China’s rulers gaze across the Taiwan Strait and see an island where people are free, prosperous, and choose their leaders. They don’t like that.

They insist that the people of Taiwan must be ruled by the Communist Party of China. They vow that this is the future and that they will make it happen through the use of military force if other approaches fail.

But that’s not all Beijing wants in the vast region known as the Indo-Pacific.

Not for the first time on this podcast, we suggest that you reference a map because we’re going to travel to some far-off and remote lands.

Guiding us will be Cleo Paskal, a non-resident senior fellow at FDD who studies and writes about this region and has been sounding an alarm in Congress and elsewhere about Beijing’s plans to undermine America's alliances in the Indo-Pacific — particularly with the small island nations of the region.

Joining us for the tour is Jon Schanzer, FDD’s senior vice president for research, who recently returned from a trip to Taiwan and Palau, one of the island countries in the western Pacific that we’ll discuss.