Neil Thomas

From a military perspective, from the Iran conflict is a great view of how the U.S.

is fighting, how its naval, drone, missile forces are working in real time at their vulnerabilities.

the effectiveness of interceptors, which might cause some people in Beijing to think twice about just how superior their missile force is in the region.

That could even dampen some of the short-term enthusiasm for

military aggression.

But more broadly, it's a great kind of view on how the American military is operating, strengths and weaknesses.

And China's going to use those lessons to try and develop its own military going forward and to make it stronger and less vulnerable to the US military.

Well, certainly the movement of huge amounts of both ships, of men, of materiel from the Indo-Pacific to the Middle East certainly weakens America's presence there.

And there's, you know, question mark given the America first foreign policy that Trump has as to, you know, will these forces be replenished?

Will they be sent back there?

Could they be reallocated to Latin America or other priority areas?

And so if that does eventuate, and this is part of an ongoing depletion of America's presence in the Indo-Pacific, then that is only going to strengthen Beijing's hand in relation to Taiwan going forward.

I think China in the short term is...

a loser economically like every other country in the world.

But in the longer term, it is a winner.

If we see less American focus on the Pacific, we see a turn towards renewable energies in which China is really strong.

And if countries take a longer term hedge against American power and become more diplomatically aligned, relatively speaking, with China.