Cold War II: Niall Ferguson on The Emerging Conflict With China | Uncommon Knowledge

Recorded on April 24, 2023.

Niall Ferguson is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author of numerous books, including Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe and Kissinger, 1923–1968: The Idealist. In this conversation, we cover the conflict over Taiwan: why it’s a cold war, when it started, how to avoid allowing it to become a hot war, and how to de-escalate and even win it. Along the way, Ferguson discusses the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the role of the United States and Western Europe in both conflicts, and how we can avoid once again living under the threat of nuclear war as we did in Cold War I.

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00:00 Introduction
05:54 Is Cold War II worse than the first?
17:19 Taiwan: An American Suez?
22:15 When will the U.S fight with China over Taiwan?
26:02 Why doesn’t Taiwan spend more on protecting itself from China?
31: 51 Is Ukraine a distraction from Taiwan?
35: 55 Do the Chinese really believe in communism?
41:09 Can innovation really only be achieved through democratic capitalism?
51:25 Is the Chinese system attractive to the global south?
53:20 Why doesn’t Biden declare the American competition with China a Cold War?
1:01:32 Does America stand a chance against China?