Sir Niall Ferguson

This is Taiwan.

And then he points to the desk and he says, you see the desk there in the Oval Office?

It's the Resolute Desk.

He said, the desk is China.

And Trump effectively said to Bolton, why would I send the US Navy across the ocean to fight a war over a Sharpie?

So the Chinese know that Trump is not really that into Taiwan.

Right.

The Chinese know that he, Trump, wants to do a big, beautiful deal.

And remember, Trump is Nixon.

He wants to go to Beijing.

He wants 1972 to happen.

And for him to be the one who goes there and does the great, big, beautiful deal.

If that's the case, and I'm Xi Jinping's advisor, I'm like, boss, this is your moment.

Only now is there a president who could actually hand you this without a fight.

But you've got to push the envelope.

You've got to make your move.

This is why Elon wanted to see the war plan, because it's really quite important to know what the US move would be.

Now, I don't know, although I could get added to a signal chat group later today that might tell me, but assuming that doesn't happen, I can only draw inferences from what's not classified.

And it's clear that the United States is developing a deterrence strategy for the Taiwan Strait called Hellscape.

We know this because Admiral Sam Paparo talks about it to the Washington Post last summer with the very obvious intention of communicating to Beijing, we've got a plan for you.