Saagar Enjeti

The Chinese are the master, not of doublespeak per se, but when they say things like we oppose militarization of the Straits of Hormuz, there's two militarizations.

military powers in the Straits of Hormuz.

There's a blockade of the Straits of Hormuz and Iran.

So you may read that as, oh, well, they oppose Iranian.

They're like, no, no, no, no, no.

That's not what we said.

What we said is we oppose militarization in the Straits of Hormuz.

They also, they love this language where they'll call it like mutual respect.

Well, mutual respect means we don't tell you what to do.

You don't tell us what to do.

It's not as relevant now under the Trump administration.

Nobody's finger wagging over human rights in China.

That's like very 1990s coded.

But these days, effectively what it means is they'll say things like, well, you need to have mutual respect in spheres of influence.

Well, what does that mean?

It's like, well, spheres of influence includes the whole South China Sea, right?

And so that means an acceptance of the Nine-Dash Line or South Korea and Japan.

They're in the same way when we'll say things about the Donro Doctrine or something like that.

They have their own policy, right?

So you just have to read between the lines.