What China's Military Parade and Newest Jets Tell Us About the Battle For Air Supremacy

Carmen (0:00)

Hello, Odd Lots listeners. This is Carmen, producer of the show, here to tell you that we're recording the show live at the Untitled Supper Club in Chicago on September 25th. Check out the show notes for a link to purchase tickets or go to bloomberg.com/oddlots. Hope to see you there.

SPEAKER_2 (0:18)

Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio, news.

Joe Weisenthal (0:34)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:39)

And I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:40)

Tracy, did you catch any of the clips from the big Chinese military parade?

Tracy Alloway (0:44)

I did, I did. So this was the, this is actually really good timing. So we're recording this.

Joe Weisenthal (0:49)

They really know how to put on a parade. They really know how to put on a military parade.

Tracy Alloway (0:52)

We're recording this on September 4th. We just had a massive military parade in Beijing that Xi Jinping put on. This was while Putin was there, and also Kim Jong Un. And there were tanks, there were helicopters, there were lots and lots of drones, nuclear-capable missiles.

Joe Weisenthal (1:08)

They were robot dogs.

Tracy Alloway (1:09)

Robot wolves. Much more sinister. There were also 80,000 doves to mark China's victory in World War II. And I have to say, when I first saw that, I was reading a translation of the parade and it said 80,000 pigeons. And I thought like, wait a second, are we bringing back carrier pigeons for military use or what? But it's 80,000 symbolic doves.

Joe Weisenthal (1:30)

So you're of the view that China won World War II. No, that's a joke. I'm not interested in...

Tracy Alloway (1:35)

Is that what the episode is going to be about?

Joe Weisenthal (1:37)

I'm not interested in getting into debates about attribute. Actually, I'm not that interested in that topic. I feel like that would be a big diversion. But yes, whatever I see, I don't know anything about weapons. I'm like a bad man in that respect. No, I feel...

Tracy Alloway (1:50)

What happened to all the military history books you're reading? I guess those are outdated weapons.

Joe Weisenthal (1:54)

I'm interested in like sort of the economics and the politics. But when I see people posting about, oh, wow, this is a fourth-gen hypersonic, whatever, I have no idea. It's probably like what some people think about when you and I post about the UK 210 linkers spread or whatever, something like that.

Tracy Alloway (2:14)

You know it means something, but you don't know one.

Joe Weisenthal (2:16)

You know it also is like, okay, a lot of people like to flex their knowledge. Again, a lot of men on the internet like to flex their knowledge about stuff like that.

Tracy Alloway (2:24)

Everyone wants to be an armchair military strategist. Or procurement specialist.

Joe Weisenthal (2:29)

All that being said, there are a couple of things that I'm interested in. One is, did the military parade tell us anything new about the state of the art of Chinese military technology, but also of course, several months ago, there was a brief conflict between India and Pakistan, that was I believe earlier in the summer or late spring, and there were battles between fighter jets. For a moment, there was a lot of question about, did this reveal something about the state of the art of who has the best air force, who has the best air force technology, and everyone was like pouring over the data to see what we learned. And so it is a good time to maybe get a temperature check on some of these questions about who has the best weapons and the concerns or the anxiety in DC about where we stand, where our allies stand and so forth. Lots of interesting questions being raised right now.

Tracy Alloway (3:18)

Right, and there's clearly a lot of angst about the US's position in terms of military power right now. I gotta say, when it comes to India, Pakistan, everything I know about India-Pakistan Air Force tensions comes from the Bollywood movie, Veer Zara. Have you ever seen that?

Joe Weisenthal (3:34)

No.

Tracy Alloway (3:35)

So basically, I don't know a lot, but it's a great movie. It actually really encapsulates Pakistan-India relations quite well. But anyway.

Joe Weisenthal (3:42)

We should do a screening.

Tracy Alloway (3:43)

Yeah, there we go. Okay.

Joe Weisenthal (3:44)

Okay, well, I'm really excited to say we have someone who knows about this much more than the two of us. We literally have the perfect guest, someone we've wanted to talk to for a long time, Kelly Grieco, senior fellow at the Stimson Center. So Kelly, thank you so much for coming on Odd Lots.