joining me now is "washington times" national security correspondent bill gertz. e china is putting out propaganda to taiwan that says basically the united states of america is not going to be there for you. so so is china stepping in to this void? >> absolutely. the chinese had gained strategically from the u.s. rout in afghanistan and we are going to be seeing more of that. we have already reached out to the taliban where meeting in shanghai between senior taliban last month. that's a sign that pay jing quickly recognized the regime in kabul. this is a big feet for the u.s. to push back against china. what china gained is they have got the removal of u.s. troopsy an area near their western border. so that's going to be a big plus for them. on the downside, they are going to have to contend with a hard line islamist pro-terrorist regime and a bunch of terrorists in afghanistan also on their western border. >> will: let's pick up on that and make a fascinating next to china prepared if anything goes down. but let's pick up on the taliban because you wrote this toda