Donnacha Ó Beacháin

And of course, its full scale invasion of Ukraine is just a clear illustration of that.

But, you know, there are other countries in the neighborhood who are also fearful.

I mean, I interviewed Maya Sandu.

a president of Moldova, for example, and she's adamant that were it not for Ukraine, you know, Moldova would have been next.

If they'd made their way to Odessa, for example, where, you know, they are on record as saying repeatedly they consider, the Russians, I mean, they consider it to be a Russian city.

If they'd made their way to Odessa, they were just two or three hours away from Chisinau, the capital of Moldova.

And they already have a separatist region in Moldova that they could have annexed as well.

So, and then, of course, with China, you have, you know,

Xi Jinping's regime, you know, muscling into the South China Sea, you know, the Vietnamese are worried, the Filipinos are worried.

But of course, most importantly, perhaps the Taiwanese are worried.

I was in Taiwan in January of this year, and they also see this as a very unpredictable time because, of course, the U.S.

was traditionally worried.

I mean, the level it was willing to support Taiwan has always been unclear, but I think they're less sure now than they ever were that the U.S.

would help if China were to invade.

That level of ambiguity perhaps is gone.

Indeed, in many respects, the Americans are blackmailing the Taiwanese, getting them to invest more in America as a kind of a way of giving America vested interest in supporting Taiwan.

And

So, yeah, I mean, we live with those kind of three major powers and three leaders with, as I said, despite they having different temperaments, all willing to concede to a certain extent spheres of influence to others as long as their interests are acknowledged by their peers.

I don't think it has necessarily increased or decreased because China's playing a much longer game than Trump has patience for.

And this is where I think they differ from the Kremlin and Putin.