public square. welcome to all of you in the united states and around the world. i'm fareed zakaria coming to you live from new york. today on the program, the question being asked in capitals around the globe, how to handle china? biden's nominee to the ambassador called the people's republic the greatest threat to the security of the democratic be world. we'll look at china's intentions and we'll examine the ever-increasing military might that might back up those intentions.

and the legacy of colin powell. should we admire him as a soldier and statesman? >> weapons of mass destruction -- >> or deride him for that u.n. speech? then we will check in on the troubling condition of afghanistan under the taliban two months after the fall of kabul. and with kati marton, we will discuss angela merkel's 16 years in office and what her pending departure means for europe's future. but first here's "my take." are we returning to the 1970s as several commentators have recently claimed? there are surprising similarities, the humiliating withdrawal from afghanistan echoes the u.s. defeat in vietnam. prices are rising along with demands for higher wages, even as economic growth is stalling.

a new economic superpower is challenging america's supremacy. back then it was japan, now it's china. on closer examination, however, 0 most of these analogies turn out to be superficial. but there's one where the powers are striking and that one should worry the biden administration greatly. we are headed for gliobal energ crisis. gasoline prices in america are up more than 50% in the last year. natural gas prices in europe have risen a staggering amount, nearly 500%. in asia, bloomberg reports that power companies are buying liquefied natural gas at record prices to try to lock in supply. in europe a mass producer of fertilizer was already forced to temporarily shut down two uk plants due to high energy costs, and there are fears other industries will follow. the u.s. energy information administration has put out a report warning americans that they are likely to pay significantly more to stay warm

this winter, especially if temperatures drop substantially. why is this happening? the simplest explanation is the demand for energy is currently exceeding supply, which makes prices rise. the reasons for this miss match are many, including extreme and unpredictable weather, as well as bad government decisions about storage, reserves or transmission lines. but there is one common cause -- much of the world has stopped investing in fossil fuels for good reasons. which has led to less supply of them. but we do not have sufficient green energy today to replace fossil fuels. we will but not today. the numbers make this blaine. in 2019 over 80% of global energy consumption was provided by three main fossil fuels, oil, coal and natural gas. wind was just over 2% of power consumption. solar just over 1%.

in other words, it would require a 2,500% increase in production and deployment to have wind and solar fully replace fossil fuels, which is not going to happen in the next two to three years. what we need is a transition strategy. without it, every time there is a shock to the system, bad weather, poor storage, we will face an energy crisis. modern societies cannot run without steady access to energy, so when these shocks are felt, governments do whatever it takes to keep the electricity flowing. look at germany, which over the decades built an extraordinary supply of renewables, but in the first half of 2021, 56% of german electricity came from the very sources it is trying to eliminate, like coal, gas and nuclear. coal in germany alone rose from 21% to 27% of electricity

production. the contradictions of western energy strategy are becoming almost absurd. the biden administration is pleading with opec to increase production. in other words, the u.s. is discouraging its own oil and gas producers from increasing production, while urging arab countries to drill, baby, drill. europeans are hoping vladimir putin will pump more natural gas to their countries, even while they discourage gas production at home. a serious energy strategy would recognize that the most important task is to reduce carbon emissions fast. in the short term, and only the short term, the simplest way to do this is to move from coal to natural gas, which cuts carbon emissions almost by half. in fact, most of the reduction in america's co 26789 emissions between 2005 and 2019 was precisely because of that switch

from coal to gas. goal being the biggest producer of co2 emissions of the two named fossil fuels. but there's even lower-hanging fruit. the journal environmental research letters did a study of 29,000 fossil fuel power plants worldwide and found just 5% of them were responsible for 73% of global emissions from electricity. we can easily pay to convert those roughly 1,400 plants and reap a huge windall in the reduction of carbon emissions. and the iaea estimates over 70% of the methane leekin from oil and gas production can be to bed by using existing technologies. the goal, not just a long term but medium term, must be to power the world with renewables. there's lots of good news on this front. solar and wind costs have come down dramatically and are competitive with fossil fuels. they are now easier to deploy

than ever before. storage once the great problem with these intermittent sources is being solved as batteries become more powerful and other storage solutions are gaining grou ground. we still need much larger developments in this area but we're making real and fast progress. but in the meantime we still need to cut emissions today while keeping energy flowing. if not, we will face more energy shocks, which could easily develop into a political backlash against green policies. and then the democrat in the white house, joe biden, will begin to look a lot like his predecessor from the 1970s, jimmy carter. cnn.com/fareed for a link to my "the washington post" column this week. and let's get started. after president biden

affirmed at a cnn town hall on thursday that the u.s. would protect taiwan from a chinese attack, the white house quickly 2r tried to clarify the president was not announcing a change in u.s. policy, which was purposely left ambiguous. the question is, is such an attack likely? let me bring in our panel. richard haass, president of the council on foreign relations and oriana skylar mastro, a fellow at stanford as ssi and aei. she's also an office in the air force reserve but she's speaking today in her civilian capacity. oriana, let me ask you a basic question, why is taiwan so important to china? people sometimes ask are the chinese serious about this, and i'm struck by the fact it's in the chinese constitution that they would like to reunify with taiwan. why? >> well, there's political, social and emotional components, obviously. the emotional component has to

do with the fact the communist party won the civil war in 1949. the nationals fled to taiwan. that war is not over until taiwan becomes a part of china. 80% of wars are fought over territory. we can ask this question about any country, why does the united states need to keep texas or california? why does another country need a part of its territory? this is built in to the psyche of the chinese people and the communist party their massive rejuvation cannot be complete until the decades-long civil war comes to an end. >> richard, oriana said it's almost core, almost existential for mainland china. should it be core for the united states? as you know, a lot of people wonder would the united states go to war for taiwan, should it? >> i would argue, one is we've already given extensive commitments to taiwan so to walk back from those would have real repercussions all over the world. our allies in asia assume we are

committed to taiwan. this is a democracy of 23 million people. it's the producer of the most advanced microchips in the world. that all has economic significance. it also is a moudle that there is a future for china which is very different. this shows chinese society, chinese culture can support a market-oriented democracy. the people's republic of china on the mainland is not the only model for china, which i would only add to the list oriana gave. this is one of the reasons the mainland feels so strongly about it, taiwan by its very existence, represents something of a challenge to the communist party. >> oriana, dong jinping wanted reunification with taiwan as much as any statesman but his strategy seemed to be a kind of kick the can down the road, over time the ab sorpive power of the chinese mainland will inevitably

draw taiwan into its fold. she has a very different strategy. do you think it's as much of a shift as jinping actually planning a military invasion of taiwan? >> i think so. if you asked me four years ago what was the likelihood china would have attacked taiwan, i would have put it at 0%. now i put it at 60%. and that's largely because dong xiaoping had to kick the can down the road because they didn't have a lot of options. and then under xi jinping they really accelerated the modernization. most americans don't understand if you look back 25 years ago, they built ships and paddled their way over. the united states was not concerned. the pilots couldn't sail over water at night, the ship had no defenses and had to hug the coast to rely on land-based defenses. so what changed in the past ten

years and coming ahead in the past 18 months, they've undergone major military reforms, particularly to be able to conduct the exact type of operation that allows them to take taiwan by force. according to internal discussion, my discussion with other military colleagues in china, these reforms came to an end in november and now they're ready. and that's why i think xi jinping can be very tempted to take taiwan by force. >> richard, the cost to china would be very significant, i assume. not just the americans defending or helping taiwan defend how it goes, but sanctions europeans would not be able to have the same trade relationship, asian countries like australia and india. i guess my question to you is what would deter xi jinping? the chinese regime is fairly rational. how do you make clear the cost would outweigh the benefits? >> that's the essential policy question to ask. what we've got to do is raise

the cost, bring in the europeans and our partners and allies in asia and basically be explicit to china, if you are to act coercively against taiwan, here's the economic price you would pay. here's the diplomatic price you would pay. we've got to put far more military assets in the theater. we've got to get even closer above all to japan, which is the essential ally if there were to be a crisis. deterrence is always a function, fareed, of capability and perceived will. so we have to increase our capability, increase the economic cost that would accrue to china, and i think we've also got to signal to china this is serious. and then i think the chinese will have to calculate, is it worth it for them to risk all, the rol role of the communist party, all they accomplished over the last 70 years to rejuvenate their country? i don't want to reshape chinese communism.

i don't think it's an impossible path. >> richard, i hope you will forgive me, i want to get a thought or two from richard on powell. richard, you worked for him in a very senior capacity when he was secretary of state. i guess my simple question is how should we remember colin powell? and why should we not remember him a lot of his critics want him to be remembered, which is that disastrous u.n. speech when he supported -- when he presented what turned out to be, you know, at least incomplete, if not fake evidence about the causes for war with iraq? >> i say see things quickly, we should remember him as a great american, son of immigrants who dedicated his life to public service both in uniform and as a civilian. it's a really wonderful, wonderful role model. i think his intellectual legacy, the so-called powell doctrine, essentially a set of caution, questions to ask before the united states uses force in any situation, and they're wise

questions that need to not just be asked but answered. that for him was i think the lesson of vietnam. in terms of iraq, i think a lot of the criticism is wildly unfair. he was not enthusiastic to say the least about the war. the speech he gave at the u.n. was totally cleared with the cia. it was the best assessment we had at the time. yes, we now know certain parts of it were wrong. there was zero intent to deceive. he didn't quit his job over this. the question of whether to go to war, again, even though he thought it was flawed, it was a policy judgment based upon the assumption that iraq had weapons of mass destruction. he did not know or favor the way we went to war. he thought that was wrong. again, it was outside his lane. he was secretary of state at this point, no longer chairman of the joint chiefs. so when i look at his performance on iraq, i think it's honorable. when i look at his career, i think it is a model.

>> yeah, he was very, very -- a man of duty. and i think his duty to his country and the administration made him reserve some of his stronger judgments in that case. oriana, thank you so much. we will have you back because the subject is not going away. richard haass, always a pleasure. >> thank you. next on "gps" -- david sanger says it's beginning a lot to look like a cold war. i'll ask him why when we come back. (naj) at fisher investments, our clients know we have their backs. (other money manager) how do your clients know that? (naj) because as a fiduciary, it's our responsibility to always put clients first. (other money manager) so you do it because you have to? (naj) no, we do it because it's the right thing to do. we help clients enjoy a comfortable retirement. (other money manager) sounds like a big responsibility. (naj) one that we don't take lightly. it's why our fees are structured so we do better when our clients do better.

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it seems a new arms race is upon us. the ft reported about a chinese test in august that was mostly successful, although beijing denies it was testing hypersonic weapons. then on thursday the u.s. had a failed hypersonic test in alaska. why does all of this matter? let me bring in david sanger, national security correspondent for "the new york times." david, first explain to us what is the significance of the chinese test of hypersonic missiles? we have them. we know the russians have been testing them for a while. now the chinese seem to have successfully deployed them. why does it matter? david, can you hear me? we're going to try and get david sanger back.

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and we're back with david sanger to talk about that chinese hypersonic missile test. david, what is the significance of the hypersonic part of this? >> i think the only real significance of this, fareed, is that the chinese want to show that our $400 billion investment in missile defenses is basically useless against them, and that you can use these hypersonics in conventional ways to keep the united states out of their region, to keep aircraft

carriers and other ships from going anywhere near taiwan, to tie back to your earlier conversation. but in a larger sense, it is part of the series of cold war behaviors that we have seen on both sides as we try to both build up our militaries against each other and as we participate in efforts to disentangle key parts of our economies, mostly involving technology exports as we try to starve the chinese of the most high-tech of our semiconductors, they try to make sure that they've got control over our supply chains as well, spreading huawei and other technologies in telecommunications from around the world to dominate networks. it's pretty worrisome behavior. >> so let's talk about one very market shift, which is for years, decades now, china has had a minimal nuclear deterrent. the u.s. and the russians have

5,000 to 6,000 warheads. the chinese have maintained an arsenal of just a few hundred nuclear warheads. that appears to be changing, correct? how significant is that? >> it is changing, or looks like it's changing. over the summer we began to see new fields of nuclear silos. we don't think they have nuclear weapons in them yet. the chinese have always had just a few hundred nuclear weapons, compared to the 1,550 we and the russians have deployed today. that is a fairly small number, but you'll remember that president trump tried to get them engaged in the new s.t.a.r.t. negotiations, the arms control agreement between the united states and russia. the chinese resisted, but i think that sooner or later, they feel they're likely to be brought into arms control and if that's the case, they want to start with as many chips on the

table that we have and that the russians have. >> generally speaking, the chinese effort seems pretty asymmetrical, right? they're not trying to match the united states aircraft carrier for aircraft carrier. we have 11 and they have one and one more on order. what is the nature of that asymmetrical strategy? >> so they recognize that spending on the kind of weaponry and troop deployments we have around the world isn't their most efficient way to do this. they believe -- and i think more and more in the united states believe, if there is a conflict with china, even over taiwan, the opening shots aren't going to look traditional. they will be cyber. they will be in space. they'll be efforts to blind us. even if they seek to take taiwan, i would doubt that it would look like a traditional military engagement. it would much more likely involve cutting off their liquid

natural gas and cutting off the cable connections, the undersea cable connections that connect taiwan to the world. i don't think that's terribly likely to happen soon because china is so dependent on taiwan's semiconductors, huge semiconductor producer on taiwan that also supplies the u.s., but this would be an asymmetrical war from the start and one that might not even look like a war when it started. >> i've got 20 seconds and i just want to get a quick reaction from you, david. china is the second richest country in the world and maybe the strategy should be expected that at the end of the day they would build up something at least parody with the russians and the united states? >> absolutely and that's what makes this cold war a little bit different. remember the cold war with the russians was largely a military affair.

we have great economic inner dependence, we have a lot of technological inner dependence. you can't define it in your own mind as a cold war that would look like the one that is so familiar to us. it would be new. it be would different. >> and we have to close it on that. very wise words. thank you, david sanger. >> thank you. next on "gps" -- for 16 years angela merkel has been the face, the voice, the brains, the brawn of germany. what happens when she's gone? we'll explore in a moment. finding your new favorite spot? piece of no-you-really-have-to-try-this cake. get exclusive access to sought after restaurants. one of the many reasons you're with amex platinum.

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angela merkel's impending departure from the world stage is one of the most consequential events for europe since she assumed the chancellorship almost 16 years ago. many people are reflecting on what her leadership brought and didn't bring to her country and her continent. many others are looking at the post-merkel future. i want to do both with kati marton, journalist and author

whose terrific new book about merkel has just been published. it's called "the chancellor." welcome, kati. first i want to ask you about writing about somebody who is so private. i remember when "time" chose her as person of the year, they had to use a painting of her on the cover because she would not sit for a photograph, and i remember asking the editor of "time," nancy gibbs at the time, when was the last time somebody wouldn't sit -- let alone an interview, wouldn't even sit for a photograph? she said i think it was ayatollah khomeini in 1978 or '79. so this is an extraordinarily guarded person. did that -- how did you get through? >> well, you're absolutely right, she is the most private public person in the world, i would say. and, of course, that made it the ever-est of writing politics

because i didn't want to write a book about germany politics, i wanted to capture the woman. and this astonishishing german east bloc scientist who broke through the all-male german culture and got herself elected four times chancellor, i wanted to know how did she do that, because she has so few visible performance skills or rhetorical skills. so the mystery was, how? >> so what is the secret of her success? at one level i had to assume that there's a level of political skill, but also ruthlessness because she comes to power taking down the man who mentored her, helmut kohl, the chancellor of germany. >> absolutely. it's a combination of -- first of all, she's brilliant. she has a photographic memory. and, yes, when necessary she can be ruthless, as a lot of male

politicians learned to their detriment. she has benefited, fareed, from being underestimated every step of the way, and she likes it that way. she was 35 when she became really a refugee, because her country of east germany basically disappeared. but the idea that she's a refugee is really relevant to her saga because, of course, her singular legacy will be that she allowed 1 million mostly middle eastern refugees to enter germany in 2015. >> where do you think the core of her believes lie other than this, clearly, issue of refugees and asylum? >> yes, that's only one piece of this very complex woman, who the portrait that my readers will get from this book is an unexpected one, because she is a combination of so many qualities that where he don't attribute to

her. one of them is this human warmth, which she doesn't like to have people see, but she's also a very canny deal maker, and in her final years, of course, she had to become the defender of what was left of the west, which was not her chosen role. there's that iconic photograph of her leaning in toward donald trump, who has his arms folded, while the rest of the nato heads of state, the g7 i should say, powers lean back and merkel is leaning in, which really it's a picture that tells a thousand words because she really was the only one who successfully withstood the trump era's destructions of democratic values. and i attribute that to the fact

that for 35 years, she lived without freedom and without rule of law. >> what do you think the legacy will be in a post-merkel future? she was in some ways also she held europe together in a pro western, pro democratic way. she was very tough on russia. insisted russia be sanctioned after the annexation of crimea. do you worry that europe will not have somebody like that at the helm? >> well, here's a leader who never identified herself with her office, and she will leave the chancellory and return to her rent-controlled apartment, which she never left for the past few decades, and never lost her talent to be normal. she will assume the life of a

normal citizen and make herself scarce in berlin. >> she did her own grocery shopping always as chancellor? >> yes, she loves to cook. she's not a great cook but she loves to cook. and she will, i think, leave both germany and europe in a very strong place. >> kati marton, pleasure to have you on. >> thank you, fareed. wonderful to be with you. next on "gps" -- the taliban is back to a lot of its old ways. afghanistan faces economic collapse and a series of terror attacks have shocked citizens there. i will talk to the afghan activist mahbouba seraj, who we had on before, about the sorry state of that war-torn nation when we come back.

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it's been ten weeks since kabul fell to the taliban. since then afghanistan, already one of the world's pooshest nations, has teetered on the edge of economic collapse. the country has been rocked by terror blasts that have killed scores. many thought such events would end when the hard-line taliban took over, and there's been great fear about that group reverting to its medieval treatment of women. i invited mahbouba seraj back on the show to give us a status report. she's the founder of the afghan

women's network. welcome back, mahbouba. before we get to women, let me ask you, what is the atmosphere like day to day? what is life like in afghanistan now? >> well, hi, thank you for having me here. there is a lot of discontent in this country, a lot. people are getting hungrier, people are getting poorer, and especially with the last two explosions that happened in the mosques, one in kandahar, a whole lot of, how shall i say, this comfortable feeling people had that at least, okay, the taliban are here because we're safer so there's no explosions or anything, that kind of is also disappearing. so a lot of people and their families are trying to get out of afghanistan because if this thing continues, they're really

going to lose their education. so there's a very uneasy feeling in the air all together and not a whole lot of trust and they're kind of waiting for the taliban to take the first step and do something, but they're being extremely slow and they're not doing it. and the thing is that the taliban kept on saying to the people of afghanistan, okay, we're talking to the world and they're asking the world to release the money because that's what is going to change a whole lot of things for us, but in reality, what is really happening and the way they can really get that money is not by asking the world to give them, you know, the money, is by doing the right thing by the women of afghanistan, and by the people of afghanistan. once they start doing that, especially by the women of afghanistan, the money will be coming to them. but this is something that they don't want to admit, so we are on the -- on square one, where

we're not much change to say about life here. >> so watching the taliban in power now, do you get the sense that they are different from the old taliban? are they more moderate, actually as extreme, incompetent? how would you characterize the taliban? because we are looking from the outside, and we cannot tell. >> you know, we had 20 years of democracy in the country and everything was set, had its place. we had institutions, institutionalized a whole lot of things in afghanistan, so that was making life a lot easier for us. but now they don't have anything like that. they don't have anybody that really understands how to make this big wheel of government or governance turn. they have nobody actually to do that. and they need the help of the people that they were there and

the government already and they need the help of women, but this is something they do not want to admit that they really have to have done. >> you know, if you look at it from the outside, the numbers look terrible. it looks like afghanistan is headed towards a real period of economic crisis because the economy is almost a shadow of what it was. >> absolutely. there is no money in the banks. the banks are running out of whatever money they have so far because, even now, they're giving rations to people as far as money is concerned. we're going towards a complete collapse of the economy and that complete collapse of the economy is going to be very dangerous because it's poverty that will give room for any kind of -- any other actions or any other things that are going to be happening in afghanistan, it will happen because of poverty and not because of anything else.

the terrorism is going to have its absolutely a feast on afghanistan with the poverty in this country. because a parent who has more food to give their children, there are actually people here in afghanistan now that they're selling their kids because they don't have any money. this is the situation, and it's very, very bad. very bad. >> when you talk to the women you've been helping for so many years, do many of them just want to try to find a way to get out of afghanistan? >> absolutely, absolutely. every single one of them. every single one of these women, they want to get out of afghanistan. there's not one single person, one single woman that i have talked to, that does not want to get out of afghanistan. not even one. >> what about you? >> it's like empty. no, i'm staying. this is the beginning of what it

is that's going to happen. god only knows what will happen. no, i'm staying. right now i'm staying. we will see what happens. >> you stay there -- you stay there, mahbouba seraj, and we will keep talking to you. >> thank you so much. our future depends on regeneration. that's why we're working to not only protect our planet, but restore, renew, and replenish it. so we can all live better tomorrow. ♪

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now for "the last look." welcome to striketober. that is what labor activists are calling the wave of walkouts by american workers this month of october. last week 10,000 workers the farm equipment manufacturer john deere went on strike over paying retirement benefits.

1,400 workers at kellogg's have been striking for weeks and more are potentially on the horizon. thousands of other nurses at the health care conglomerate kaiser permanently are poised to strike as they negotiate their contracts. most workers in the u.s., not unionized so they may not be inclined to organize a strike. but that doesn't mean they can't walk off their jobs, and indeed, the latest job data shows that a record 4.3 million workers quit their jobs in august. and it's not just august. since april, an average of about 4 million workers have quit their jobs every month. it is a trend economists have called the great resignation. it's difficult to overstate how extraordinary this is, as carl smith notes in bloomberg, the scale of resignations this year is beyond anything on record. many believe it echoes what they risk with the strikes, workers seem to be unhappy with long hours, low pay and generally

poor working conditions. and the record number of job openings gives them the freedom to demand more or walk away. this phenomenon has described panic in employers. their fears of shortage will hurt small businesses or rise in wages would make businesses less competitives in general. but these fears are misplaced. these trends are actually good news, especially for american workers who are in dire need of good news. as the m.i.t. professor david order recently wrote in "the times," the u.s. economy has long been played by a glut of bad jobs. take a look at pay. low-skilled american workers are some of the lowest paid in the industrialized world. they make almost one-third less per hour than their counterparts in canada. low-skilled norwegian workers are paid almost twice as much. but pay isn't the only problem. m.i.t.'s author writes, american workers also receive let's

notice and severance when they're fired compared to other worker in wealthy countries. they take less vacation. unlike their peers in most countries, they don't have guaranteed paid parental leave. labor said the record job shortages we are seeing alongside resignations are a market phenomenon that compels companies to improve on some of these policies to attract workers. we've already seen this in terms of pay. average hourly earnings for workers have risen by more than $1 in the past year. that's not just good for workers, it's also good for the economy. that's because since the dit comairia of the 1990s, worker productivity stagnated but in the past year worker productivity picked up significantly because in part workers are compelled to invest more in the workers they got. a more productive workforce is actually good for competition. and if this strength continues long term, it could boost the economy's growth. finally, a glut of open

positions gives workers the leverage to experiment. many workers have left their jobs to start their own businesses, and rise in entrepreneurship would add much-needed dinism to the american economy. striketober, cerebral word, and the great resignation may look cha chaotic, but this is just the kind of chaos america needs. thanks for all of you for being part of my program this week. i will see you all next week. hey, i'm brian stelter live in studio here in new york. this is "reliable sources," where we examine the story behind the story. we try to figure out what's reliable? this hour a veteran political reporter who just can't take in anymore. she says the press is failing the public by soft pedaling the gop's radicalization. her name is jackie comous and she will join me live. and why bursting the fox media bubble is so hard. we look at the youtube