Why Should We Care if China Dominates Maritime East Asia? | with Brent Sadler

Why Should We Care if China Dominates Maritime East Asia? | with Brent Sadler

If China controls maritime East Asia, what would that mean for Taiwan, the Philippines, Japan, global trade, and U.S. security? In Episode 163, Ray Powell and Jim Carouso speak with retired U.S. Navy Captain Brent Sadler, a career submariner, former U.S. defense attaché in Malaysia, Heritage Foundation Senior Fellow and author of two books: U.S. Naval Power in the 21st Century and Naval Power in Action: Seizing the Initiative in the New Cold War with China. Sadler’s answer is blunt: China is exercising growing control over maritime East Asia, as Beijing has spent decades building the military, commercial, and political leverage to do exactly that. He says this is not just a question of aircraft carriers, missiles, and hull counts, but also about China’s strategic commercial footprint in ports, shipping and repair infrastructure, distant-water fishing fleets, maritime militia, and the China Coast Guard. Ray and Jim ask what it means that China’s coast guard vessels are operating east of Taiwan. Are these deployments preparation for a possible blockade? Why are fishing fleets moving in organized formations? And how could Beijing use gray-zone coercion to change the status quo before anyone agrees that a crisis has begun? The conversation also examines the recent China-Russia naval exercises and potential for submarine technology transfer, Russian pressure on Japan around the Kuril Islands, and Beijing’s efforts to turn even limited naval interactions with countries such as Indonesia into political and propaganda victories. Sadler explains why Southeast Asian leaders’ rhetoric must be weighed against what matters on the water: maritime rights, military exercises, commercial ties, and freedom of navigation. Finally, Sadler assesses the military balance approaching the much-discussed 2027 window of war concerns, China’s Taiwan contingency preparations, gaps in America’s carrier presence in the Indo-Pacific, U.S. shipbuilding deficits, the future of unmanned vessels, and what Ukraine’s drone war may mean for Taiwan and regional partners. Sadler’s larger warning is that maritime control is no longer just a contest of fleets, but a contest of coercion, commerce, access, and political will; one in which Beijing can test regional governments, reshape behavior below the threshold of war, and learn whether America and its allies will respond before temporary pressure becomes a permanent advantage. * Follow Brent Sadler [https://www.heritage.org/staff/brent-sadler] at the Heritage Foundation, on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/brentdrostesadler/] or on X, @brentdsadler [https://x.com/brentdsadler] * Follow us on X, @IndoPacPodcast [https://x.com/IndoPacPodcast], LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/company/why-should-we-care-about-the-indo-pacific/] or Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/IndoPacPodcast] * Follow Ray on X, @GordianKnotRay [https://x.com/GordianKnotRay], or LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/raymondpowell/] * Follow Jim on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-carouso-baa31a9/] * Sponsored by BowerGroupAsia [https://bowergroupasia.com/]

Why Should We Care if China Just Fired a Nuclear-Capable Ballistic Missile into the South Pacific? | with Kathryn Paik

On July 6, a Chinese submarine fired a nuclear-capable ballistic missile out of the South China Sea. It likely overflew parts of the Philippines before coming down in waters between Tuvalu, Nauru and Solomon Islands, inside the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone. The 14 Pacific Island countries in whose region it landed were almost entirely skipped in Beijing's notifications. A month later, when Pacific Islands Forum foreign ministers met in Fiji, two of its members held up the response text. Kathryn Paik of the Center for Strategic and International Studies joins Ray Powell and Jim Carouso to explain what Beijing was signaling, and why the Pacific Island Countries couldn't answer with one voice. Paik wrote the first-ever U.S. Pacific Partnership Strategy at the National Security Council, following 23 years in the Marine Corps as a helicopter pilot and as a military attaché in Indonesia. In this episode: * Why the missile's route mattered more than its range: launched from the South China Sea, overflying a U.S. treaty ally and landing in a declared nuclear-free zone hours after Australia signed its fourth-ever mutual defense treaty with Fiji. Paik's read: the message was that China "can militarily touch you anywhere it wants." * How Nauru and Kiribati, two countries that recently switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, frustrated an 18-member consensus bloc. * Jim presses the obvious counter — the U.S. and France tested here for decades — and Paik explains what makes this launch different. * How sports became a national security instrument in a deal to put Papua New Guinea in Australia’s National Rugby League, and the commitment on security ties with Beijing that came attached. * Australia's diplomatic surge: mutual defense treaties with PNG and Fiji, plus bespoke security pacts with Tuvalu, Nauru and Vanuatu. * Why Kiribati patrols an ocean territory larger than India with a population of roughly 140,000, and what that means for fisheries, the seabed and undersea cables. * Paik on why U.S. Pacific policy has always been somebody's side job: "In Australia they have 300 people in their Office of the Pacific. We have about a dozen." * The 2025 damage to U.S. standing, including USAID's closure, tariffs and no resident ambassadors across the 14 Pacific Island countries. Subscribe for your weekly Indo-Pacific briefing. * Follow Kathryn Paik on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathryn-paik/] or X, @KathrynPaik [https://x.com/KathrynPaik] * Follow us on X, @IndoPacPodcast [https://x.com/IndoPacPodcast], LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/company/why-should-we-care-about-the-indo-pacific/] or Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/IndoPacPodcast] * Follow Ray Powell on X, @GordianKnotRay [https://x.com/GordianKnotRay], or LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/raymondpowell/], or check out his maritime transparency work at SeaLight [https://www.sealight.live/] * Follow Jim Carouso on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-carouso-baa31a9/] * Sponsored by BowerGroupAsia [https://bowergroupasia.com/], a strategic advisory firm that specializes in the Indo-Pacific

Why Should We Care About if the Ocean Floor is Now a Battleground? | with Trent Fulcher

Nearly all global internet traffic quietly moves through fiber-optic undersea cables on the seabed, yet most people still think of the internet as “the cloud.” In this episode, Ray Powell and Jim Carouso sit down with Trent Fulcher, CEO of Starboard Maritime Intelligence [https://www.starboardintelligence.com/], to explore what he calls “the end of the benign seabed.” Drawing on real cases, from a suspicious cable cut off Taiwan to fishing fleets and shadow tankers across key maritime chokepoints, Trent explains how vessels can mask their identities, spoof locations, and drag anchors over critical infrastructure while hiding behind flags of convenience. He breaks down why around 95% of internet traffic still relies on subsea cables, why repair delays can stretch to 45 days, and how new data fusion and behavioral analytics are shifting the industry from reactive incident response to proactive prevention. The conversation digs into who is most vulnerable (from Pacific Island states to cable-dependent hubs like New Zealand and Singapore), how governments and cable operators are building joint defenses, and what smaller Indo-Pacific nations can realistically do with limited navies and budgets. If you care about maritime security, great-power competition over Taiwan, or the future of the oceans, this episode will change how you think about the internet and the battle now being waged on the ocean floor. Subscribe for your weekly Indo-Pacific briefing. * Follow Trent Fulcher on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/trentfulcher/] * Follow us on X, @IndoPacPodcast [https://x.com/IndoPacPodcast], LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/company/why-should-we-care-about-the-indo-pacific/] or Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/IndoPacPodcast] * Follow Ray Powell on X, @GordianKnotRay [https://x.com/GordianKnotRay], or LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/raymondpowell/], or check out his maritime transparency work at SeaLight [https://www.sealight.live/] * Follow Jim Carouso on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-carouso-baa31a9/] * Sponsored by BowerGroupAsia [https://bowergroupasia.com/], a strategic advisory firm that specializes in the Indo-Pacific

Why Should We Care if the Gray Zone War is Heating Up Again in East Asia?

Days before ASEAN's foreign ministers landed in Manila, a Chinese Coast Guard sailor clubbed a Filipino sailor bloody at Second Thomas Shoal. Beijing normally lowers the temperature before diplomatic set pieces. This time it raised it, and nobody outside China knows whether that was a local commander improvising or a deliberate message. Co-host Ray Powell was in Manila for all of it, and this week he and Jim Carouso work through why the gray zone war across East Asia is heating up again and why it reaches well beyond a few contested reefs. The Philippines chairs ASEAN in 2026, and this month hosted regional foreign ministers as well as China’s Wang Yi and America’s Marco Rubio. Ray and Jim work through why a quarter-century of Code of Conduct negotiations still lead nowhere: China's nine-dash line claim is maximalist; its 1996 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea ratification carved out "historic rights" incompatible with UNCLOS itself; it rejected the UNCLOS-prescribed 2016 arbitration outright; and it profits from talks that never end, or from a code weak enough to push UNCLOS aside. Ray owns the “code-of-conduct pessimist” label and explains why. On the related political warfare front, Ray's new report traces how the CCP's United Front Work Department has captured Chinese-language education in the Philippines: teachers supplied through so-called "blood transfusion" and "blood generation" plans; Beijing-supplied materials; career pipelines into Chinese state firms; and how much if it homes back to Jinan University, whose Center for Philippine Studies-hosted symposium recently declared the Philippines’ northernmost islands to be China’s. Finally, the Bashi breakout: China Coast Guard patrols east of Taiwan along the Japan-Philippines EEZ boundary, radio challenges to inbound shipping and Beijing's boast of "inspecting" more than a hundred vessels. Ray's question: will we look back and say Taiwan's quarantine actually began here – not with an open declaration, but one incremental squeeze at a time, as more and more ship captains quietly decide that complying is cheaper than resisting? Subscribe for your weekly Indo-Pacific briefing. * Follow us on X, @IndoPacPodcast [https://x.com/IndoPacPodcast], LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/company/why-should-we-care-about-the-indo-pacific/] or Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/IndoPacPodcast] * Follow Ray Powell on X, @GordianKnotRay [https://x.com/GordianKnotRay], or LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/raymondpowell/], or check out his maritime transparency work at SeaLight [https://www.sealight.live/] * Follow Jim Carouso on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-carouso-baa31a9/] * Sponsored by BowerGroupAsia [https://bowergroupasia.com/], a strategic advisory firm that specializes in the Indo-Pacific

Why Should We Care if China Won’t Restrain its Flood of Exports? | with Wendy Cutler

China posted a record $1.2 trillion global trade surplus in 2025, and its export machine is still accelerating. From electric vehicles and batteries to electronics and household goods, Chinese products are pouring into markets across Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Consumers may welcome better products at lower prices, but what happens when local manufacturers cannot compete, workers lose their jobs, and countries become dependent on Beijing for essential goods? This week, co-hosts Ray Powell and Jim Carouso welcome Wendy Cutler, Senior Vice President of the Asia Society Policy Institute and a former U.S. trade negotiator who spent nearly three decades at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Wendy explains how government support allows Chinese companies to keep producing even when markets are saturated. Beijing rejects the idea that it has an overcapacity problem, and Wendy argues that negotiations cannot succeed when the two sides cannot even agree that a problem exists. Her solution is a coordinated response by the major economies receiving these exports. In this episode: * How China’s industrial policies help its companies outlast foreign competitors * Why U.S. tariffs redirected Chinese exports toward Europe and Southeast Asia instead of slowing them down * How cheap imports can destroy local businesses, eliminate jobs, and create dangerous dependencies * Why the U.S., Europe, Japan, Korea, Australia and Southeast Asia must act together to change Beijing’s calculations * How China weaponizes its control of critical minerals, rare earths, and permanent magnets * Why Washington’s tariffs against allies could undermine the coalition it needs * How developing economies can defend local industries without losing access to the Chinese market * Whether the fragile U.S.-China trade truce can survive as both sides test its limits * Why today’s low prices could become tomorrow’s strategic vulnerabilities * Wendy’s candid reflections on three decades at the negotiating table Subscribe for your weekly Indo-Pacific briefing. * Follow Wendy Cutler on at the Asia Society Policy Institute [https://asiasociety.org/policy-institute/wendy-cutler], on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendy-cutler-8584202a4/] or on X, @wendyscutler [https://x.com/wendyscutler] * Follow us on X, @IndoPacPodcast [https://x.com/IndoPacPodcast], LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/company/why-should-we-care-about-the-indo-pacific/] or Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/IndoPacPodcast] * Follow Ray Powell on X, @GordianKnotRay [https://x.com/GordianKnotRay], or LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/raymondpowell/], or check out his maritime transparency work at SeaLight [https://www.sealight.live/] * Follow Jim Carouso on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-carouso-baa31a9/] * Sponsored by BowerGroupAsia [https://bowergroupasia.com/], a strategic advisory firm that specializes in the Indo-Pacific