The specific timestamp linked is where he explains China’s current international position. The crux is that China supports Russia as a counterbalance to the US, and furthermore, the wars in ukraine and israel are keeping the attention off of China. Furthermore, he mentions that the Chinese understand the history of the 3 kingdoms in their strategy.

That probably isn’t a revelation to this audience, but I can’t help but indulge in 2 points. The first is a big LMAO since europe is not even in the discussion as a world superpower. The second is how intoxicating the Three Kingdoms analogy is for today’s world. In my opinion, Russia would definitely be 蜀国 (shǔguó), since it’s the most geographically isolated, the least powerful among the three, and has a strong history of repelling invaders. The question is how 魏国 (wèi guó), the most populous and militarily strongest power in the central geographic position, and 吴国 (wúguó), the maritime economic power, compare to today’s China and the US. What do you all think of this analogy and its implications?

Some basic context is this talk is that it takes place at a NATO empire think tank called Asia Society with a former voice of america-pilled korean ambassador and audience being impressively Sinophobic, but George Yeo takes a more balanced approach in his responses and actually has some decent takes (although some responses are really pandering to the statesian audience) if you care to watch the rest.