The PDB Situation Report | October 31st, 2026: Saudi-Houthi War Threatens to Spread & Xi Purges 33 Officials

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Later in the show, China's Communist Party, the CCP, confirms the expulsion of 33 senior officials, as Xi Jinping's sweeping purge, raises new questions about his grip on power. Author Gordon G. Zhang, friend of the show, will stop by for more on that. But first, today's situation reports spotlight. The war between Saudi Arabia and Yemen's Iran-backed khutis is threatening to become a much larger regional conflict, oh good, just what we needed in 2026. Khutis missiles and drones continue to target Saudi cities and oil infrastructure, prompting retaliatory strikes inside Yemen. And now, other regional powers are getting involved. Egypt has authorized military support for Saudi Arabia, while Turkey and Pakistan are coordinating with Riyadh under a mutual defense pact. Even as diplomatic efforts with Iran reportedly continue. Could this conflict draw the Middle East into an even wider war? Well, here's a hint, yes, it's very likely. Joining us to break it down as Edmund Fitton Brown, he's a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Middle East scholar and former UK ambassador to Yemen. Well, Mr. Ambassador, welcome back to the situation report, it's very good to see you. Thank you, it's good to be with you. Well, I guess, you know, it's, you know, this is such a simple situation that, you know, we probably only need to take a minute or two to talk about it. But let's start from maybe the 30,000-foot view. Can you give us your assessment of the current state of the Saudi khuti conflict? Yeah, sure. So, you know, the Saudis don't want this, they're not comfortable, you know, they've got serious remorse from having gotten involved in Yemen back in 2015, and they've been like a bear with its foot in a trap, really ever since then. And, you know, even as early as 2016, I can remember how anxious they were to sign a peace deal in Kuwait, which would have given the Houthis most of what they claimed to want. The problem is, of course, what people have now realized is that the Houthis want a lot more than they sometimes say they do. And, you know, they will say what suits them tactically, just as they said to US negotiators recently that they only have a quarrel with Saudi Arabia, they don't have a quarrel with America. And I think they even said they didn't have a quarrel with Israel, which was a really odd thing for them to say, given that two-fifths of their slogan is about death to Israel and a curse on the Jews. Anyway, the Saudis are kind of stuck on at the moment, they, you know, they're trying desperately to break their own isolation, but the Saudis are impaled on a hook of their own making here. They had this long-running truce with the Houthis for four years or so from 22 onwards. And during that time, they weren't really paying attention to what was happening in Yemen, and we all witnessed a little bit of a blow up at the end of last year when the, when the Saudis made their move and the Saudis blamed the Emirates for that, so that caused the Emirates then to give up on Yemen and to leave. Well, now the Houthis and the Iranians will have noticed that and said, well, you know, the Saudis are now isolated, and of course they were looking then for an opportunity to raise the stakes. And the opportunity arose when the Houthi delegation went to the Tawiatullah Haminai's funeral in the summit, and the Saudis, who have a sort of aviation blockade on Sanaa at the behest of the internationally recognized government of Yemen. They challenged the right to plane to land at Sanaa having the plane ended up landing at the data instead. And the Houthis said, okay, you're going to blockade us, we're going to blockade you. So they started attacking Saudi Saudis, those huge ships in the Red Sea, and they started attacking some Saudi infrastructure. Then we had the major escalation that happened more recently where the Houthis really went for it in the Yemeni Civil War. They felt that their enemies, their Yemeni opponents were in an element of disarray. And they made rapid moves south on the Red Sea coast. They took Putin Makhir, they took the strategic islands and also the Yemeni coastline of the Babel Mandib. And that was when Saudi suddenly thought, oh, okay, we've really screwed up here because the Houthis are in danger of actually both winning the Civil War and also having an absolute choke on the Red Sea because of having the whole coast. And also the Babel Mandib. So the Saudi extent sort of, you know, that was the end of the truth. The Saudis went all in on an air campaign to support the international recognized government until we can move these. And of course, the Houthis have escalated in response. And now we have the kind of attacks on Saudi that we never saw before, not even really during the period of the Iranian retaliation earlier this year. This is the Houthis that are saying that we can essentially break any sort of sense of security or civil peace or economic stability in Saudi Arabia. And the most notable attack I guess was the attack on a re-add airport on the 10th of October, which killed 13 people including one US national. And I watched the footage of that and it's an airport I've been through, I don't know, more than 100 times I guess. And I've been there when the pilgrims have been there in their towels. And you saw the video of the guys in their towels and then you saw the explosion. It was absolutely harrowing to watch. And a reminder of course that the Houthis are committing deadly war crimes and yet oddly enough, a lot of the people who claim to care a great deal about war crimes when they committed by Israel give the Houthis a pass on this. So that's roughly where we are now. The problem that the problem is out is that you know, they can sort of pretty much eliminate the Houthis comparative advantage against the United States government of Yemen. Their air power is sufficient to do that. So that means that the Yemenis have pushed back a little bit on the Red Sea coast, they haven't recovered all the ground at the Houthis game, but they have pushed back a little bit. The Houthis have also laid a very determined siege around the city of tyres, but they have not yet been able to take it. And again, because that you have to mass to take the city you have to mass your forces and that makes them vulnerable to air power, which of course has always been a Saudi problem that they've only got air power. And when the Houthis are dispersed, they're very hard to attack, whereas they do make themselves vulnerable when they when they appear in numbers. So at the moment, I think, you know, the question is, can the siege of tyres be relieved? Or will the Houthis actually take tyres, which has been an objective for them for the last 12 years? And it would represent a major sort of watershed moment in the war if they did take it. The question, the other question that exists, of course, is, is any of the international support that the Saudis are getting going to make a difference? They've got typhoons coming from the UK, they've got promise of Egyptian troops, Turkish Pakistani, you know, they apparently they've mend defenses with the Emirates, but I don't think that that has yet yielded any practical results. The big question is, what is the US attitude to this? Will the US get involved in such a way as to make a meaningful difference? Because it really is the US capable of doing that. But we know that Donald Trump initially reacted skeptically when the Saudis asked for that help. And, you know, whilst I understand his skepticism, I understand also his frustration with the Saudis for having fallen out with the Emirates, because that was, you know, that was clearly a shot through the foot. I can't help feeling that if the US wants to prevail in its war with Iran, it needs to recognize that the Yemeni front, very much like the Lebanese front, is inextricably linked with the Iranian front and the straitful moves. Yeah, that's where I wanted it to go with this is because it does seem up to this point as if the White House is treating this as two separate and distinct conflicts, and possibly because they just don't want to deal with the Houthis. But, just by this, there's too much going on elsewhere, and whether they can multitask or whether they're just not interested, they seem like they're trying to create a firewall, which. To me, seems either well-fully naive or ignorant of the influence of the IRGC, the Revolutionary Guard Corps, on the Houthis, but you're the expert, what is the influence at this stage of the regime? Because you could argue, I suppose, and then I'll stop talking, let my question hang out there. You could argue that, look, what's happening with the bubble and deb, and what's happening with the Saudis and the Houthis, that benefits, of course, the regime, right? It creates this other front, and it creates this chaos, and you could argue this, you know, this could have well been driven in large part, or in part, by the Iranian regime. Is that the wrong way to look at it? No, I think it's absolutely the right way to look at it. The IRGC has enormous influence over the Houthis. You know, if you talk to different Yemen experts, you'll get differences of nuance here because some people will say, you know, the Houthis are just a tool of the IRGC, and other people will say that the Houthis have a Yemeni agenda, but it's closely allied with Iran. I take that line, the latter line, I believe that the Houthis have, they make their own decisions, they make them in close consultation with the Iranians, and they are very dependent on the Iranians for finance, for resupply of weapons and other essential equipment, and for technical assistance and training. And, you know, the IRGC have been present on the ground when the Houthis have been making these gains on the Red Sea coast. There's no doubt about that. So, yes, I mean, you described it as sort of wishful thinking, perhaps, to try to treat these as two different fronts. It's not just wishful thinking, it's also self-defeating because, yeah, you know, there's no coincidence that these things have happened at the time that they have, and let's not forget also that there was an attack on the East-West pipeline in Saudi Arabia, which was launched from East and Iraq, possibly by Iraqi shear proxies of the Iranians. But possibly with technical support also from the Iranians and possibly from the Yemeni Houthis because these guys have all got their implants with each other. And so, when you then consider what that represented with the straight-of-all moves under pressure from the Iranians, the Babel Mandab in the hands of the Houthis, at least temporarily, and the East-West pipeline, temporarily out of service, which meant that the Saudis lost their option of going north in the Red Sea and taking oil through the Suez Canal and using an Egyptian pipeline that still takes that as well. That is clearly a coordinated Iranian strategy using both the Iraqi proxies and the Yemeni proxies. And, of course, the effect is, yes, of course, it's aimed to knock the Saudis out of the wall. The hope is that the Saudis would just capitulate and say, this is too difficult. Pay whatever we need to pay you will stop supporting me as I actually recognise government of Yemen, et cetera, et cetera. That would also be a massive strategic win for Iran. It would essentially be Saudi Arabia acknowledging that from now on, it's sort of a vassal state that has to pay protection money to its more aggressive neighbors. And, of course, it's also an indirect assault on the United States, or perhaps one could even call it a direct assault on the American economy. It's clearly intended and timed to try to cause the Republicans to lose them at term elections. Yes. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because I want to touch on that going into the next segment, which is my way of saying we have a break before our next segment. See, I know Mr. Ambassador, I know you're very impressed with how smooth this whole project runs. If you'll stay right where you are, sir, we will be back with more from Edmund Fitton-Browns, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracy's former UK Ambassador to Yemen. We back here on the situation reports, so please stick around. Hey, Mike Baker here. Now you may have heard about the upcoming US mid-Jama elections, right? They are right around the corner and things are heating up. Congressional control, possibly Senate control, and President Trump's agenda are all on the ballot and up for grabs. Every new poll and every new piece of campaign news has a potential to shift the odds. Well, here's the thing. Kalshi, America's number one prediction market platform, lets you trade those predictions in a live market. 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Trade what's next? 18 years and older only, restrictions and eligibility requirements supply, a bet contract trading involves risk, and may not be suitable for all investors. Kalshi products are not available in all jurisdictions, prices, values, and available markets may differ from those mentioned. For more information, see kalshi.com/regulatory. Looking at Verbo Vacation rental means you get Verbo care in 24/7 life support, verified reviews from real guests, and top rated homes with the love by guest filter. I just booked my Verbo because there was a sweet line for it. We all have our reasons. If you know, give Verbo. Terms apply. See Verbo.com/trust for details. Welcome back to the PDB situation report. Joining me once again is Edmund Fittenbrown, he's a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense and Democracies, and former UK Ambassador to Yemen, sir, thank you very much for staying with us here, and to be with you. Yeah. Now, we've been talking Yemen, and to some degree, we've been talking Iran's influence over the Khutis, and you did mention the international support, whether it's from the UK, Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan. There was some talk even about Syria, possibly, providing some troops at one point that seems to have died down a little bit, but to what degree do you envision this international support being meaningful, whether it's in terms of troops or resources, or to what degree do you think it's essentially sort of public lip service? Yeah, it's a great question, and the else is maybe slightly different with each country, but really I think that it's going to be mainly cosmetic and moral support. I think the people who can make a real difference in the Emirates, who have put troops on the ground in Yemen before, and been highly effective in support of the international recognized government, and then the United States, obviously, if the United States decides to help the Saudis in a more proactive way. But going through the other potential sources of support, one by one, you mentioned the Syrian, and that is an interesting one. Oddly enough, I suspect that if you've got Syrian troops, they probably would operate in a more uninhibited way. They probably, because they're battle-hardened, they'd fall their own civil war, so recently, it's quite possible that they could be quite useful to the Saudis and to the international international recognized government. The problem is, of course, the Syrian home front, Syria itself is still a mess, and there's a security vacuum in parts of Syria, and the Jordanians have just had to mount airstrikes inside Syria because of the Syrian, not not the government itself, not Shahraiz regime, but the fact that a plot, which was incubated inside southern Syria, killed a large number of Jordanian Christians, so a major terrorist attack carried out effectively across border attack from southern Syria into Jordan. So this is why a lot of people who, when they asked about this, they said, "No, this is not a good idea. The Syrians have got far too much that they're already struggling to deal with." It would be reckless to deploy significant numbers of capable troops elsewhere. Then you've got the mecha records and recently slightly expanded to include Indonesia and Qatar as an emerging Sunni-Islamist front, which is led by Turkey and Saudi Arabia. You've got Pakistan as an original member of it, then Indonesia, Qatar, and then this question about whether the Egyptians can to some degree be considered part of this as well, although I notice that the Egyptians have just taken pretty strong exception to Turkey's recent agreement with the Eastern Libyan authorities, which is designed to enhance Turkey's claims over the Eastern Mediterranean in a way that is profoundly hostile to both Egyptian interest and. of course, Greek and Cypriot interests. So I don't, you know, this is a really loose grouping. These are all, the best way of thinking of this is that these are all friends of Saudi Arabia. In one way or another, they're all friends of Saudi Arabia. They're not necessarily all friends of each other, we're at least not in a whole part of the way. And then how can they help? That's the question. Well, nobody's talking about Catery Troops. Nobody's talking about Indonesian troops. And Qatar was a member in the coverage of the original Saudi coalition in Yemen, but not a major, not an important member like the UAE. So what would Turkey do? What would Pakistan do and what would Egypt do? In the case of Pakistan, they were asked by the Saudis to get involved in civil war back in 2015. The Saudis were desperate for help. They knew they didn't have enough people capable of putting troops on the ground in Yemen. They were worried about the resilience of being essentially a regularist government. How they thought the Pakistanis might be had enough troops that they'd be willing effectively to expend some of them in exchange for obviously generous Saudi subsidies. And the Pakistanis disappointed them and said, no, we don't want to get body bags coming back from Yemen. That's not going to be good for our politics. So I don't see any reason why that should have changed right now. The Pakistani government is, if anything, is more precarious now than it was then. It's got all sorts of domestic opposition problems. It's trying to fight a rather difficult sort of, I know it's called a war exactly, but a sort of a very least nutritional conflict with the Afghan Taliban just across the border into Afghanistan. So I don't think the Pakistan is going to help very much, although they will definitely send more personnel to Saudi Arabia. They've already got a lot of personnel in Saudi Arabia in various small functions, training, and that sort of thing. And then the Turks, yeah, they've got highly capable military. But again, are they willing to take casualties in Yemen? I don't think so. They're talking about defensive purposes only. And the same, of course, is true of the British typhoons. They're there for defensive purposes only. And the Egyptians appear also to be talking about, if they do, if their troops are asked by the Saudis, again, same thing. So what you can end up with is a whole coalition of friendly folks who love the Saudis all turning up, but basically just manning positions in Saudi Arabia. Now, how useful is that against the Houthis? Probably the most useful thing they can do is to contribute to Saudi border security in the South. That would be something. And of course, it's true that the Houthis might have been a bit worried about killing those people because of course, if you start killing Turks, or start killing Pakistanis or Egyptians, then maybe that changes their risk appetite for actually, you know, sort of getting some kind of revenge on you. So it's not completely useless. But the bottom line is whatever does not reinforce the ability of the internationally recognized government of Yemen to steady themselves and ultimately to prevail in the Yemeni civil war, it won't ultimately help the Saudis very much. It's interesting the way that you frame it, as they're all friends of the Saudis, I assume mostly because for economic purposes, and there's some alignment obviously on religious grounds, and but it does seem as if, in a sense, if the Saudis, if you look at Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, you look at them and you think, okay, they're sort of reluctantly getting in on this, right? And their support's only going to go so far. Well, in part, it's because it seems like the Saudis, to your earlier point, are reluctant participants in this. They've got themselves in a situation, which again, if we broaden the frame, widen the frame, you're looking, you think, okay, well, this is exactly what the Iranian regime would want, going back to sort of, okay, this is not happening in a bubble, this is just not something that's taking place in Yemen. If you look at, what does the Iranian regime want from this? So perhaps they're a little surprised at the international support that's coming in, and perhaps that will cause them to kind of rethink. But if they said to the Houthis, I guess to your point about the Houthis have influenced by the IRGC, but make their own decisions, to what degree if the regime says, all right, let's protect, let's pretend there's negotiations between Washington and Tehran that mean something. And could, I guess the US only has two on voice, right? Steve would call for Jared Kushner, they seem to be the on voice for everything. But if they sit and say and insist on the Houthis stopping their actions and to continue or to stop disrupting the Babel Mandab, and could they put that on the table and negotiations with the Iranian regime and get the Iranian regime to turn to the Houthis and say, stop. I guess that was a long, long way to get to a relatively straightforward question. I think the answer is yes, up to a point because both the Iranians and the Houthis are very tactically astute. They understand what it is to make a temporary gain provided that you're not compromising your long term ambitions. So in other words, you might say, I still want death to America, but just at the moment, if I can do the Americans into coming up with some kind of agreement that leads to a tactical pause, that's going to be in my interest in the short term. That's the way the Iranians think it's also the way the Houthis think. And so I think in those, in the circumstance that you just grow up, it's possible. What would happen in those circumstances, of course, is something else as well. And that is that just as happened with the MOU, the Iranians would also say, well, you know, you want to include the Yemeni front in this. Well, obviously we insist on including the Lebanese front in this as well. And so then you're bringing the question of, you know, the Americans are effectively trying to negotiate on behalf of allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia that actually have their own independent concerns. Now, that might be less of a problem with the Saudis because the Saudis would probably just take the respite if they could get it. The Israelis, of course, will not. The Israelis have learned their lesson since the 7th of October 23, and they're not going to give up on the Lebanese front until they're confident that all the Israelis no longer threatened. So I think that would turn into a very difficult negotiation. I think the Iranians, you know, very tough negotiators, they will probably run rings around Mr. Wicoff and Mr. Kushner, as they have in the past. And so, you know, you might end up with something as unsatisfactory as the MOU itself, which thank goodness turned out to be a dead in the water, didn't it? And I think this is, and this is perhaps the one that helps us is that for all their tactical skill, both the Hingesys and the Iranians also have a tendency to overreach. They have a tendency to push their luck just a bit too far, just as the Iranians did when they schooled the MOU and carried on tacking ships in the straightforward moves. And therefore, they lost all of the tactical advances that the MOU could have given them, if they had made just a few limited concessions. Likewise, the boothees, if they were, I think, more tactically astute, they probably wouldn't be killing American nationals at Riyadh airport. They probably wouldn't be rendering themselves vulnerable to accusations of attacking Mecca. And so, what's happened? And I think it's good, you mentioned the religious dimension to this, because one of the things here that is perhaps interesting in the longer term, it's unlikely to kick in yet, because the Houthis don't currently pose a threat to Mecca and Medina. But the Houthis claim Mecca and Medina, they say that the Al-Sahoud are unfit guardians of the holy places. And they hop back to the 1,000-year immemet and are the fact that in those days, the Yemenis had a role in Mecca and Medina. And of course, as you know, the Turks did too, because of the Ottoman Empire. I mean, it was actually part of the Turkish Empire over many, many centuries. And the fault line between those two, because the immemet was never part of the Ottoman Empire, that fault line is now where modern Saudi Arabia is, and modern Saudi Arabia is often dismissed by the older countries, as being something of a sort of, you know, a modern contrivance, something that's not natural. And the Houthis keep saying, Mecca is not governorate of Saudi Arabia. It belongs to the Islamic Ummah. Sometimes they sometimes also talk about their territorial claims to the whole of the southern peninsula, saying that they should govern the peninsula from Mecca to Muffra. In other words, from Mecca in the far northwest of that half of the peninsula down to Muffra, which is the bordering governorate, hard up against the Sultanate of Eman, in the southeast. And so I think this talk and the fact that the Houthis appear to have a sort of a constantly evolving ambition, not just to win the Yemeni Civil War, then to impose themselves outside Yemen, I think it's starting to alarm some sunny countries who are saying, well, hold on a sec, the Houthis are not going to be allowed to claim Mecca and Medina because they are not. not proper studies. Well, I think that was a very eloquent five-minute overview of the history of the region. I hope I hope people were taking notes. Look, if you had to ask you a question that's you know, this complete speculation, but I'm going to because that's actually I don't hate doing it. I enjoy doing it. If you had to look forward beyond the midterm elections, which is a whole another topic you alluded to the fact that the Iranian regime is kind of blocking and delaying until the midterm elections. And not a unsophisticated strategy on their part, but if you had to look just beyond midterm elections, where do you think this is going? Do we see a renewed military campaign? Do we see an actual meaningful negotiation? Do we see a change in the way that the Kuti Saudi conflict is playing out? What would be your top line assessment? So I think we're probably all looking at renewed sort of military escalation off to the midterm. So yeah, I keep hearing this from various people who say they've heard it from the administration in one way or another. And you know, clearly the administration is inhibited at the moment. They don't want to do anything that makes it likely that the midterms come out worse than they will. But they also feel that the Iranians are provoking. The Iranians have hit quite a few ships in the straightforward news over the last couple of weeks. And they also I think are increasingly convinced that the Saudi Arabia has to be defended. So I think that probably after midterms, we may well see an escalation. I'm not sure I would advise an escalation, or at least I would, you know, my, if I would, you know, if I were advising the president, I would, I would say, you know, the strategy localized to Iran and the state of whole news is already working. The naval blockade coupled with rigorous enforcement of secondary sanctions and an increasing traffic through the straightforward moves with, you know, whatever countermeasures are necessary as the Iranians try to find new ways of threatening ships in the straightforward moves. I think that's working. I think the Iranian economy is is fixating at the moment. They've got no exports. They've got no export earnings. And this is doing massive damage to the IRGC. The IRGC can't pay its people. And the IRGC, of course, is not just some kind of, it's not like the Houthis. You know, the Houthis can be said in a way to be a sort of a band of merry warriors chewing their gait and loving the fight and not really caring if they, you know, if they sleep, you know, in rocky caves or whatever. The IRGC actually is a gigantic state enterprise that runs businesses. And so they cannot afford to let, you know, to just to let the Americans continue to strangle them to death. So it is possible that this blockade will actually force the Iranians ultimately into, you know, making some concessions, perhaps on the nuclear file, which is the key one for the Americans, I think, the US will not leave this conflict unless it has satisfactorily neutralized the Iranian nuclear program. So I think that's, I think that I'm sorry for a note. I just wanted to make a point that I think you're absolutely correct. I think they need, regardless of how meaningful those nuclear concessions are, the White House needs something on that front in order to sell this in order to exit and say, look what we've done. Without that, it's going to be almost impossible for them to spin any sort of agreement with the Islamic Republic. You know, the regime is still in place, but it's going to be very difficult to spin any sort of agreement as a win. But certainly, Ambassador, I want to be very meaningful of your time, and I also want to ensure that you come back. So I've got two more pages of questions. What I don't have is time, but I want to thank you. Brilliant insight, really very much appreciate the analysis. And I would love to have you back on shortly after the midterms. So we can kind of assess where we are at that point. I think that would be fascinating. Let's do it. Excellent. Thank you again, sir. See you soon. That was Edmund Fitt and Brown. Very much appreciate his insight. Hopefully, getting back on the show shortly after the midterm elections. All right, coming up next, Xi Jinping's latest purge claims 33 senior officials. Who knew there were that many left after all his previous purges has raised his questions about Xi Jinping's kung fu like grip on power and the growing turmoil that may exist within the Chinese Communist Party author Gordon G. Chang will join us next to break it all down. Stay with us. Day or night, Verbo care is here 24/7 to help make every part of your stay seamless. If anything comes up or you simply need a little guidance, support is ready whenever you reach out. From the moment you book to the moment you had home, we're here to help things run smoothly. Because a great trip starts with the right support. And hey, a good playlist doesn't hurt either. China's Communist Party has wrapped up its fifth flenum in Beijing and President Xi Jinping's sweeping purge of the country's political and military leadership is taking center stage. The party has confirmed the expulsion of 33 senior officials, including some of China's most powerful military commanders and long time she allies. The gathering also saw a record number of absences raising new questions about the scale of the political people inside Beijing. So is Xi Jinping consolidating his grip on power or do these purges suggest growing instability within the Chinese Communist Party? And what could it mean for China's military ambitions, including toward Taiwan, of course? Well, joining us now is Gordon G. Chang. You know, I'm a great friend of the show and the author of Plan Red. China's project to destroy America, get yourself a copy of that and read it. I guarantee you'll enjoy it. It's super interesting. I just said super. Look at me. I'm like a teenager. You can follow him on X and just go to @ Gordon G. Chang. All right. Gordon, welcome back to the show. We got some things to talk about. And it does seem like every time we get together, Xi Jinping is gotten rid of a few more senior officials this time. He's done what? 33 of them? Yes. There have been unprecedented purges. We've had a meeting of the fifth plenum of the Communist Party. Plenum's are plenary sessions of the Central Committee between national congresses. Communist Party these days holds national congresses every five years. The next one is the 21st, which will be in the basically this time next year. And this plenum is important because Xi Jinping sought to consolidate his control over the party because at the 21st National Congress, he wants a fourth term as general secretary and is chairman of the party's Central Military Commission. So we've seen these purges. It indicates that he has been able to please get rid of people he doesn't like. The issue though, and this is also true for the purges in the military. Yeah, he keeps on getting rid of people, but that doesn't mean he controls things because if he controlled things, he wouldn't need to continually purge the party. So the continual purging of the party suggests that there is instability. And that's true of the military and the true of the civilian sides of the Communist Party. Remember the Chinese military is not a state army. It's a party army. And it's therefore extremely political. That's a very important point. It is interesting that what 14 years into his, what do you want to call it, is tenure, his reign. He's still, you know, cleaning house based on corruption charges, party disloyalty. And he's cleaning a house over a period of 14 years that he's built. Right. So to your point about its stability, it does seem unusual, right? If he had created a stable foundation or infrastructure, he wouldn't be going through these purges. You wouldn't imagine because he would have accomplished the task. To what degree is is the party at all looking at Xi Jinping and saying, you know, this is a, this is a problem of leadership. Well, then looking at that, at least they're saying that quietly, but they're not willing to say it openly. And what's going on here is that Xi Jinping in 2012, when he became General Secretary for the first time, he inherited a relatively stable political system. There were rules, guidelines, norms, understandings about how the party would transfer power. And so you had a very unusual period in the history of the party where there was calm. But we'd see is done is he's jumped all of those guidelines and rules and and so right now you have a lot of grumbling. So for instance, when he took his third term as General Secretary of four years ago, but he did was he prevented a whole generation of Communist Party leaders from moving up because when the General Secretary leaves, everybody gets a promotion. But by not leaving the last time, he is denied people promotions. They're not happy. But the point is that Xi Jinping has got a sort of reign of terror going and that means they won't say anything at least in the open. It all kind of comes down to the same question, which is, you know, how is his grip on power? We've talked about this before, but we always keep coming back around to it and it always, you know, I know it's very difficult to, you know, to read the tea leaves there and understand what's actually happening, you know, in the inner circle that seems to always be shrinking around Xi. But, you know, let's let's kind of throw that question at you. I mean, I know realize it's a that's a broad playing field, but you know, how do you assess his grip on power at this point after these latest purges? He's stronger than I thought he would be, but you know, let's go to the Central Military Commission again. There's now a question. This Central Military Commission has been, you know, these vacancies have been there for most of this year. And the question is, is he not able to fill the five or does he not want to? In other words, does he want to completely control the military this way? I think that he can't control, you know, he can't find five that he trusts, but I'm just guessing I'm spitballing. I'd have no confidence in my answer. It's just instinct. And so, you know, this is this is a regime that is normally opaque. It's a communist regime, but Xi Jinping has made it even less transparent than it was before. So we're all just speculating. And as I say, I know less about China than I did three, four years ago, two years ago, because he's, what is it? Explain that. That's a very interesting statement. What do you mean by that? I just, I'm speculating a lot more than I did before, because I just don't know as much as I did before. And this is not for one of trying. This is just because the regime has now cut links and with the outside, which means that it's much harder to sort of get information from which to base opinions. So there, there are things that we know and there are things that we speculate. And unfortunately, the room for spec, the area of speculation is now a lot bigger than it used to be. Do you think that's also the case with the US government? I mean, do you think that they too are having to speculate more than they did in the past? Yeah. The CIA has had a terrible record in understanding China. So I think that that is very much, you know, I think it's their problem as well. You know, I won't take that as a personal insult, Gordon, I'll just let know. But I will actually you should. There are, there are, there is some very difficult lifts and there have always have been over the decades. And China has certainly been right there at the top in terms of a difficult lift and and having quality, credible, corroborated intel on what's going on inside the party, inside the PLA, plans and attentions. So if you add to put, you know, countries at the top three, it certainly put China right up there, Iran, North Korea. But so I take your point, it's always been a difficult intel lift. You know, you should actually feel complimented because your generation in the CIA knew more about China than today's. Yeah, look at that. Although that's a bit of a slap in my age, but I'm okay with that. So let's, you know what, Gordon, if we, if we could, we're going to take that moment and do a quick break. And then we'll be back with more from Gordon G. Jang. Listen, if you're not following him on X, you should be just go to @ Gordon G. Jang. We'll be right back with more from Gordon here on the situation reports to stay with us. From the moment you book to the moment you had home, we're here to help things run smoothly because a great trip starts with the right support and hey, a good playlist doesn't hurt either. Joining us once again is Gordon Jang. You can follow Gordon on X. And I suggest that you do just search up @ Gordon G. Jang. Gordon, thanks very much for staying with us here. We've been talking about a ceasing thing, but talking about the purges that he just affected within the military and government security services. I want to switch now, maybe take a left turn, still kind of focused on China in a way, but what have you heard about this story that's recently broke over the past couple of days involving the investigation into a Chinese intel asset developing a relationship with or just trying to develop a relationship with Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang. Well, I mean, if the Chinese intelligence operations didn't try to target Jensen Huang, that would be news. That would be news. Okay, but from this story, there are two things that are really disturbing. One of them is that President Trump was briefed on Alice Wong, who was the Chinese asset in question and didn't say anything to Jensen Huang. I think that that is a mistake. He should have, you know, the CEO of Nvidia should have been alerted. The only justification for that is if Trump felt that Jensen Wong was himself compromised and they didn't want to let him know what the federal government knew. But apart from that, I think that they should have told him the other thing that we've been a counterintelligence decision. That wouldn't have been Trump's decision. I mean, obviously, as the president, you know, the president can weigh in, but in terms of if there was a counterintelligence investigation that was ongoing with Alice Wong, no relation apparently to Jensen Huang. But then I think perhaps the decision not to give the Nvidia CEO a defensive briefing or just at least provide him with some awareness. You know, the only real reason likely was that, you know, there was not going investigation and they did not want to jeopardize whatever may have been happening surveillance assets or whatever they would do it. So from an operational perspective, I could get that now. You're right in the sense that if they had evaluated this thing fully and determined that the Nvidia CEO was not compromised in some fashion, then at some point you have to, you have to get them on side. You have to advise them from a CI perspective. What's happening? Yeah, because you want Jensen Wong to be more careful in his relations with Alice Wong, who actually was a customer, mega speed. The second thing, and this is extremely disturbing. We know that China has large quantities of Nvidia's Blackwell architectures chips. Those are the most sophisticated. Those are the ones that may not be exported to China. Now, the question is, and video was selling these things around the world, the, I think, to customers that were dubious and that were dirty. And the question is, why didn't Nvidia do more to stop this trade? And I think it's because my guess is that Nvidia knew that these chips were being deferred into China, but wanted to make the sales anyway. It's, that's the case. Then, you know, we need a big thorough FBI invest and maybe CIA investigation into Nvidia. We've had a lot of these issues where we've had American tech companies provide materials and services to prohibited Chinese parties. And basically, they're only slap on the wrists. One example, Lip Bootan, who was, who is now CEO of Intel. He was also CEO of Cadence Design Services, were systems. And Cadence, during the time he was CEO, was providing services to a Chinese Defense University, which was on the Commerce Department's entity list. In other words, these services, because there was no license were illegal. And Cadence actually pleaded guilty. but Lipputan, he skated, and he is now the head of Intel. which is getting a lot of federal money. So, you know, I think Jensen Wong looks at that and said, well, there's no consequence for these illegal sales, my sense of it. I mean, so that's a story that we need to investigate. We need to look at Jensen Wong. We need to look at Nvidia. - Yeah, the story as he goes so far is that the Chinese intel asset, Alice Wong, you're right, running a Singapore based company called Megaspeed. And Megaspeed was apparently purchasing large numbers of chips from Nvidia through other businesses, subsidiaries or ventures in some fashion with Megaspeed. Now, that's not a typical, right? If you're going to try to get around sanctions, you're going to use a variety of cutouts. So then the question to your point becomes, you know, did Nvidia do sufficient due diligence on these entities that were making these purchases? Did they know and just didn't care, again, to your point? So I think you're right. I do worry that part of the problem is on the US government side, where if you don't connect all the dots, you can put sanctions in place, but as we've seen with Iran, you know, the regime has some 5,000 entities associated with their Ministry of Defense. So none of those have been sanctioned. You can put sanctions out there, but there are ways to get around it. And so then the US government needs to ensure that they're doing a thorough job. And that could be a heavy lift. And takes time and takes resources. And I get it sometimes, you know, businesses in the private sector, I'm willing to put in that time because they want to make it deal. But I don't disagree with you. I think we need to understand fully because now that we have this compromise in some fashion, I'm not saying that, you know, Jensen Huang was compromised. I'm just saying that clearly he was targeted as you would fully expect. How Nvidia wouldn't have an internal corporate security program that would be completely buttoned up given the national security implications of AI at this point is a whole nother issue. And now Gordon, I'm just me climbing off with my soapbox to ask you another question. So what do you think and what have you heard about the sort of the end result of this? Have you heard anything at all about what information they may have been going after, what information this Alice Wong may have collected? You know, any additional insight you can provide? - Yeah, I'm sure Alice Wong wanted to know what Nvidia was doing and, of course, in Jensen Wong's relationship with President Trump, which was a close one, you know, the New York Times actually went through some of that things that they thought she would be looking for. I'm not sure that they know. And maybe nobody in the federal government knows, but the point is she was in a position to get access to a very important information. And so there's just so many questions that are open here. And it's not just the Chinese who are bad guys here. Yeah, I mean, the Chinese are bad guys, but we've let them be bad guys. We've opened the door, we open the front door and say, why does she help yourself? So this is an investigation that needs to have brought, this has broader implications, and it's not just Nvidia, it's others, but we need to have this because we cannot allow the Chinese to take our technology, which is really what the result is of all of this. - No, it's in it's, you can't put a price tag on it. Over the years, in particular, you can't put a price tag on what it's cost the US, in terms of dollars, in terms of job opportunities, lost research and development, all those things. This has been going on for decades, and you're right. We, in part because we've always been chasing the China's market, right? And in part because we mirror our values and imagine that we can all be on the same side and the community of nations. So for whatever reason, we've allowed them to be incredibly aggressive and persistent in their theft of intellectual property, of research and development, economic information, whatever it may be, and again, you're right, you mentioned it earlier, there should be no surprise that Jensen Huang would be a target for an intel or for a espionage operation. - Yes, yeah. So, well, Gordon, if I may, one final question, and 'cause I love to ask you to speculate, but as we sort of approach the end of the year, Taiwan, you knew I was gonna ask about Taiwan. I just wanna get your opinion on where, as we finish up the year, we go into the new year. Do you see any significant developments around Taiwan or are this time next year, or are we still talking about, you know, increasing encroachments on their airspace or water, but nothing fundamentally has changed? - Yeah, I don't think anything is gonna fundamentally change. And I think the Chinese are waiting for the 2028 presidential election in Taiwan before they decide what they're gonna do. But remember, you know, going back to this Communist Party Central Military Commission, I mean, there are no operational officers there, and you would think that for a combined air-land sea operation, which is what an invasion of the main island of Taiwan would require, a very difficult military operation, even for us, you would think that they would have better coordination 'cause they need that, and they apparently don't have it at the Central Military Commission level. The question is whether they're able to replicate that at a lower level in the ranks of the People's Liberation Army. So I just, there are a lot of things that can go wrong in East Asia, among them some incident in the South China Sea or East China Sea that can't be contained. So I think the probability of war is actually pretty high, but I don't think the risk is that Xi Jinping decides to watch hostilities with an invasion of the main island of Taiwan. China's military for all of its capabilities is not able to do that, I think. And so I think we're gonna be pretty much at the same, with regard to Taiwan, we're gonna be pretty much at the same place next year, and it's gonna be pretty much the same thing until at least after the 2028 elections in Taiwan. - Okay, and then if Xi Jinping gets another term, which while counts, it seems like he certainly will get that additional term, then what does that do to the timeline? We've talked about this before here on the show that perhaps he views Taiwan as his ultimate legacy, but he gets another term. Does that stretch the timeline out for Taiwan, do you think? - I don't, whether he gets a fourth term or not, a year from now, I don't see an invasion of the main island of Taiwan. I mean, he can grab some of the offshore islands, but I think that that would be, he realizes that's not in his interest. So I don't think that's going to happen. You know, some of those islands are like two and a half, three miles off the Chinese coast. The Chinese military can grab those. That's not a difficult military operation, especially because Taiwan's not defending them. But the main island, we're gonna be basically at the same thing. If he gets his fourth term, I think that that keeps the invasion possibility high because he has based his personal legitimacy on an X-ing Taiwan. And I think that if you have another leader, they're not gonna be focused on Taiwan. They're gonna be focused on some really important structural problems in the Chinese economy. Like the fact that it is zero growth, perhaps. Not the 4.5% that they've reported for the third quarter of this year. So you're gonna have a new Chinese leader assuming that there will be one. And that's another conversation. But you know, it's, they're gonna be focused inward. They're not gonna be focused about Taiwan or anything else outside of China. My guess, 60 seconds I lied. I said that was the last question, but here's the last question. You just said if he gets another term, do you think there's a chance that X-ing thing does not get another term? There's always a chance he doesn't get another term. I mean, he could die, he could be too sick. The military could be sick and tired of him and decide to do something, not likely. But you know, nothing's inevitable, Mike. And so I think that there's a chance, but I think he probably gets his fourth term. I mean, nobody is, nobody in a mainstream position in this country or elsewhere saying he won't. So I think that's the correct assessment. For once, the mainstream analysis is right. - Well, Gordon, thank you as always. We love your insight and we really appreciate you as a great friend of the show. So thank you very much. Look forward to seeing you next time. Thanks, Mike, and stay safe. You too. Take care. That's Gordon Chang. Listen, I have mentioned it before. I'm going to mention it again. You can follow him on X. Just go to @ Gordon G Chang. Well, that is all the time we have for this week's PDB situation report. Look, if you have any questions or comments, maybe a humorous anecdote, maybe a limerick to people still do limericks, I had no idea. Please reach out to me at PDB at thefirsttv.com. I would have got another ask me anything episode coming up soon. So please keep your cards and letters coming with your questions, your comments, and you can get the ask me anything episodes by the way. Let me just remind you of that by becoming a premium member of the president's daily brief just visiting PDB premium.com. And of course, you can do the same. If you do that, you can listen to the podcast of the show ad free. It's another advantage. There you go. Look at that. I'm turning into a marketing quiz. 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