 and good afternoon to this webinar 50th anniversary of the Nixon Mao meeting, U.S.-China relations then and now organized by the School of Security Studies and the Strategic Studies Research Theme and the Lao Institute from the School for Global Affairs by King's College London. Some people are still dropping in so we will just wait a few more minutes and then we can kick it off. So thank you very much for the moment for joining us today and we are very much looking forward to this to this event. Yeah we're getting more and more in here also knowing that some are dialing in from the other side of the Atlantic where it's quite early or potentially also from China just as a late night event there today. But I see that it looks like we have a critical mass so I would say let's kick it off. So once again good afternoon to everyone and welcome to this virtual roundtable on the 15th anniversary of the Nixon Mao meeting U.S.-China relations then and now and as I already said of course also good morning to everyone dialing in from the other side of the Atlantic and good evening to everyone joining us from China today. It's a pleasure to all to have you with us here today no matter from where you are joining for that very timely subject because even if the headlines are currently of course dominated by the current crisis in Ukraine there is very little doubt that U.S.-China relations will be the determining variable of international relations in the next years and probably the case and that is why we are discussing that topic not only because of the anniversary but also because it's going to be the pressing challenge for scholars working on international relations as well as policymakers. As of course this approach to U.S.-China relations requires a comprehensive perspective and also different strands of research different points of view. We decided to join forces for this very narrow together on the one hand with the School of Security Studies more precisely the strategic studies research theme from King's College London which is one of the biggest communities worldwide of scholars of interdisciplinary research working on war conflict peace and strategy and on the other hand the Lao China Institute which is part of the School of Global Affairs and offers a wide range of courses and research that explore contemporary China as well as its role in the world and the most recent example of this has been the China week of the Institute which maybe some of you had the possibility to join a few weeks ago. Understanding China-U.S. relations then and now does not only require an interdisciplinary understanding but also for us it is very important to have different perspectives of research in terms of seniority and that's why it's our special pleasure to have put together a comprehensive roundtable that is not only from two institutes but also brings together very established scholars and junior PhD researchers both from the School of Security Studies and the Lao China Institute of King's College London. Just a quick reminder before we are kicking it off this webinar is live and recorded and if you wish to participate or ask questions please do so using the function on the bottom of your screen. Lastly it's my absolute pleasure to welcome our moderator here today Winsand Ni who is China Affairs Correspondent at The Guardian and one of today's King's China Watchers in the UK and abroad. He has previously reported for the BBC from Asia Europe and North America and is therefore very well positioned to lead us through today's discussion with his insight and also to take your questions whatever you might have. So all I can say at this point is thanks again very much for joining us today thanks Winsand and over to you. Thanks very much Jesse and good afternoon everyone thanks for tuning into this panel discussion that looks back at Richard Nixon's visit to China 50 years ago and asks what next for the world's most consequential bilateral relations. Now the event half a century ago this week sent shockwaves around the world those who were involved in it still hold a view that it was a brilliant strategic move and both sides have benefited from it but 50 years on people are asking also what was the real lesson from Nixon's historic handshake with Chairman Mao how do we get to where we are today and most importantly what next. So without further ado let me bring you our first speaker Professor Kerry Brown Kerry and just let's start off this conversation by asking you how do we get to where we are today and what went wrong. Thank you very much Winsand so it's exactly 50 years ago I think today that Nixon landed in Beijing and was met I believe by I think it was Joanne Lai he didn't know if he was going to have a meeting with Mao Zedong but that did happen and it was extremely important for him to show that the visit had been a success I think he was in China at all for quite a long time about nine days and of course historically it meant that the Shanghai communique was signed it set in place policies on for instance the one China policy and things like this which are still current today I think there are three things that the visit set out which are still relevant I think the first is that it made pragmatism a core between China and the United States Nixon was famously sharply critical during the Cold War and had taken a strong stance on opposing communist countries and had been extremely critical of China until about 1968 when he famously produced I think in foreign policy an article arguing you could not keep China out of the global order and the pragmatism I think meant that he was able to talk to also a leader who had taken a strong stance against the capitalist West Mao Zedong putting these two figures together was incredibly unlikely until it actually happened but I think it showed the power of pragmatism and the fact that that is still important if Nixon and Mao could speak to each other at the time they did with the backgrounds they had pretty much anyone can I think we have to remember that symbolism of the visit even today the second I suppose is probably more contentious and that is the underlying drivers of the relationship right from the beginning for the US at least were largely about opening up a whole new market and business opportunities even though during Nixon's visit of course it couldn't easily talk about these things because China was commercially largely closed I think the aim was that one day this would be a significant new market and indeed by 1979 that opportunity came and in fact Nixon played a role even after he resigned from the presidency and that once he'd been marginally rehabilitated right up until the 1990s I suppose the third question is well did it change anything if this visit had never happened what would have changed I mean that's a huge question you can't prove counterfactuals but I suppose we could say that although we think today about how do you influence China's behaviour when it's so complicated and often seems that China is so strong on the global change stage I think that the 1972 visit did have a profound impact on China on you know and probably not in any planned way because it meant after Miles Steff in 1976 and then the beginning of new policies from 1979 the option was to develop these with the relationship with America and have that relationship not been in place I don't think this would have been remotely well it wouldn't have been easy whether it would have been possible would have been it would have been much much harder uh China and the United States didn't have full diplomatic recognition of each other until 1979 I think the fact that Nixon had taken an enormous gamble meant that China could change in the ways that it wanted to after 1979 finally on the assessments Nixon himself expressed some reservations before his death in the 1990s whether it had created a kind of monster that had never been expected I mean I think it's hard to assess this properly many Chinese today if you look for instance comments Mike Pence for instance the former vice president made recently and Pompeo the former secretary of state in opening the Nixon Library late last year they used this strange language of we created you know we were the ones that reached out to China opened up opportunities for China and you know kind of it didn't live up to our expectations it didn't reward what we did in the right way it didn't act fairly I think that that's a strong claim but it's emotionally quite a powerful one in contemporary America the idea that in a sense they had taken a big risk 50 years ago and that risk didn't kind of really pan out I really wonder whether there was much choice about what China and the United States did in 72 I'm not a believer of historical determinism by any means but I think there was a strong logic for both because of the USSR but also because of their own internal issues that at some point after 1949 they would have to have this kind of dialogue with each other and I think we shouldn't kid ourselves that there was ever more choices than we believe you know that there were never that many choices about this relationship and I think that that is true even till today so those are just some kind of initial comments about this incredibly historically you know important visit and its meaning 50 years after it happened thank you great thanks very much Kerry Angus I'd like to turn to you for some context around this trip a few months before this week that changed the world as some historians call Nixon's trip later on there was a secret visit by Kissinger's national security advisor Nixon's national security advisor Henry Kissinger in July 1971 looking under the kind of diplomacy was conducted back then in the early 1970s between the two countries and looking at the diplomacy between the two countries today do you see any similarities at all well well thank you for that question and thank you everyone for being on this panel it's a brilliant opportunity and obviously it's a unique week in geopolitics we are reminded of another continued relevance to the Cold War in contemporary geopolitics and I'm also that Kissinger quote that you know I don't have time for a crisis this week my schedule is already too full and so we'll just take this opportunity to look a little bit deeper at this anniversary the week that changed the world as it's known and Kissinger as you say is really central to this Henry Kissinger would not be Henry Kissinger to us without the secret trip to China in July 1971 and I do not believe that we would consider US-China relations in the same way if it was not for Henry Kissinger not just because of that original trip but because of his enduring legacy and he turns 99 this year he's producing another book at the moment which is essentially a set of biographies of people he's known one of whom will be Mao Zedong and he's been to China at least 60 times since leaving office he is ultimately the seamless scene is the ultimate sage of US grand strategy related to China and so it is worth examining how he approached that in time and what was he considering what was he thinking about in 1971 to 1972 and firstly I think it's important to acknowledge that the opening to China was not as radical as many people actually say Britain was moving towards it Canada had had engagements with China as well and Kissinger himself in 1970s said that an opening was was quite inherent to the world environment of the 1970s and he then obviously went to China in July 1971 hope with a set of aims and those aims I think his goals there are sort of a good reference point for how he approached US-China relations now because I think that there were that one can interpret what Kissinger was trying to do in two ways it was firstly about widening the scope of international politics and global order in the 1970s about incorporating China as an acknowledged great power into the international discourse in the context of Dayton with the Soviet Union concurrently but also a shifting balance of power towards Asia and a shifting US priorities both militarily and economic in the early 1970s and also this trip takes place only a few months after the collapse of Bretton Woods and it is very much on the mind of US policymakers that they are going to need to reshape the international order to incorporate Asia more properly so it's both an element of triangular diplomacy as Kissinger called it and also trilateralism that neologism that was so popular in the 1970s about balancing between the United States, Europe and Asia but then there was another element to Kissinger's trick that I think has particular relevance because it was not just about widening the scope of global order but it was about deepening US engagement with its issues because a central aim of the trip to China was for the with the Nixon and Kissinger hoped that the Chinese government would be able to put pressure on the North Vietnamese in the ongoing Paris negotiations over the Vietnam conflict and this was a really this was a really important motivation for Kissinger and Nixon and there was also the element that they wanted this China to balance against the Soviet Union as well so they want essentially to develop another alliance system against the balance against its traditional enemy and Kissinger famously says I have a quote here in the book so the deepest international conflict in the world today is not between us and the Soviet Union but between the Soviet Union and communist China so Kissinger was looking at the Cold War and it's the proxy conflict associated with it through the prison of China and that I think is probably the bit where he most failed ultimately for more degrees of separation between Kissinger and his goal the less success he had the Chinese did not have particular authority over the North Vietnamese government and they could not really extract particular leverage out of them and ultimately of course China goes to war in Vietnam in the late 1970s and then and then the extent to which the Soviet Union does China does balance against the Soviet Union in 1970s is quite limited ultimately Dayton manifested in nuclear arms racism in nuclear arms agreements but also proxy conflicts in places like Africa and what does this tell us about the situation today I think it's important I think it's important well I think the biggest lesson is actually that we acknowledge China very much in its own terms now we do not consider China as a means to anything I don't really believe that the US is currently pressuring China in order to in order to have the Russia withdraw troops from the border with Ukraine that just doesn't happen anymore we acknowledge China for what it really is which is the emerging superpower of contemporary politics and I think that's the most considerable lesson for Kissinger himself he has always been someone very much focused on the lessons of history and as a historian of international relations particularly the first world war now he is the one of the first earliest articulators of the ideas of the facilities trap and World War one for him was always a great warning for the dangers of international politics and therefore he is consistent he's still advocating quite active proactive diplomacy with the Chinese to an extent that many on the American right disagree with including Mike Pompeo and I think that is one of the direct lessons that Kissinger himself has taken from the trip and I mean just to wrap up my thoughts I think there is much one can take from the trip from the two trips in July 71 and January 1972 but it's ultimately all important to recognize what they were on their own terms which was not and it was not should not be construed in the same paradigm as international relations at present ultimately they are very different situations and the biggest lesson of history is probably to learn whether differences than what the similar similarities are thank you great thanks very much Angus and Lee I wanted to turn to you now for Chinese perspective on this bilateral relationship these days there is a prevailing view in Washington that China's era of hide and abide is long gone and in fact according to strategies such as Rush Doshi who now advises President Biden China has long had this plan to displace America so others say we are in the new Cold War type of global dynamics this time featuring China and America is this also China's view that we are in this inevitable Cold War or conflict with America what is China's perspective on this does China have a plan to displace the US I think it's very unwise for the advisors just think that way there are people who compare the current situation to that of last century before President Nixon's visit to Beijing which wrote a new page for China US relations and also today yeah as you mentioned there is a concept that had been created that is the new Cold War the they taught of China US relation 15 years ago that decision was made by both side without either it couldn't work that was not a romantic whim it was driven by real political interest both sides had the will the communication and the action and you can still see interest today and maybe even more interest at that time Nixon wanted to withdraw troops from Vietnam as decently as possible at the same time strategic balance was reached between us and as you and as as you at that time even had more nuclear weapons than the US while China's strategic change started in late late 1960s actually after the assessment of the four senior marshals who estimated the contradiction between either China US or US sorry between either China SU or US SU is bigger than that between China and US so the improvement of final US relations of first and foremost making both countries safer so then the United States did not need to fight a second Vietnam war and China did not have to worry about the invasion or threaten from the United States and the second is to they can step into economic and trade population that brings great benefits to both sides until today thus when it comes to today the interest is much more than that of then today's global interdependence as we all know and shared interest of every country is unprecedented it seems either the worldwide financial crisis and the unbelievable growth of infectious disease cases could be an evidence what may be somehow unrealized by now is that China and the United States have more corporation and common interests than ever and then thought I believe we don't need to read the charts or numbers of profits China and the US have benefited benefited from each other there are also other shared interests too for example in territories anti-terrorism sorry anti-terrorism nuclear non-proliferation peacekeeping climate change issues and everything China needs a stable environment and so does the US so one country needs stable environment to develop and for all relations whether bilateral multilateral they all need a stable environment to to maintain at present day who can who can guarantee that your country would be without any trouble forever so we should be ready to help each other instead of making trouble for each other so I think community with a shared future is what China understand about the world and the future after all the intertwine of the world has been so tight anyone could be a butterfly and you don't know who have a storm next day and China doesn't even regard the United States as an enemy we might say before the 1970s the United States was the enemy of China but not after even now China-US relations seem to be very tense now but China will see on the China may see the United States as a potential enemy if the United States interfered in the Taiwan issue threatening China's territory and sovereignty but if you ask me whether there is going to be whether an intention of China to displace the United States or there's intention to have new cold war I think the answer is absolutely no because as I said the interdependence has been much more than what we have realized and I say the advice that China has planned to displace US is unwise because what I I can see the shared interest is much more than ever don't they know this and don't they know this will only bring tension which is not helpful from every perspective so now there are so many different political views in the United States criticizing each other maybe the only consensus in US Congress would be taking a hard stance on China and thus China issue becomes even more tricky there if taking a hard stance on China is the easiest consensus to reach then they will use it to you know barely making people unite but I think it's also possible that US is just saying that but it's very similar half centuries ago that the great powers are saying things that they are not you know really taking actions so I think no I don't think there will be new cold war and strategically or not China doesn't have a plan to displace the US thank you great thanks very much Li we'll come back to more of a Chinese perspective later next I want to turn to Nicola and Nicola last week when I spoke to Winston Lord who was at present with Chairman Mao with President Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger on that trip I asked him to respond to critics of Nixon's visit and he touted the fact that shortly after Nixon's trip to China the US made significant progress with the Soviets on things like arms control agreement etc but these days with big power competition begin to intensify and many are also worried a new arms race do you also see this happening as well thanks Vincent and thanks to the organizers I think I'm still relatively optimistic about present day and near future prospects of arms race but I think the context that you talk about is really really relevant and quite important because at the time of the visit a lot of negotiations around nuclear weapons and controlling these weapons and reducing these weapons and restricting them they were going on in the background and ultimately a very important treaty was concluded in 72 which was the anti ballistic missile treaty and that treaty actually came to an end in 2003 but it was a crucial treaty it gave huge momentum to wider arms control treaties between the United States and the Soviet Union so the broader normalization as you as you hinted did take place amid a backdrop of major change in nuclear terms so it was a very different moment in history if you think about nuclear arms control compared to today where we see a lot of unraveling of nuclear arms control agreements like for instance the intermediate nuclear forces that came to an end recently it was also a time of course even before the visit where the United States when it was talking to China it was also a time where China was still a relatively young nuclear weapon state but I detested in 64 so by the time of Nixon's visit in 1972 it was still a very young very weak nuclear weapons state and it had also just gone through a relatively harsh experience you could say in terms of a border conflict with the Soviet Union in 69 during which China experienced very sincere and serious wars get including potentially threats against its nuclear arsenal from the Soviet Union and many academics actually draw from that 1969 experience that that provided great momentum for Mao and Joe in line others to press ahead and be positive regarding normalization with with United States there is a there's a much broader context and I think you alluded to in your question now you mentioned the 1972 sort of ABM treaty I think that's what your interview alluded to and what is its relevance today well it no longer exists of course as I said and I think it speaks to a broader problem namely that there are no legal constraints no international legal constraints at present day or or any discussions towards a legal international legal constraint between the United States and China around strategic arms in other words there are no legal impediments to both countries developing and increasing the size of their nuclear arsenals and and other associated strategic weapons there is no alternative or US-China specific intermediate nuclear forces treaty there's no salt there's no strategic arm limitation talks there are no ABMs currently under negotiation and there seems to be very little prospect of any of those things between the United States and China at present there was an attempt during the Trump administration to bring China into a new start which is the the only really existing mechanism between the United States and Russia to limit strategic nuclear weapons but that was not necessarily a very sincere attempt and have lots of problems and it and it wasn't the right platform to bring China in and China was very clear about not wanting to be part of that couple so there are no I guess you could say positives when you look at the legal side of things and the diplomatic side of things and return to the significance of 1972 and the ABM treaty negotiations that were concluded then missile defences and that's what the ABM treaty was all about it was about agreeing that both the United States and Soviet Union wouldn't pursue because they had a mass so many nuclear weapons anyway they wouldn't pursue national-level missile defences that would in theory if they worked cancel out each other's nuclear deterrent so it was about preserving neutral short destruction it was about preserving that awful illogical balance of terror right and sort of embracing and accepting the logic of that there is as I said nothing similar being remotely discussed between the United States and China the United States resolutely refuses publicly to acknowledge that it has a relationship with neutral vulnerability with China but missile defences are at the core of Chinese concerns these are the strategic talks with Chuck with the United States so moving forward when we see China the United States talking about arms control how you bring missile defences into that will be pivotal and Biden of course is now undergoing a review of missile defences and the United States and Russia if they enter into agreements and missile defense that may put pressure on China in the future so I'll leave it there maybe there'll be some more questions about that particular topic thank you great fantastic thanks very much Nicola just a reminder to our audience if you have any questions please pop them into the Q&A box and then we'll cut to the questions and answers session shortly after our last speaker James James I wanted to ask you about the economic and technological competition between China and the US this is really at the heart of the great power competition today now the Americans complain about China's models of piranha achieving its goals such as through projects such as Belt and the Road but on a strategic level it also has a similar plan called build back build back better 3BW feel better better world is this a new great game going on here in much of the you know non-western world or and beyond thank you Vincent and thank you to the panel so it is and it isn't a great new great game so the old great game was between Russia and China in Central Asia looking sorry it's between Britain and Russia over empires and boundaries primarily taking part in Central Asia and it was focused primarily on influence making sure to maintain boundaries and then access access markets access to trade so in that yes it is sort of a new great game but it accepts that this time obviously it's the US and China and instead of spies sort of trying to negotiate diplomatic deals it's now big economic initiatives you know big trade deals big plans a lot of speeches a lot of interaction so there are sort of aspects to this that obviously take from the old but it's it's very much a new a new great game as you say this isn't particularly new though because if we look at both sort of initiatives we talk about the BRI everybody knows about the BRI from 2013 the US had a similar sort of idea especially in the Central Asian region called the New Silk Road which was announced in 2011 by Hilary Clinton to sort of connect the Central Asian region with South Asia stabilize the region all that sort of thing whereas obviously the built-in road initiative is very much for China to sort of expand westwards access new markets develop infrastructure develop connections all that so it's it is to still access markets it is to still influence whereas the US was obviously looking at for a little bit more stability in the region but there are still aspects where they're coming into competition with one another now the New Silk Road initiative by the US was not particularly successful it had only a few I think 20 total projects most of which were already going on in Afghanistan at the time and then you had a few others such as the TAPI pipeline so the Turkmenistan Afghanistan Pakistan India pipeline natural gas which actually is about to be completed but it never saw a dime of US funding so you know it never although it was a US idea it never really went anywhere the other projects that sort of has been successful as the CASA 1000 so that's Central Asia South Asia electricity project so it's basically hydroelectricity in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan developed for selling in the region and that has been successful and that's that's that's good but then you look comparatively at that success compared to China's investment in railway infrastructure pipelines themselves and roads and even business and other other institutions in the Central Asian region and it's it's a different scale so we are seeing we are seeing a lot of competition not necessarily butting heads at all times because I don't think the US is invested enough or involved enough to really look to challenge China at this point and I think the Chinese obviously have their own aims and objectives for this which is played out in as you say a national strategy towards I mean the region and obviously I think that a more national strategy for themselves as well because obviously they want to make sure that they have got economic access to other regions whereas for the US it doesn't really affect them quite as much because they're halfway around the world so we have got this level of competition now going forward so obviously these sort of initiatives didn't really exist when Nixon first went over to China but going forward from now over the last decade we've seen these initiatives the Belt and Road has sort of slowed down a little bit but it's promised to reinvigorate itself the Belt and Road 2.0 that's that's the Chinese plan they're looking to reinvigorate sort of reinvest reposition themselves once again to sort of ensure that the strategic objectives are met whereas the US has been looking more an Asia-Pacific perspective so they've come up with the Blue Dot network which is Australia, the US and Japan creating a governing body to essentially look at infrastructure projects and see where they can associate private investment so again they're not really it's comparing apples and oranges to what the objectives actually are and how things are fitting in but there are sort of plans going forward but we need to be very careful when we say and look at these strategic initiatives because often both the US and China have claimed different projects as part of these grand strategic designs and really they were just going on to begin with and they wanted another feather in their cap so the future is looking good that does look like investment is going to continue there is competition but it isn't conflicting with one another and so hopefully this is the best betterment of everybody in the end so thank you excellent thanks very much James for this really interesting take on economic and technology uh statecraft and so um we've got some questions coming to the chat box there's one question about Russia that's obviously the elephant in the room when we are talking about US-China today especially this week when the US is in broadening this mind game with Russia whether or not or indeed when Putin is going to invade Ukraine so I wanted to ask our panelists if you have any take on the importance of Russia in today's US-China relations and Kerry why don't we start from you yeah I mean um the uh Russia-China relationship I think once I think someone described it as um in recent years a relationship between two people Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin and at that level it seems to kind of work fine um so it's transformed from 1972 I mean if you think in 1969 there was a border clash and the whole driver's I think a previous speaker said was the fact that you know both the US and China regarded Russia as or the USSR as a bigger strategic threat than than either of you know either way to each other and the thing that I always remember about Chinese Russian relations today is that when I checked this the other day uh the Russian economy is one-sixth the size of the Chinese economy and I mean I think that explains everything um there is an excellent book by Caroline Humphrey and Frank Bile from Cambridge University called Along the Border which is about the Chinese Russian border and I think that also explains very well that for Russia there are these long-standing fears about how China has big intentions on for instance Siberia they argue in this book that in fact um there's been a reduction of migration from China to Russia because there are so many more opportunities on the Russian border or on the Chinese border um there are no operational bridges across the Amur river between Russia and China which is extraordinary I think there's one bridge that's bridge that has been constructed uh with Chinese money uh but because of Covid is still closed so you know this is a sort of strange relationship um and what's happening of course with uh Ukraine at the moment um people argue somewhat strangely that this is relevant to China because it's um uh you know kind of um might have relevance to Taiwan I mean I think that's really stretching because I don't think that that's um a kind of decent parallel at all I think it might be that China isn't super happy about Russia causing these sorts of disruptions but it's certainly happy for Russia to be the um just sort of the one that gets a lot of blame uh you know for stirring things up whereas China I think keeps more of a back seat I think it's a kind of asymmetrical relationship where everything is increasing on China's terms but Kerri if that's the case why on 4th of February we saw this lengthy statement between the two leaders in which essentially they pledged so-called limitless cooperation between the two countries well you can think of a positive reason doing things and then you can think of maybe a more negative reason I don't think China and Russia have great strategic alignment I haven't seen any persuasive argument that says in the medium to long term they have big strategic alignment what they do have is common anger and frustration at one common entity which is the United States or Europe um as an act you know kind of as a sort of a servant of the United States and I think that kind of keeps them lined up with each other you know um in diplomacy we maybe sort of always think of the positive things you know why do you do this because you want to achieve that it's often the negative things I'm doing this not because I particularly like you but I like that one even less so I think for China it's issues with the United States in particular as it becomes a more dominant global power are worth it working with a power like Russia because Russia will do things that will also assist in distracting irritating and diluting American power and I think that's what we see happening and so from that point of view I mean it's a sort of particularly positive strategy but it's an opportunistic strategy and China is an opportunist and when it comes to trade last year the Sino-Russian trade volume was about 140 billion US dollars whereas China's trade with the European Union was about four or five times higher so practically China has much to gain from having better relationship with the European Union right but I mean is that trade really going to be impacted heavily by what Russia does in Ukraine I mean I think if you're talking about agency if the Europeans or Americans tomorrow could shift all of their supply lines and their exports away from China I'm sure they would do it immediately but they can't I mean they've been trying for many years to diversify and now they've dreamt up this fable this fairy story of the Indo-Pacific which is going to magically you know sort of solve all these problems but I don't think the Indo-Pacific is going to be a great supply route for China for Europe or America I mean it's just not and India is not going to be a replacement in terms of manufacturing for China for a long time nor is Vietnam so I think there's an illusion there's always an illusion of choice that there's sort of alternatives and often there aren't alternatives Europe it's trading levels with China Australia's iron ore exports to China went through the roof last year in one month I think August they were 20 billion Australian dollars a record despite terrible political relations United States China trade is also 600 650 billion US dollars which is not a record but you know it's level and it's still overwhelmingly in China's favor so the trade wars did not achieve a huge impact on that if we could change this I think in Washington Brussels and London could change this tomorrow we could clearly we can't and I don't think Ukraine and things like that will you know kind of impact on that yeah it's a stark reminder strategy is one thing but the reality is quite something else right Angus I want to turn to you obviously you know during the Cold War the genius of this Nixon Kissinger design of its relationship of the America's relationship with China was to isolate Soviet Union now we talk about Russia again you know put your Kissinger expert head on Angus you know what would Kissinger say about what we are seeing today in this trilateral dynamics well Kissinger experts are dangerous title to have but I will do my best um well I I think Kissinger right now if this was Kissinger in the 1970s Kissinger would be invading right now trying to either pressure the Chinese to put pressure on Moscow or to try and almost open up a sort of second front of conflicts not military conflict necessarily but provide a another threat to Putin and because he very because very much had a sort of tripolar sense of the world in this point in this period where um and Nixon was very keen on this as well just emphasizing that it should always try and be it needed to be two against one and that's I believe what Kissinger would be emphasizing uh right now I mean I think what another interesting way of looking at it is trying to turn it on its head and sort of seeing other people trying to sort of emulate the Kissinger approach that I think that was very much Macron's approach Macron's style in the past few weeks when he um reverse Kissinger goes trying orchestrate some grand bargain and he's still trying to do that his Macron is probably the the the figure in contemporary geopolitics who has the most Kissingerian ambitions um but I whether that actually comes to anything like I am seriously doubtful the political and media circumstances are so different nowadays and um I'm not sure that Putin can be considered a Joe and lie kind of type figure or anything like that but it is fascinating to see the enduring legacies of Kissinger's trip and the way that it um continues to dominate international politics but it's also I think important to note that it in many in sort of in a theoretical from a from a theoretical sense the reverse side of Kissinger in Beijing is Chamberlain in Munich and so this kind of prior policy strategy can be quite dangerous if um trying to orchestrate something through grand bargains and high-level politics and great powers is a dangerous that is a dangerous way to conduct politics both in terms of it being a failure and ultimately history judging you poorly so I think Kissinger um was quite lucky in that it all went well that it's actually the um the issue of Taiwan in particular was able to be sort of shunted aside with the Shanghai communique and it didn't dominate US-China relations in the 70s so that's that's sort of how I would apply that that situation to the um that that as I would apply that reference point to the contemporary situation yeah. That's a good point um we've got a question about what Lee was talking about community of shared destiny obviously this is a much loved phrase of China's leader these days um Roderico has this question um some people say it's an empty slogan others say it's a strategy for sino-centric world domination what does it really mean Lee could you enlighten us on this this this phrase what does that really mean especially what does that really mean for western audience um thank you Vincent and also thank you for the question I think it's a good if people start to care about the phrase and um want to know about the phrase it's a good start um I'll say what I personally um understand um the phrase I think it's a continuation of China's strategy of peaceful development and are not seeking hedge money it means China is anti-hedge money and will not take hedge money and a community with a shared future for mankind means that China and other countries are equal members of the community which means the entire international system and no one is superior to other countries and all countries should be equal and should be should respect each other should benefit and have win-win situation so um we should not um we should not create conflicts with each other and should retreat together in the broader interests of mankind but and this is this is what I what I know about it thank you I hope this answer you know more or less I wanted to ask James um so obviously this is the Chinese view of you know peaceful development as Lee said is there much buying from western capitals as as you see sitting here from London and you know studying US-China grand strategy sorry could you repeat the question is there any much buying um to this you know share the future uh mankind um that this you know community of shared destiny uh this phrase uh in western capitals when they think about you know Chinese grand strategy Chinese you know intention I think there definitely is to an extent uh the best example of this is the huawei deal done in the UK so you think about the you know there were a lot of security implications and other things I mean the US threatened to potentially cut off certain uh intelligence links with us over huawei being involved in uh the US infrastructure but we sort of came to an agreement on that but we would have some level of oversight but we wanted to make sure that huawei was included to an extent and I think that's sort of indicative of the view that it really is London to Beijing I mean it's been said multiple times in the Belt and Road initiative that the end the end goal was London so I think that gives a gives an indication of firstly Chinese uh interest but also I think that Europe obviously realizes that it is a market that the Chinese want to access further and that I mean they're not going to turn that down they definitely want to develop some of these relationships we also know the fate of huawei in this country for example well yes obviously it's not done quite as well as it might have otherwise but I think it's it's not as bad as it could have been it could there could have been the complete pushback on a lot of Chinese products a lot of Chinese infrastructure like that and investment uh but it wasn't to the extent that it shows that the west is willing to completely disengage and compete with China great thanks very much for a take um we've got another question about western powers have criticized China for breaking wto rules and the wto has been criticized for failing to respond to them adequately can the panel comment on this uh in layman's terms what are the rules China has broken are they legitimate claims does the wto have the power to do anything about it Jim so I think that forcing to your orbit of studying economic statecraft yes it's uh it does to an extent although I look a lot more at infrastructure investment than I do at trade I can cover this briefly so my understanding of the wto's rules broken were specifically tariffs on certain product now I think there have been other things at different points at time it depends on whatever the question when you end your meaning what time scale your meaning because there have been a few different times but I think the most recent one was it was the claim on tariffs specifically of products coming in from Australia was one of the big ones that it said the broke rules had been broken uh on the amount of tariffs that had been placed on different produce and products that were coming into the country and in which case yes the Chinese did not rescind on these uh they still bought some of the product but they looked to sources elsewhere and does I think that probably explains this most recent one I think there are other times when the Chinese haven't broken necessarily wto rules because you know it's it's legal it's highly subjective it could be argued but in certain cases especially the tariffs I think that those are the cases you're talking about and you're interested in we've got a scholarly question from Sheldon Sheldon Sun who asks as scholars how do you approach truth when international politics is dominated by various media headlines and what are your recommendations for the public I think Nicola if I may take your pick your brain on this could you give Sheldon some academic recommendation on this how do you as scholar cut through the noise and look into truth I don't like to use the term truth that's one way of avoiding it I think perceptions and understanding the historical context the psychological situation the personal relations all these things matter in getting a sense of perception of an event and how they can be very different perceptions in the case of US-China relations you know the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis is a great example of where the truth and the perceptions were completely at odds and that you know that crisis could have been entirely avoided if they had understood better each other so in terms of the truth I'm not sure that's the best way of looking at US-China relations I think looking at emotions looking at perceptions may be a better and in terms of the scholarly study a more fruitful understanding as each country's have their own sense of the truth as it were and in the nuclear context we can we can have a sense of material truth right through satellite imagery and so forth but we may not understand the reasons for the things we see right and again this word truth is probably more of a problem than a solution in the nuclear context so I would say truth is a very dangerous word that I perhaps very overtly and explicitly avoid when I look at these two countries now we're running out of time we have two more speakers later on I wanted to get the panel's view on what next let's look ahead we have looked back at this historic visit 50 years ago today but what next for the US-China relations in such a evolving fluid in a complex geopolitical environment and Kerry would you would you like to make a start please what's your take on the future yeah I mean it's unlikely that things will dramatically improve I don't think that they're going to have a big makeup we know the issues that are kind of you know that they've put right at the front and I think the framework that that they've kind of articulated of competitor collaborator adversary I mean the the Americans certainly I think believe this is workable I don't think the Chinese accept it they don't accept that kind of division but they're pragmatic so I think you know the issue will be there'll be two issues about this one is how that framework that tripartite framework evolves so that issues which might be competitive one day become collaborative the next and then adversarial sometimes the sort of next day you know this is a very dynamic model but quite an unstable one and the second is alliances you know the Europeans and the European Union the British Australians factor in this and at what point they're going to disagree with America about where exactly China is a competitor where it's a collaborator we've already seen in the initial trade war in 2018 2019 the Europeans kind of straying a bit from the Americans and trying to sort of create a more bespoke China policy they talk about you know more of strategic autonomy they hope to achieve this it's not easy because I think America's able to put a lot of pressure on Europe and the UK so I think this is going to be quite a kind of turbulent period I don't see any reason why that's going to stop we have the framework it's just how you implement it and I mean from China's point of view presumably it will also continue to be quite frustrated by what it thinks are impediments to its freedom of action particularly if and when it becomes the world's biggest economy I think that cut to nicely to a Chinese perspective Lee would you like to tell us from China's perspective as you understand it and what is the future for the side of American relations Lee are you there yes sorry I'm here so yeah thank you for the question I actually want to add a little bit on based on this question as well as on I see another question about the new Cold War I want to explain a bit further I want to have the Cold War last century as reference there were there were three features of last Cold War or the Cold War we hope it's the only Cold War right so first is the fierce competition on ideology and second a comprehensive military confrontation and third economic independence and even isolation because the United States and the Soviet Union they not only had few economic ties but also established their own international economic systems and today accordingly first there is no at least not yet very obvious ideologic competition between China and the United States competition should be mutual but China has always been clear not to expert ideology to other countries and opposed the United States to do so and secondly there is no comprehensive military confrontation between the two countries there are some military frictions between China and the United States in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait but China has no will to have military confrontation as I said against the United States or against any country and finally China and the United States are highly independent interdependent economically so theoretically rationally and hopefully there will not be new Cold War and there were modest hopes when when Biden won US president and China US relation would get better as he was considered absolute opposite of Trump and last February Yang Jiechi director of the office of a foreign affairs committee expressed the hope for a healthy and stable development of bilateral relations and China is willing to take joint efforts however it's yeah quite depressing because I read from a recent American poll that the number of American people who like China in polls has dropped from 40% to 20% so it's it's very likely it won't be surprising and even likely that China US relation is going to be worse in the future but I think it it will still be away from the bottom line of military confrontation thank you thank you for your take one of the really interesting things observing US-China relations is that we seem to be in this parallel world meaning China articulate its intention pretty clear pretty well but Washington doesn't seem to buy into China's view of the world and that's the reality that we are in Nicola I wanted to come to you to take your wisdom on this you know during the Cold War nuclear weapons you know the possible nuclear war was you know really something that made you know the public discourse do you worry that you know this is something like this is going to happen again as this power of competition enters a new phase you know especially there's quite a lot of uncertainty of course you know the US domestic situation but certainly it is no denying that the power competition is going to intensify in the decades to come thanks Vincent yeah I think you're alluding to I think what has been recent fears over Taiwan in particular and and you know the United States and China very much you know it's a very low probable event that they would use intentionally or deliberately nuclear weapons it would more happen as a result of misunderstanding and and sort of an inadvertent scenario but but still the prospect is real in the way that it wasn't real really in the in the in the 70s and 80s just because of the pure numbers of course you know the China today and its nuclear capabilities its strategic military capabilities including those that are non-nuclear are bigger today than they were several decades ago so that that makes the prospect of even inadvertent accidental conflict hugely you know hugely worrying which is why I think you know when we're talking about arms control things like that we should be probably pushing for things like confidence building measures dialogue very much bespoke dialogue not you know big order issues perhaps but issues around how do you maintain communication to avoid escalation at sea and particularly not just around Taiwan but all the south China sea those kind of issues I think are what we need to be thinking about moving moving forward rather than former cold war you know like for like things and having an ABM treaty of sorts for instance between the US and China today but in general to answer a question I'm fairly positive in the sense that I think China's still down down plays significantly the nuclear element in its overall military doctrine and that's an overall positive it doesn't have a very sort of war fighting offensive approach still despite increases in modernization but I think there could be a lot more attempts by the United States and China to have more communication and dialogue and that would be I think beneficial to issues around Taiwan and other areas. Thank you Nicola. Angus what is your prediction for future? Well thank you I don't really have one I'm not I'm more a historian than foreign policy thinker so I've put that out there as the warning but to be honest I don't imagine much content much radically changing particularly on the sort of political military stalemate to want a better word in the long term I think that it will be in sort of like tech and cyber and things but also particularly on the questions of digital currencies from central banks and things and how the Chinese state in how it relates to the large Chinese financial sector and how the US perceives the financial sector because I think the Evergrande's difficulties last year are a premonition of what could come not necessarily in terms of a 2008 style crisis but if actually that these economic particularly the financial element will become an animating theme of the quotidian element to US-China relations and you have the advent of new initiatives like central bank digital currencies and also crypto currencies and things that will expand expand the financial sphere of that and the respective states will need to keep up with that and I don't necessarily believe that that will lead to conflict but it will necessitate a particular form of cooperation in order to ensure the stability to the emerging global digital financial sector and that's what I imagine will be the greatest lesson going forwards. That's interesting to take. James you study China-US relations in Central Asia give us a view from that part of the world because this is not the part of world that often make headlines when we talk about US and China relations right I think you are mute. Sorry going forwards into the future there's been a lot of calls recently in the US side to start looking at Central Asia again so I think there is definitely going to be some as a new initiative announced there's going to be some progress they're already looking to increase different relationship strategies the C5 plus 1 is a very good example of that that's been continued and they're trying to slowly up the ante on it. While simultaneously China the RI 2.0 they're going to look to sort of push these things out again they're making sure to once again engage with all the different countries and sort of assimilate both the national interests of the specific nations and indeed they're not just doing this in Central Asia but Central Asia specifically I know about they're speaking with all the governments and trying to figure out a new direction for the BRI because there have been problems recently could Kazakhstan sorry pulled out of a 1.5 billion investment deal and there's been other sort of rumblings as such especially in the Central Asian region recently so I think China is looking to reposition itself the US is looking to position itself and it will be interesting to see if they come to competition because they haven't really so far but there is the potential for this to occur. Great a lot of food for thoughts thank you very much indeed to my panel Carrie, Nicola, James, Lee and Angus let me hand this hosting right to Zeno and Anna both of whom will have some further thoughts on this subject we are talking about today. Thank you, thank you very much Vincent and thanks to everyone who has joined us today and thanks to my colleagues for being here. Yes I'd like to perhaps draw some final thoughts and Anna will do the same I think I have a bit of time if I may break the protocol slightly I'd like to just say something about Russia given that is on the headlines I've been writing a commentary this morning in Italian for a for a new Italian newspaper and basically I was trying to reflect on whether 50 years later we might be able to see a new kind of rapprochement at this time between the United States and Russia to isolate China. I think there is a lot of fantasy in this question however I just wanted to contribute to that first question of Russian that you received earlier on and by saying that I think there's been this idea has been in the mind has been a fantasy or at least has been in the mind of people like Obama, Trump and perhaps like Biden as well has been in the mind of few people in the United States over the last decade at least of course the fact that an idea exists doesn't mean that it's actually practically viable and I think we all recognize there are a lot of challenges but who knows perhaps in 10 years time we will do this again and that might be another topic for discussion but anyway if we go back to the overall discussion that we have today I thought I could just say a few words that might relate back to also to the issue of pragmatism which Kerry Brown dealt with Nicola addressed the question on about truth I think I can also relate it to that and from a perspective of international order which is normally the lens I try to use when looking at international relations and so I think what's striking a lot of us nowadays is the fact that well Nixon and Mao were so pragmatic and so willing to reopen relations between the US and China and above all to accept they were willing to accept the fact that there was socio-political diversity internal diversity between the US and China and this and Vincent we have discussed this a few days ago and this has been reminded by a Chinese minister for an affairs recent the fact that central probably the backbone of the Shanghai communique in 1972 was the fact that China and the US were willing to respect each other's political differences in terms of institutional systems clearly in recent years this respect is not there and so I guess that's why we're so fascinated by the pragmatism of the time I think we're not going to see for the time being as it was alluded to and we're actually going to see some sort of partial decadence in different areas or in different facets of the relationship and I think there are good reasons to say these there are several examples we could make but I want to start from a statement of two China based colleagues who have read recently in a recently published book and they are saying that we're heading towards a world order where there will be to some people sorry well what to some people it means a wolfwater diplomacy to other people means harmony and so the truth right and I thought this was a very controversial statement I get that but actually it really captures captures really well the sort of international order the sort of divergence that we're seeing and that we're going to see and it's something we saw a couple of years two three years ago already inside the united nations when we saw two groups of countries signing a letter about the way China handles the issue of human rights saying completely different things when attacking China the other endorsing the behavior of China and we also saw and this was reminded of their own China Russia delivery a joint statement in Beijing almost a month ago now on the 4th of February essentially saying there is the American democracy but there is also the Russian democracy and there is also the Chinese democracy and I think this is taking us beyond the US led liberal international order but it's not just Russia or China it's also the United States we talked about the B3W of Biden the better world of Joe Biden earlier on and I think that framework is about organizing a coalition of like-minded countries to achieve some decoupling with regard to some sensitive some strategic industry sensitive areas of domestic and foreign policy and so also the US is somehow going beyond delivering international order and contrary to the past however and this also was reminded earlier on where the China and the US are struggling to find an agreement because there's no common threat there's no there's not a Russia a Soviet Union this time and yes Professor Brown talked about how yeah the fundamentals of the Sino-Russian relationship are actually might actually be weak of course and I agree for the time being in the short term though this this will probably lead to a healthy sort of cooperative relationship but anyway just to to sum up decoupling might be worrying however might sound worrying however I think if this relationship has gone wrong also because of the economic interdependency between the two countries and I think this is the case well I wonder whether I'm speculating here but I wonder whether the coupling might bring some might be actually a positive development in the relationship might actually decrease the tension in some areas I hope so and even if there wasn't anything positive about decoupling I think there certainly is an element of realism an element of truth in the sense that the the the hopes for integration and between US and China in the past and the hopes for the democratization in China I think they were based more on on ideology rather than actually an accurate balance the sober assessment of the two countries and of their relationship so I guess this is my way of seeing this the negative things that we see today in a more positive light and thank you Vincent I guess I'll hand it back to you before going to Anna. Fantastic thanks very much Sino. Anna do you have any closing remarks on this topic? Thank you Vincent um yeah I'm just here to close the event um and because the discussions around US-China relations have become ever more saturated in both civic and academic discourse um and so like like our panelists were saying their interactions have become even more tense over the recent years so moving forward it is likely that this trend will continue for at least a foreseeable future and these two great powers have the global weight to influence global governance and financial markets from across regions around the world so I hope that you know as the saying goes it is important to appreciate nuance in foreign policy making because the devil is always in the details and so it is quite important that hopefully this roundtable has been an opportunity that we were able to move nuance beyond the borders of academia and into civic discourse. First I'd like to thank uh take this time to thank our chair Vincent and me of the Guardian for being able to direct this timely discussion and drawing from his very own expertise and not just as an experienced journalist in the field but also as a presenter of the recent BBC documentary on Henry Kissinger's first visit to China. This roundtable has also given us a chance to delve deeper into how we got to where we are today when it comes to US-China relations um with with with many thanks to our privileged speakers who share their time with us today. Professor Kerry Brown especially has been able to offer us within an overview of the two countries relations since the Nixon Mao era not just as a renowned scholar in the field but also as with the added value of his diplomatic experiences as a British diplomat serving in Beijing many years ago and whilst Sino-American economic competition has been a popular talk of the town Dr. Nicola Leveringhouse has also been able to give her fascinating take about the importance of US-Russia relations on missile defenses and their ability to influence China's very own position in nuclear arms race and our PhD students have have also been able to offer their research insights from the angle of both US and PRC. Angus has delved deeper into the significance of behind the original trip of Kissinger and Nixon to Beijing and the dynamics and legacies of that mid-century data on between the two big powers. James in particular also gave us a comparative view of Beijing and Washington's global economic investments the return of bilateral tension between the two countries and potential competition in Central Asia. On the China side of things Leland has specifically been able to talk about the ongoing controversies surrounding winter Olympics held in Beijing and where that fits into the conversation regarding the new Cold War. We hope that today's conversation will produce more roundtable discussions of this sort in the future and more importantly make me want an informed debate surrounding these two great powers more of a norm in public discourse moving away from strawman arguments that many of us are inclined to do so on the topic. I'd like to thank all of us Vickers today for being able to do so very comprehensively as we have heard from them today. I'd like to thank Zeno, Lizzie and Hannah, our colleagues from the School of Security Studies and the Laochina Institute for turning today's event into fruition. And for more events like this please do explore our website to subscribe to our newsletters. Thank you everyone for joining with us today and I hope to see you all again in our next event. Goodbye.