In this episode of our BryghtCast edition of the Managing Uncertainty Podcast, Bryghtpath Principal & CEO Bryan Strawser and Consultant Bray Wheeler take a look at three current risks and upcoming events:
- China’s plan to conduct military exercises off the coast of Taiwan
- China’s rare public statement on Hong Kong
- The shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival and what it means for major event planning & physical security strategy
Episode Transcript
Bryan Strawser: Hello and welcome to the Managing Uncertainty podcast. This is our BryghtCast edition for the week of July 29th, 2019.
Bryan Strawser: This is Bryan Strawser, Principal and CEO here at Bryghtpath. With me is-
Bray Wheeler: Bray Wheeler, Consultant with Bryghtpath.
Bryan Strawser: As a reminder, the Bryghtcast episode is where we take a few recent events in the news and talk about their connectivity to the private sector and issues that organizations may want to be prepared with.
Bryan Strawser: We’re going to start with an announcement this morning that China’s military is holding exercises this week in waters off the coast of Taiwan. This was announced by China’s Maritime Safety Agency and came just days after the government in Beijing reiterated that it was ready to fight if there was any move towards independence for the self-ruled island of Taiwan. Of course, to the Chinese, they often refer to it as the wayward province of Chinese Taipei, which is how Taiwan is referred to in international terms at conferences and such, where both countries are present.
Bryan Strawser: China claims that it is stepping up military drills in recent years, including even flying what Beijing calls Island Encirclement Exercises, and sending warships into surround international waters.
Bryan Strawser: Bray, what does this mean for companies that operate in Taiwan?
Bray Wheeler: Well, it certainly means that Taiwan is back in the news.
Bryan Strawser: Yeah, it’s been a while.
Bray Wheeler: For China, it’s been a bit quiet. Hong Kong has dominated a lot of the discussion as it relates to China, as well as some of the trade stuff, so Taiwan has been a bit under the radar here, at least for the last month or two.
Bray Wheeler: Really, for companies that are in Taiwan, probably not anything direct or immediate, however, the fact those exercises are going on, [South] China Sea is still a thing that’s important. We have other activity in other important straits within the Maritime world. The fact that these are happening definitely could impact, could disrupt, could delay Maritime shipping, commerce in those areas should these escalate, be prolonged, or something happens, an accident or whatnot.
Bryan Strawser: Taiwan had its own military exercises in May, both air, land, and sea. Or, I guess that’s all three, not both. They vowed to defend themselves against China’s growing threat to their independence.
Bryan Strawser: China also has reiterated that it would be ready to go to war against those who try to split Taiwan from the country, and accused the United States of undermining global stability and denouncing our arms sales to the island.
Bryan Strawser: Taiwan primarily uses US equipment.
Bray Wheeler: It does.
Bryan Strawser: That’s purchased from us.
Bray Wheeler: It does.
Bryan Strawser: Or, purchased from our companies.
Bryan Strawser: I was at the Aspen Security Forum two weeks ago, out in Colorado. The second night of the conference, the keynote interview before the crowd was Admiral Phil Davidson, who is the Commander for US Indo-Pacific Command. This is the joint command that’s responsible for all US interests in the Pacific ocean, including China and Taiwan.
Bryan Strawser: He got a question about Taiwan, and Admiral Davidson pointed out that Taiwan is a US ally. We have treaty obligations as a country to Taiwan, but he mostly focused on the fact that a big part of what the United States Navy does in the South China Sea, maybe to be more clear about it, in international waters of the South China Sea, is to continue to reinforce the freedom of navigation that is guaranteed by the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea.
Bray Wheeler: Yeah. That’s the big story in the South China Sea, just in general. This activity, whether it’s Vietnam, whether it’s the Philippines, whether it’s Taiwan, whether it’s Bradley Islands. That South China Sea is a major route.
Bryan Strawser: Right.
Bray Wheeler: Coming out from that area. Especially as companies are looking to shift into Vietnam, into other areas of Asia, it’s going to become more important. It’s going to more of an issue as some of these countries start either to defend themselves, or they run exercises, and China’s trying to assert its dominance on the area.
Bryan Strawser: So, the key take away here for organizations, if you operate in this area or have travelers that go through Taipei, or your source from countries bordering the South China Sea, is to just continue to monitor the situation between China and Taiwan. This probably never ends, as long as they are separate countries, or a country and its wayward province.
Bryan Strawser: What’s next?
Bray Wheeler: Next up, staying in China, but shifting back to Hong Kong in just a quick update. I don’t know that we want to spend too much time since we’ve talked quite a bit about Hong Kong here lately.
Bray Wheeler: Recently, China has actually officially commented on the protests that are happening in Hong Kong. So, Hong Kong protests have been going on for about eight weeks now. China has been reluctant to say anything, or seemingly so.
Bray Wheeler: They’ve since come out and made … I’m trying to find the official spokesmen for Hong Kong and Macao Affairs commented as the first Chinese statement on it, calling the situation in Hong Kong grave, that the protesters were committing evil and criminal acts, and has damaged the city’s reputation and stability.
Bray Wheeler: It’s the first time that China has said this, which probably isn’t going to be helpful in terms of calming the situation.
Bryan Strawser: I don’t think it’s going to be helpful at all.
Bray Wheeler: No.
Bray Wheeler: They also used the language of “Hong Kong is China’s Hong Kong. Hong Kong affairs are Chinese domestic affairs. It’s one country, two system model.”
Bray Wheeler: Just reinforcing that position, that outlook, or view of how they see Hong Kong is in direct contrast to what the protesters are actually protesting of. They see themselves as, yes, they are a part of China, but they are independent and fiercely independent. They’re China’s reinforcement of their assertion of control, their support. For the Hong Kong leader Carrie Lamb, all those things are only going to exacerbate, only going to continue this protest activity that’s going on.
Bryan Strawser: Yeah, it seems, I don’t know, this almost feels like an escalation on the part of China, in that they rarely make direct commentary on Hong Kong.
Bray Wheeler: They do.
Bryan Strawser: This, to me, is almost an escalation of the situation. That’s some really bluntly strong language. I don’t see that making protesters go home.
Bray Wheeler: No. If anything, it’s just going to keep it going, which probably to China’s view, helps make their case.
Bryan Strawser: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Bray Wheeler: Hong Kong is out of control, Hong Kong needs more governance from China. The fact that they’ve made that direct language of Hong Kong’s affairs from China’s affairs are domestic affairs, is pretty, pretty blatant in terms of where they stand on it, and pretty escalatory.
Bryan Strawser: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Bray Wheeler: From a protester’s standpoint.
Bryan Strawser: The bottom line here for organizations is to continue to monitor what’s going on in Hong Kong, and keep an eye on what that might mean for travelers and for your business operations in the city.
Bray Wheeler: Yeah. The fact that it’s been eight weeks now, it’s come off the radar in terms of other things that have popped up, new topics. The fact that this is still going on, China is taking these kinds of positions, means that this is probably going to continue and could only become more complicated.
Bryan Strawser: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Bryan Strawser: So, the other issue we want to talk about … We’re recording this on Monday the 29th. You may not hear this for a few days, but the other breaking issue over the weekend into today was the mass shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California, which, for perspective, is outside of San Jose, I believe about 45 to 60 miles. Definitely not in a city, it’s in a small town.
Bryan Strawser: This festival, which gets about 100 thousand visitors each year, there was a shooting last night involving a 19-year-old, which is just now being identified having used a rifle for this homicide. I believe that there were 12 wounded and five killed. Is that correct?
Bray Wheeler: Yeah. I’ve seen mixed numbers. It’s probably slightly too early. I’ve seen three, but if you’re saying five, that’s entirely possible with injuries and stuff like that.
Bryan Strawser: As we’re recording this press conference, there’s a … As we’re recording the podcast, rather, there’s a press conference going on with the Gilroy police and other agencies. There’s some new information being released that may be different than what we’re telling you.
Bryan Strawser: Part of what we wanted to talk about here, was, this festival poses an interesting physical security issue that we want to highlight. This festival is fenced in, from our understanding. There was weapon screening occurring at the entrances to the festival, but what the shooter did is come around the backside of the festival, crossed a creek, and then cut the chain-link fence and gained access with his weapon by those means. Then, came into the festival and began shooting.
Bray Wheeler: Which, you know, to these festivals and to gatherings credit, these organizations, these events are starting to think through physical security safety, think through processes, think through mechanisms to help control some of the violence or the safety. It’s not just mass shooting and things like that, it could be anything. From theft to riots, to protests, all these kinds of things, to help control what’s happening at some of these events.
Bray Wheeler: The only caveat to that is, the physical security mechanism itself isn’t enough.
Bryan Strawser: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Bray Wheeler: You have to still layer yourself on, and I think that’s, unfortunately, some of these organizations and events have to catch up a bit.
Bray Wheeler: They’re doing the right things, but if you’re not screening the backline of the fence, then the fence doesn’t do too much other than probably keep some wildlife out.
Bryan Strawser: Right.
Bryan Strawser: The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have put out some planning guidance for mass gatherings, I think is how they worded it. For large scale events, and this was an output of the 2017 shooting in Las Vegas at the country music festival that was going on. There were a number of issues that came out of the after-action discussion that happened around that festival.
Bryan Strawser: Part of this is, if you decide to do as they did at this Garlic Festival, and you’re doing weapon screening, you need to look at the rest of your security perimeter and then take the right actions to ensure that you’re adequately protection your patrons. That’s your goal, I assume, by doing weapons screening and other screening to keep prohibited items out, food. It’s probably just as much about food as it was about weapons.
Bryan Strawser: You’ve got to look at the whole perimeter, right? You’ve got to really think about defense in-depth, and can’t just trust that the chain link fence is going to keep the bad guy out, or keep another unwanted individual with prohibited items out. You’ve got to look at the whole story.
Bryan Strawser: I think the FBI DHS Guidance really gets to that issue, in terms of how they talk about planning.
Bray Wheeler: There are definitely issues of resource constraints and things like that, too, with some of these events. Security can be super expensive, and it can suck up a large chunk of some of these things’ budget. They don’t have to.
Bray Wheeler: As I said, they’re doing the right things and they’re thinking about it the right way, but it’s one of those, you have to make sure that some of these areas that you’re just throwing up a fence to make sure you have something there, you have to layer on a human element to it or something else.
Bray Wheeler: There was some talk about adding cameras and things like that. Certainly, that’ll probably become easier and easier as technology evolves, but camera systems are pretty expensive.
Bryan Strawser: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Bray Wheeler: And you have to have somebody monitoring it.
Bryan Strawser: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Bray Wheeler: And you have to have people watching for it. If you’re switching between cameras, a guy cuts a fence, he can do that in a couple of minutes and be in and through and you don’t see it, either.
Bryan Strawser: Right.
Bray Wheeler: Depending on how you placed it.
Bray Wheeler: It’s making sure you’re having perimeter walks, and things like that, to at least know and identify opportunities of, hey, that wasn’t there before.
Bryan Strawser: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Bray Wheeler: Hey, there’s a hole in the fence. Hey, this is going on, so that you can control some of that, or at least be able to react.
Bryan Strawser: I would say, just to be clear, we’re not passing judgment on the Garlic Festival. Not all the details are out.
Bryan Strawser: As we were talking this morning, it did stand out to us that you’ve really got to think about physical security holistically, and it can’t just be about screening weapons at your points of entry. If you’ve got a secure area, then you’ve got to look at your other boundaries, as well.
Bray Wheeler: I think that’s absolutely fair. As you said, we don’t know everything that was in place. I think just generally, as organizations, as companies are thinking about these events, they’re definitely softer targets. They’re definitely an opportunity.
Bray Wheeler: Again, not just for violence, it could be for protest, it could be for theft, all sorts of different things, nefarious activity that you don’t want a part of. It gets back to you have to think about it holistically, and you have to make some decisions around the risks that are posed to you as part of that festival.
Bryan Strawser: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Bray Wheeler: Where you’re having it when you’re having it, the crowd. Is it open to the public, a closed group? All those things play a factor in how you layer on your security.
Bryan Strawser: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Bryan Strawser: Bottom line, for businesses, if you’re holding large events, or you’re securing large events, think about physical security holistically and use the tools that are given to you. There’s the DHS FBI guidance on planning for large scale events and mitigating the after shooter threat of large scale events. Use that documentation, it’s available on the FBI and DHS websites.
Bryan Strawser: That’s it for this edition of Managing Uncertainty BryghtCast edition. We’ll be back later in the week with an additional episode, focused on a single topic.
Bryan Strawser: Thanks for listening.
