariffs on U.S. farm goods in the neighbor's room to soybean purchases, just going to factor heavily here in the United States during this summit. But what Busan really

created was this template for what followed. Neither country took their foot off the competitive pedal here. They realized that they could manage trade and tariffs. But all of these other areas have remained pretty competitive and we've seen a number of competitive actions applied. So

“I think it's best to think about it. Just a very narrowly focused win. They put a floor under the”

relationship as it was spiraling out of controlling the trade truth. And now each side is thinking, how can they harden themselves and reduce their alliance on the other? So it seems as if Trump and I want you to check this for us. Trump isn't to quite the China

hawk that he was in the first term. I have the impression that we have put the brakes on a lot of

what people just sort of you domestically call competitive actions that in many cases in the past to be their sanctioned or taken action against Huawei. We seem to have been a little bit more forgiving on the types of chips that were willing to export to China. Is President Trump still a China hawk? This is where I would push back a little bit because I think when I look at everything that's occurred since Busan, there's a pretty clear pattern of competitive action. Washington has

selectively applied pressure where Beijing remains exposed. All of those semiconductor export trolls remain in place and despite public reporting about advanced chip sales to China, all available information suggests that no chips have been sold or shipped. Can I just ask you why? What happened? I thought in video, had this thing sewn up. Why have none of these chips gone to China? Yeah, I think it's a very question. I think ultimately

what happened is the national security bureaucracy based on the rules that were produced around those chip sales was unable to determine whether these chips wouldn't be flowing into entities affiliated with China's military or national security apparatus. And so again, I think one of the biggest things we see with this White House is the headline announcement from the president and then staff spend time trying to cobble together a legal or regulatory

architecture to make it so. And in this case, it seems quite clear that a national security review across the under agency raised a number of concerns about those chips sales. And as best we can tell from public reporting, no chips have been sold, nothing's been shipped. At the same time, the Chinese certain parts of the Chinese is government and certain parts of the Chinese private sector would love to get their hands on this advanced compute. They just want to prevent

I mean, I'm personally glad they haven't gone over, but I wonder if the White House is going to try and override the national security bureaucracy as you call it. I mean, right now there's public reporting that Nvidia CEO was not invited to attend the summit in Beijing along with other

“U.S. CEOs. I think that maybe is a signal that chips aren't up for sale anymore, and that”

perhaps the president has moved on to other more niche areas where they can be some baseline collaboration with the Chinese, but maybe chips just aren't for sale anymore. Okay, great. Thank you. Sorry to derail you. So you were saying there have been a series of competitive actions. Oh, absolutely. I mean, like the the think about the number of sanctions at the U.S. is applied against Chinese entities in the last few weeks leading up to the summit last December. We saw a historic 11 billion

dollar of Taiwan arms package. The Federal Communications Commission took action to ban Chinese drones, ban Chinese routers. There are a bunch of other actions in the hopper. It's my understanding. So again, like those are all non-trade related, right? They were able to maintain that protect that lane while applying pressure everywhere else. Beijing also has pushed backwards still holds a lot

of course of capacity, right? Critical minerals. Some of the supply chain choke points recently announced

blocking measures that aim to cause friction and put U.S. firms. Sort of put them in between

“U.S. sanctions in Chinese law saying you can only be able to comply with one, not both. And so I think”

the relationship is one in which trade can look very orderly while the instruments of broader pressure become sharper. So, Craig, as we talk about the deliverables from this summit, which are real and which are symbolic? Yeah, I mean, I think a genuine win for Washington would be something enforceable and durable, like real agricultural, precious commitments. Maybe restraints in Chinese coercive economic tools, meaningful action on Iran-related oil flows, or maybe establishing

more crisis management channels that actually work. The optics only version is easier. I think that's just soybeans, Boeing plane orders, really vague investment pledges, and maybe some new dialogue about AI guard rails that creates a lot of headlines, but doesn't change behavior. And so I think the issue is that many summit deliverables will sound concrete, but they're not going to alter the strategic balance, and that's the gap that we all need to be watching. Gotcha.

Talk a little bit about whether it's possible to extend the boost on truce, because obviously

the United States can't solve its critical mineral supply chain dependencies in just one year,

and it sounds like listening to you that the Chinese would like more than a year of predictability

“on our tariff rates. So is this extendable? I think it is. I think it's important for us to”

remember, too, that both sides have leverage, but the leverage is very different. The United States obviously still controls the most important choke points, right? Advanced semiconductors, chip tools, capital markets, export controls, access to the dollar system. And China's leverage here is concentrated in critical minerals and magnets and batteries and manufacturing scale. And of course, the supply chains that most U.S. industry still depends on, and that means that

neither side can dictate terms here. Washington can impose serious costs, but I would probably posit that Beijing can disrupt key inputs. And while Trump thinks pressure gives him leverage,

I think Xi Jinping thinks endurance gives him leverage. Ultimately, I think both men are probably

more confident than they should be given the domestic challenges they're facing respectively. Interesting. Okay. Let's talk a little bit about Taiwan. There is fear out there, especially among Democrats. I talked to someone who is very senior in the Biden administration who thinks that the president's going to sell Taiwan out by changing some of the long-standing language that we have as it pertains to whether we oppose Taiwanese independence or whether

we do not support the island's independence. As I understand it, if we change the verb here to oppose, and this is really just splitting hairs here, but apparently this is important. You'll tell us this is important. It implies that America would not object if it happened organically. And so, tell us, is the president likely to change the verb age on Taiwan? And why would that be seen as a soft to China? Yeah. I mean, in my experience, Chinese officials raised Taiwan

surface in the pre-summit call between Wang Yi and Marco Rubio. But that said, I really do not expect Taiwan to be on the menu in any meaningful way. In my view, the danger is not a grand bargain or Taiwan. I do think the risk, though, as you mentioned, is a little more subtle and symbolic. Great, Beijing is going to caution Trump about approving additional arms deliveries to Taiwan.

Although, as I said, he already approved the historic 11 billion dollar package in December.

I suspect, also, like you said, China is going to keep pressing for changes in U.S. cross-strait policy. And those changes center around this Chinese proposal that the U.S. shift from a policy of, quote, not supporting Taiwan's independence to, quote, opposing Taiwan's

“independence. I think Taiwan would be that shift as alarming and understandably so. But those”

formulations are also rhetorically reversible by a future administration. And I'm not convinced they would necessarily change U.S. policy on the ground. I think the real risk is whether Trump teeth treats Taiwan as maybe part of a broader transaction. And just right now, I do not see

clear evidence that he or his team are prepared to do that. But this lingering ambiguity about

Trump's Taiwan policy is going to make Taipei and I suspect Tokyo nervous, at least until the summit over. Okay. Well, let's talk a little bit about Taiwan. It feels like the prevailing expert opinion in the last year has been that Xi Jinping's directive for his military to be ready to mount a cross-strait invasion. I guess at the end of 2027, we'll not be met. And I think the intelligence community said as much in a classified basis when they were up on the hill.

What's your sense of how that commitment or how that directive is being implemented and is it truly going to take more time for them to just be even capable of mounting such a military operation? Yeah. I mean, the directive that Xi ordered was that Taiwan or China's military developed the capabilities necessary to take Taiwan in 2027. And like so many leader-level directives, I suspect that this one will continue to slide to the right. Not because China isn't investing

massive resources into developing those capabilities, but the world is complicated in the U.S. is also working to shore up Taiwan's defense as well as developing new systems that could take on China and ahead-head conflict, which are all things that the Chinese need to sort of account for.

“I really think that we should remember though that just because she is directed the PLA to have”

the capability to conduct the Taiwan operation by 2027, that doesn't mean he's made a decision to invade. Right. It means he wants the military option to be credible and available and coercive by then. But I think that what we're really seeing is that China remains focused on winning short of war. I think a more capable people's liberation army gives Xi Jinping more leverage to pressure Taiwan to intimidate voters to deter U.S. intervention and then to convince Taipei that resistance

is futile. So let's talk about that. It seems, and that's where I was headed, that they're more in line with a possible quarantine of the island. Not anytime soon, but we keep hearing, of course, well, their preference would be economic pressure, convince them that resistance is futile so that they gradually merge with the mainland. Then I hear the, then I hear the intermediate measures I'm just mentioned is the sort of a quarantine pressure situation, and all of this before military

“force. So do you look at this in that sort of ramp up? I do. I really think China has focused on”

quarantine or blockade scenarios because they sit below full-scale invasion, but they still create enormous pressure on Taiwan. Like a quarantine let's Beijing climate is enforcing customs, law enforcement, and sometimes maybe even like sovereignty rules rather than starting a war. A blockade, of course, goes a little further, but both approaches are designed to isolate Taiwan, disrupt energy and trade flows, obviously test U.S., and allied resolve. And then again,

pressure Taipei without immediately triggering the political and military costs of an invasion. It also really fits with China's preferred strategy, which is pressure without war of possible. You know, paralysis before invasion is probably necessary. Taiwan is highly dependent on imported energy, especially with liquefy natural gas. So I think Beijing sees maritime pressure

as a way to test Taiwan and to make them feel vulnerable pretty fast. So the president always says,

while I'm in office." And, you know, sometimes I discount those types of statements,

“but this time he might be right. I think it wouldn't just lay aside the military capability”

question for a second. Would Xi Jinping really try and, as we say, change the status quo that

dramatically, while Trump is in office, doesn't he maybe assume that a future leader might be, less caring of this issue or his he already assessed, maybe that Trump doesn't believe it, believe in it like a true Washington China Hawk. Yeah, I mean, I think the president's personal relationship with Xi Jinping may matter at the margins, but it's not like a Taiwan strategy. I think Xi Jinping's calculus is driven by capability and costs

in timing and assessing U.S. resolve, and whether he believes, quote unquote, "peaceful

of reunification is slipping away." So I don't want to dismiss the president's personal diplomacy

entirely, but deterrence can't rest on the idea that Xi likes Trump or fear is disappointing him.

“I think China's preparing options across the spectrum, political warfare, quarantine,”

blockade, and invasion, and we have to take all of those seriously. So when I hear all of those quarantine, political pressure, the military buzzing above cities, incursions into Taiwan's airspace, I mean, it's intimidating, and I guess you said earlier it's to convince the convinced Taiwan resistance is futile, but how exactly does it happen? Does Taiwan then cry alcohol? In enters into negotiations to give away some of its sovereign functions to the mainland,

and how does it all go down? You know, I think we all talk about 20, 20, 7 timelines, but one thing I'm very focused on is 20, 28, and that's the next presidential election in Taiwan. The current

president William Lye is stridently anti-PRC, and the question is will he get a second term?

Will he be reelected? If he does, then we will be in a scenario in which Taiwanese voters have for 16 years, selected a leader and a political party that wants to maintain the status quo, and it's fervently against reunification. And so I think that's where the Chinese are sort of getting a sense of a go-no-go decision about whether their current policy of containment and harassment and intimidation and incursion is resulting in what they really need,

which is a political outcome in Taiwan, and perhaps a change in government that signals both to Beijing and the world that perhaps Taiwanese voters are resistant to an independent narrative,

“or an anti-PRC narrative. And so that's why I think 20, 20 really does matter. How they”

cry on goal or when they cry on goal, we could play that, you know, there's a whole war game industry and here in DC where we talk about those types of things. What I think between now, in 20, 28, we can expect a ramp up in this type of harassment and coercion, but the goal of influencing Taiwan's next presidential election and undermining the current political regime there. We're going to take a quick break, and we'll be right back with more of our discussion with

Craig Singleton. Beacon Global Strategies is the premier national security advisory firm. Beacon works side-by-side with leading companies to help them understand national security policy, geopolitical risk, global technology policy, and federal procurement trends. Beacon's insight gives business leaders the decision advantage, founded in 2013, Beacon develops and supports the execution of bespoke strategies to mitigate business risk, drive growth, and navigate

a complex geopolitical environment with a bipartisan team and decades of experience, speak and provide a global perspective to help clients tackle their toughest challenges. So the two political parties, it's the DPP, which has been more modern and more pro-Taiwan, if you will, and less interested in the mainland, and then, of course, the KMT, reportedly, and I know their leader visited with Xi Jinping recently,

they're thought to be much more open to some sort of reunification. As I thought I had read, at one point, the DPP was not doing great in the polls, but that's flipped. People are losing confidence in the KMT, and apparently opinion polls are showing as

break around identity, China policy, and I think how much risk Taiwan should take in its

serving itself, or serving itself, like the DPP, President William Lies Party, is obviously more Taiwan-centric. It emphasizes sovereignty and resistance to Chinese pressure, stronger ties to

“the US and Japan, and I think a clearer Taiwanese identity, Beijing obviously distrusts the DPP deeply,”

and it sees it as a pro-independence party, even though President Lies has said that he wants to preserve the status quo. The KMT is, in my view, just more cautious towards Beijing. It supports some sort of a framework, it favors dialogue. They argue that they need to lower tensions to reduce the risk of war. Some critics say they're too accommodating to Beijing, and some of their supporters say it's just, it's more pragmatic and better to manage, cross-strait risk this way.

There is a third party that TPP, and they try to position themselves as a third force. They're

more technocratic, less ideological. They criticize both major parties. They focus on things like governance and corruption and housing, like practical problem solving. On China, the TPP tends to sound less hard-line than the DPP, but it doesn't have the KMT's historic China policy identity. So I think those facets of the domestic political environment are constantly evolving,

“but ultimately in the democracy, there's elections, and you have to deliver. And so it remains”

to be seen whether the current government, the DPP government, is going to deliver on all its promises, and how voters will ultimately assess the success or the potential failure

of the lie first term. Okay, so let's assume KMT loses the election. I don't know where

a long way off, but oh so then how does that influence China's next steps? Do you think that while they may not go quite kinetic yet, that's when they step up the harassment or go to a quarantine? Is that sort of the logical flow? I think if the KMT loses again in 2028, you know, Beijing would probably need to conclude that it's preferred political pathway. Like political warfare is narrowing. That doesn't mean I think a media division,

but I think it would strengthen the case inside China for more coercive tools. You know, the likely pattern would probably be more pressure, not instant war, like larger military exercises, more Grey Zone, more cyber, more economic coercion, more pressure on Taiwan's

“lifelines, the more efforts to isolate Taipei diplomatically. I think Beijing's goal would be”

to show Taiwan that continued DPP rule brings rising costs and shrinking options. The big variable, of course, is whether China believes time is still on its side. If Beijing thinks peaceful unification is slipping away permanently, I think the risk of a blockade quarantine or military crisis goes up. Let's talk about, and I want to come back around to Iran in just a few minutes, but let's talk a little bit about Japan. There's a new leader there. I think she even

models herself after Margaret Thatcher, who has been much tougher, at least rhetorically so far, on the Chinese. Tell us a little bit about that and China's discomfort with the new Japan. Yeah, Prime Minister Takaichi is definitely, I think, a breath of fresh air for a lot of Asia watchers in China watchers in particular. She's really mubble to herself off of former Japanese Prime Minister Abe, not only in her tone and her style, but also in her desire to develop a

really strong robust relationship with Donald Trump. Obviously, she is tougher on China because she comes out of Japan's conservative security wing, and she sees China less as a trade management problem than I think is a direct strategic threat. The Thatcher compromise and care on comparison is, I think it's about style and ideology. Right, she's in nationalists. She's disciplined. She's hawkish on defense. She's very skeptical of Beijing. She's very comfortable using

sharper language on sovereignty and deterrence. And I think she's likely to push higher defense spending, of course, closer U.S. Japan Taiwan coordination, stronger economic security rules, and probably a much harder line on Chinese coercion in the East China Sea. And for Taiwan, that matters because Japan increasingly sees a Taiwan crisis as a Japan crisis. And if China moves on Taiwan, Japan's southern islands, their sea lanes, their military bases, and their

energy flows are all exposed. Got it. And how is it, really, wouldn't China objects and hurls, in fact, that Japan? Do they really feel that way? Is this just some sort of theater, or are they really worried about it? Tell me about how it really is. Yeah, I mean,

competition and to those types of confrontations. A lot of it, though, is also symbolic.

A lot of it has to do with domestic political realities in China, and it's zired a drive nationalistic

“sentiment there. I think, so I think it's like partly real and partly theater. It's real because”

Beijing sees Japan's shift on Taiwan. They see the defense spending moves. They see economic security as a direct threat to China's regional ambitions. And, of course, a more forward leaning Japan complicates any Chinese moves against Taiwan. But the public inactive is also signaling. You know, Beijing uses anger to Japan to mobilize this nationalism. Of course, the warnt Tokyo against moving closer to Taiwan. And to remind Washington that any Taiwan crisis would quickly

become like a broader regional crisis. So I think the point is not just to criticize Japan.

It's to raise the political cost of Japan becoming more active. Got it. Okay. Let's circle back up to the war in Iran. I feel like the articles about the war suggest that China is letting its adversary the United States self-destruct. Stand by while your adversary makes mistakes. How does China really see this? Maybe they see American military prowess. Maybe they see a president that's willing to intervene when he thinks the national interests is at stake.

“But tell me how they're viewing the conflict with Iran. You know, I think they're learning”

a lot of things at once. I think they are impressed by U.S. reach and precision strikes and the ability to coordinate complex strikes. Beijing studies American military power like obsessively. And Iran gives the PLA a live case study in how high-end strike campaigns and cyber and intel and blockade pressure work in practice. And I think obviously China's foreign minister is publicly argued that military force exacerbates conflict. It doesn't solve it.

Which fits I think Beijing's broader effort to portray the U.S. as a destabilizing power. But Beijing is also seeing the limits of military power. Even very successful strikes do not automatically produce political control or regime compliance or a clean end state. And that matters for Taiwan because China's military modernization power is heavily from the U.S. model,

“right? Joint operations, precision strikes, decapitation concepts. So I think China is watching”

all of this and they're looking at America's military strength. But they're also analyzing our strategic limits. And the lesson is not that the U.S. is weak, per se. It's that even overwhelming force can struggle to deliver political outcomes. So as we begin to wrap up here, let me ask you about industrial concerns about doing business in China. It certainly seems like the trends have been more punitive towards Western business. Sometimes I hear that if you have

if you're not maybe not of Western origin, you're not allowed to leave the country. I hear it's hard to get your money out of the out of there. I feel like it's harder for the West to do business in China. Where are we? How do you score this? And where's the trend going? Yeah. I mean, I think China is obviously becoming a harder place for foreign firms to operate P.K. hot the clear reason is Beijing is using regulation as leverage. I don't think the

concerns just tariffs are market access. They have this whole web of expert controls and data rules and anti-sinctions measures and anti-SVNO's enforcement and these newly announced supply chain restrictions that can make companies vulnerable if they move production outside of China or if they comply with U.S. rules. And I just think the big picture for me is like China still wants foreign capital and technology, but it also wants more control over what companies can move

into disclose and disentangle. And I think that's going to just create tremendous risks going forward. Ultimately, the current great power competition centers around leverage, right? Who has it? Who can maintain it? Who can sustain it? And I think ultimately as we start to think about what's happening

right now, especially as we're starting to think about this summit, the reality is that Washington

wants to reduce its reliance on China before China can weaponize it more and Beijing needs to preserve that dependence because of the power it provides and that's sort of the tension in the current relationship today. So trend-wise, in terms of China's attitude towards Western business

Xi Jinping decided that people were too enamored with capitalism. The party needed to reassert

“control. So started to intervene more in the everyday economy. And now we're starting to see”

the really restrictive side of that. Is that a correct narrative? I think so. I mean, Xi Jinping talks about capitalism being corrosive. And he links it primarily to corruption. Obviously, we are now more than 10 years of seems like forever into anti-corruption drive that

he has shepherded himself in thousands of party members have been purged on the count of the

corruption. But I think like under Xi Jinping, like his message is no longer like come to China and get

“rich. It's closer to like come to China, but you have to accept our party rules and our priorities”

and our political red lines and Beijing wants foreign capital and technology and management experience. But also wants firms to localize, you know, transfer know how and avoid sensitive speech.

They have to comply with Chinese data and security rules. And they really need to now think twice

before moving supply chains out. And so I'm not sure Xi is like an anti-capitalist in the Maoist sensed. He is anti-uncontrolled capitalism. The party wants markets to serve state power, not the other way around. Okay, last question. You wrote a terrific piece in real clear energy recently about how the United States can't re-industrialize, which is the name of everyone, especially President Trump on Chinese batteries. How should we think about this as a national

security vulnerability and tell us what you prescribe as a way forward? Yeah, I mean, the batteries

“are not just an industrial policy issue. I think they're really a national security input. They”

matter for electrical grids and drones and electric vehicles, military logistics, back up power, reports, telecom, you name it, the broader industrial base. And I think if the United States is trying to re-industrialize, we can't build this next industrial economy on Chinese batteries and Chinese battery supply chains. The problem isn't just the imports, it's the dependency that it creates, right? If China controls the inputs and the processing and the components and the manufacturing,

it gains leverage over the pace and cost of our re-industrialization. And so, obviously, my view is like you can't re-industrialize on batteries that are controlled by your chief competitor and that we should be thinking more seriously about keeping the walls up on Chinese batteries and preventing Chinese battery investment in the United States. Craig Singleton, we look forward to having you back to grade this summit and talk about U.S.-China relations again. So, thank you so much

for joining NatSec matters. Yep, thanks for having me. That was Craig Singleton. I'm Michael Allen. Please join us next week for another episode of NatSec matters. NatSec matters is produced by Steve Dorsey with assistance from Ashley Barry. NatSec matters is a production of Beacon Global Strategies.