 So, my name is Murray Hebert from the Southeast Asia Chair here at CSIS, we're delighted you're all here. We have our first panel which is going to talk about recent developments in the South China Sea. We're going to change the order up a little bit from what you saw in the program. Our first speaker will be Patrick Ronan, then Alan Dupont, then Dr. Tui and then Chris Johnson. But I'll introduce them as we go through the panel. So, Dr. Patrick Ronan is a Senior Advisor and Senior Director of the Asia Pacific Security Program at the Center for New American Security. Earlier he was a Senior Director of the Institute for National Security Studies, National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. For more details on his bio, you can look in their booklet. Well, Murray, thank you and Ernie and CSIS, congratulations on another tremendously attended conference. I've just flown in from Hawaii, so I apologize if I'm half asleep. What has changed, the update on the South China Sea from a U.S. perspective in the past year, is the deepening and persistent pattern of Chinese assertiveness, something I've called tailored coercion. And I was in Da Nang just a few weeks ago with Professor Jerry Cohen and Carl Thayer and a number of others, Greg Polling here from CSIS and we had a long dialogue about this, but it's not just the oil rig, the reclamation of the Johnson South Reef, the assertiveness in the Second Thomas Shoal, the action since 2012 in particular at Scarborough Shoal, intruding into waters disputed with Malaysia, domestic legal enforcement regime that's been put in place. The concern about the East China Sea aid is air defense identification zone that might be replicated in the South China Sea, potential unilateral energy and resource exploitation and challenges to other portions of the Nine Dash Line area, including even possibly waters around Indonesia's Natuna gas field. So that's in a nutshell sort of a lot of the things that have happened in the last couple of years, part of this really five year pattern of more assertiveness on the part of China. It's complex, we heard a very pugnacious introduction from Chairman Rogers, he's getting down to the point about American commitment. In my paper I prepared, I'm fairly critical of China but I do try to set it into a broader context and including trying to understand what the Chinese are doing and including their tremendous uncertainty internally. And internal security is a huge question for them. But bottom line, in fact the United States does need to work with the region to figure out how to change the calculus. So I think on the fundamental point, I would agree with Chairman Rogers, our aim is US policy in general, and I'm not a policy maker, I'm a think tanker, but I think the US policy overall is indeed still to expand cooperation with China and yet hedge. Unfortunately, when it comes to these gray zone areas where there's this tailored coercion, we're not having an impact, as Chairman Rogers suggested, on changing Chinese assertiveness. And so now the question is, whether it's the East China Sea, South China Sea, different areas, but same kind of Chinese behavior, what is exactly the way to impose costs on bad behavior or not abiding by rules that are mutually agreed to? And that's sort of what I want to focus on, which is a few points for US thinking. And I guess, again, another change in the past year from US policy perspective is simply that the United States government is more serious this year than it was even a year ago about cost imposition strategies against bad behavior in the South China Sea. One, we have to keep engaging China, right? I mean, so the administration is right not to back off, this is persistent, this is going to continue, China is not going to be contained or isolated, we have to deal with China, we have to have a relationship with China, we know that. And we're going to seek a peaceful resolution to dispute in disputed areas, but we have to be firm at the same time that unilateral changes to the status quo through coercion or force should not be acceptable. And that's the area we have to work on. So these other points basically try to truss up this response to tailored coercion. First, maintaining greater presence in and around the South China Sea. I think the United States is doing this. It's gradual, it's not a fundamental change, but it is a step up in US presence. And we're doing this in a number of ways. We've seen the enhanced defense cooperation agreement with the Philippines. We've already continued to now deploy, we're now going to be stationed in the second littoral combat ship up to four, potentially at Singapore, which is also an important hub for inclusive security dialogue like the Shangri-La Dialogue. We're expanding defense cooperation with Vietnam. I've argued recently and I would argue again today for including lifting even the lethal arms ban on Vietnam. Not because we have dramatic things we want to sell Vietnam right away, but I think it's an important symbolic step to start engaging Vietnam on that discussion. I think we need some muscle in our diplomacy to show that others are entitled to protect their interests as well. Not because we want them to go to war with China, but simply because we want to make sure that there are deterrence from assertiveness and that people have to find diplomatic ways and legal ways to deal with their differences. We should be expanding cooperation with Malaysian Indonesia. We're basically doing that, especially in the wake of the very contested election in Indonesia. It's going to be important to build on that. Countries outside of the South China Sea use the South China Sea. So India, Japan, Australia, others, they need to be part of this dialogue. The United States also needs to be following up probably next year on the future presence in Guam, training areas in the common wealth of Northern Mariana Islands, as well as Australia where the air training fields are going to become more important than the marine presence in Darwin over time. And the next defense white paper that will be out next year in Australia with the Abbott administration, I think will highlight and should highlight the alliance's importance as a regional public good, including in the South China Sea. Second thing we should be doing, this calculated shows a force, not a big believer that this has a big impact, but there are times when having your presence around at a time when there's mischief going on, including largely surveillance though, or port visits to countries, including allies, the way we had a submarine in Philippines during some of the Scarborough Shoal dust-up in 2012 in particular, more bilateral and multilateral exercises, naval air amphibious, law enforcement, all of these can be ways to demonstrate the U.S. operationalizing that presence. Talking about incremental changes, not fundamental big changes. Third thing is building partnership capacity. Again, this is ongoing, it's been ongoing for a long time, so it's not fundamentally new, but we're doing more of it, Coast Guard and Law Enforcement, Maritime Domain Awareness, Naval Air Professionalism, and then finally, regional efforts. So supporting ASEAN claimant cooperation, especially among Malaysia, as well as Vietnam, Philippines. I and I would be nice, but I think they'll go along with those three if they can reach a conclusion about how to, for instance, support things like the International Arbitration case. Supporting an ASEAN binding code of conduct. This is something that I think Carl Thayer will talk about. Keeping maritime issues on the ASEAN-centered institutions, such as the ASEAN Regional Forum, the ASEAN Defense Minister's Meeting Plus, the East Asia Summit, and finally, a regional information sharing regime based on airborne intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance. Chairman Rogers hinted at this, but the time has come for this. We need to start basically declassifying really not very sensitive information. It's more abundantly available and basically put everything on C-span in the South China Sea, if you will, so that at least people are aware and can see what's going on and have information to debate what's going on. So that's why the footage of the Vietnamese fishing trawler that got rammed and sunk, seeing that was very impressive, just like the Japanese Coast Guard Cutter that got rammed by a fishing trawler a few years ago, also makes a case. I don't think the trend is very positive for the year ahead. I don't think that the tensions are actually going to subside. I don't think anything I've given you here is an answer in the next year to this problem, but I think it rebalances the U.S. ability to help shape and to help keep engaged with all of the key actors, including China, including our allies, including new partners like Vietnam, including actors outside of the South China Sea to try to come to good order at sea, to try to come to the rules of the road and the inclusive, open rules-based system we want. So thank you, and I'll be happy to expand on the Q&A. Thank you. Sorry, apologies. Thank you very much, Patrick. Our next speaker is Dr. Alan Dupont, who is a non-resident fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Australia. He's also a professor of international security at the University of South Wales. Alan, please. Thanks very much, Murray. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I know that in Washington one has to keep things short and sweet. So I intend to do that. I have 10 minutes. I've been asked to talk about the perspective of the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and ASEAN towards the South China Sea disputes. I'm not actually going to do that. I'm going to give you a couple of overarching comments about the significance of the South China Sea, and then I'm going to draw out some of the key points from the paper that I've written that is available to you. I think the first point I want to make about the South China Sea is that Westerners generally have not appreciated the significance and the importance of the South China Sea, notwithstanding the fact that in recent years it's been in the news a lot. If you go back and have a look at writings about the South China Sea, you'll see that it's really from a very Eurocentric and Atlantis perspective. You often see references to the South China Sea couched in European or North American terms. Nicholas Spikeman, for example, calls the South China Sea the Asia's Mediterranean, or others refer to it as the Chinese Caribbean. So I think this is not a very helpful way of looking at the South China Sea. One, because it devalues the significance of it, the fact that it's a completely different sea to the European hotspots that we're used to looking at historically. And most importantly, my argument is that the South China Sea has become the most important sea globally now, not only because of international trade flows, but also because of energy flows and because of the strategic issues that are now at risk in the South China Sea over these disputed islands. So I think we need to elevate the importance of the South China Sea in terms of international perspectives and understandings about where the future hotspots of the world are going to be in the future. Because this is not just a regional problem, it's going to be a global problem. If you think about those trade flows, if you think about the strategic issues at stake here, if there is a conflict, a serious conflict in the South China Sea, it's definitely going to have global implications. Because if you have any disruption of that trade through the Malacca Strait into the South China Sea, the implications will not be confined to Southeast Asia. I can assure you of that. And just to illustrate that point, the Malacca Strait has arguably become now the world's critical waterway. The amount of oil going through the Malacca Strait by way of example is about three times that of the Suez Canal and about 15 times that which flows through the Panama Canal. So I would argue that the Malacca Strait has become more critical than the Suez, Panama Canal and the Straits of Hormuz. Now, that is why these disputes over a group of really quite unprepossessing the lylons of coral reefs has become so important. Because this is not just about territorial issues, it's about who owns these islands. But it's about if you own the islands, you own all the resources underneath the sea. Not only oil and gas, but importantly, marine living resources, fish. Now, I wrote about this for the Washington Quarter a few months ago. I think this is one factor that's been missing in a lot of the conventional explanations about the drivers of conflict in the South China Sea. That fish is an important resource. It also feeds into the drivers of this conflict. But it's much more than territory. It's much more than resources. It's about the shifting power balance in the region. It's about China's rise. It's about increasing nationalism. And these are all playing out in the South China Sea because these island disputes have become triggers for a much broader conflict between the great powers in the region. So put simply, China clearly views the South China Sea as its sea, not just in name, but in fact, that it wishes to push the U.S. out of that western Pacific because it sees its rightful patronage as to dominate the South China Sea. So it's about China's rise and it's about other countries resisting that rise. And that is why these disputes have assumed far greater importance than that would appear when you just look at them. By the way, can we have my first slide up? It's always useful to have a map up if we can get one. That's possible later on. Okay, I just want to draw out five big points about the conflicts in the South China Sea. My first one is that when you look at it from an ASEAN perspective, in the initial stages of the conflicts, much of the concern among the ASEAN states were about the intramural conflicts between the ASEAN states, remembering that there are four ASEAN states which claim islands and reefs in the South China Sea. So this was a big issue for ASEAN. But what became apparent to most ASEAN countries was that China was going to be the bigger long-term concern simply because of its growing strategic weight and because it was showing a much greater degree of activism than anyone could have anticipated 10 or 15 years ago. So we've gone from concerns about intra-ASEAN cohesion and fragility being affected by these disputes to ASEAN concerned about China's territorial claims in the South China Sea, which I think as most of you know covers almost 90% of the sea. We finally have you up here. Thank you. I'm afraid this doesn't come out quite as well with all these lights on, but when I start talking about a few of the issues here, it might give you some sense of where they're located. The second point I want to make is that while Vietnam and the Philippines have been quite isolated in their attempts to elevate the South China Sea in ASEAN's concerns, I think that sentiment is starting to shift within ASEAN to a more robust and more united position vis-a-vis China. Now, China has been very successful in picking off each of the ASEAN countries and bringing a lot of pressure to bear on them to either settle these disputes or to concede to China's claims. And China has been, as I said, quite successful in doing that over the last five years, but I think it's going to be more difficult for it to do in the future because the ASEAN countries are now becoming extremely anxious and insecure about some of China's, what I call, muscular unilateralism over the last couple of years. The third point I want to make is about Indonesia's position as the key swing state in ASEAN. Now, most of you know that Indonesia is not a claimant state to the Spratlys, but Indonesia does come into this dispute increasingly because it owns a group of islands called the Natuna Islands, which I'm afraid doesn't show up too well on this map, but it's in the southern part of the South China Sea and the Indonesians now believe and have come out and said this publicly that China's territorial claims may actually intersect the exclusive economic zone of the Natuna Islands. So now Indonesia's interests are being engaged, and Indonesia, which has adopted a very softly approach China, is now starting to take a much more robust position in drawing China's attention to the fact that Indonesia is not going to resolve from defending its territorial claims on the Natuna Islands. The fourth point I want to make is that some ASEAN states are increasingly looking outside ASEAN for their counter-strategies. Now, this is a very significant development given the broad consensus over the last 30 or 40 years within ASEAN that ASEAN must work together consensus decision-making and a great reluctance to go outside ASEAN. I think that is starting to change and you see this with Vietnam and the Philippines in particular where they're now seeking to draw in other larger powers to balance China, and that's the shift that's starting to take place. The final point I want to make, and this will be my last point, is that while I do not believe that there is yet an arms race in Southeast Asia, there is no doubt that the militarisation of the Spratly Island and the South China Sea disputes is of great concern to the region and is propelling and forcing countries to look at their defence spending and particularly their spending on the maritime space. So we're starting to see ASEAN countries increase their defence spending, putting more money into maritime capabilities, and unfortunately, in my view, this is likely to worsen the disputes over time because the triggers for future military conflict are going to multiply and become more dangerous. So that is not a very positive development, but it's an understandable one if you're sitting in the shoes of the ASEAN states and you're looking at what China is doing in the South China Sea. So that's my final point. Thank you very much. Great, Eln, that was great. Thank you very much. Our next speaker, and he's going to use PowerPoint, so can we get it up quickly? Our next speaker is Dr. Tran Trung Thuy, who is the research fellow and director of the foundation for the EC. As the Vietnamese call it, some of us call it South China Sea studies at the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam. He's also deputy director of the Center for Foreign Policy and Regional Studies at the Diplomatic Academy. Dr. Thuy, over to you. Good morning. It's a great honour for me to speak again here. I think one of the most important conference on the South China Sea issue. I will speak on some recent development reasons and provide some of my personal observations on its implications of the region. I agree with the Chairman and also with previous speakers on the increasing assertiveness of China in the South China Sea in last year and in the first half of this year. And we can see China's deepening claims by scopes of its claims and also by sophisticated methods of the field on diplomacy and also in domestic affairs. And if you see, for example, on the air, after establishing the ADIS in the East China Sea, China also announced the possibilities of establishing ADIS in the South China Seas. And to prepare for possible ADIS in the South China Sea, China has now invested huge resources on expanding the reef in Johnson to build an air strip in the South China Sea. And if you see here, with the combination with air strip in Goody Islands in the Paracels and air strip in Spratly, China can provide air coverage for their enforcement of possible ADIS in the South China Sea. And also they conduct more offshore patrols and enforce China maritime laws by the State Ocean League Administration. On the other hand, China also deepening the claims on the seabed and a little notice on this development. We can see China already actually announced their claims on more than 200 ship grids in the seabed of the South China Sea. And they also claim to conduct archeology in the South China Seas and plans to protect this size and in order to register maritime seagrows for UNESCO, one heritage test. On diplomacy, China continue with divide and rule strategies. More and more investment from China to offer economic incentives to South Asian countries, especially to non-Clement countries. And you can see in recent two and three years, China offer a lot of initiative. For example, maritime seagrows, Asia infrastructure investment bank. China also upgrade China-ASEAN free trade agreement and also offer Asian-China charity on good nobleness and cooperation. And I think it's that indication of China offer alternative for COC. And China also actively pushing diplomatic pressure to prevent ASEAN from forming a common position on the South China Sea issue. And they single out specific countries in specific times. And you can see after Philippines, they turn to Japan. After Japan, they turn to Vietnam and they try to single out specific countries. They don't want to deal with two or three countries at the same time. They continue with cabbage strategy in the South China Sea for salami slicing or as Chairman Mike Roger mentioned, just leaf by leaf and step by step. So we can see after Second Thomas Solst, we see new incident with scabrows. With China fight the water cannons on Philippines fishing boats. And we can see also the exercise, military exercise in James Shaw's. And we can see incident with the U.S. ship corpents, the most near collisions between U.S. and China's impeccable incidents. And China also increased military activities in the South China Seas. On other hand, they also adopted a lot of domestic measures to strengthen their claims in the South China Seas. For example, new passports with nine dashed lines, search and boss rules, and fishing rules adopted by Hainan province. And they also announced new fishing bans. They also published a new horizontal map with ten dashed lines. And you can see the map of China now is similar to the map of Southeast Asia already. And they also enhanced the activity in so-called sansacity. And if we put the recent incident into broader picture that we compute since 2007, we can see the continuation of China assertiveness on the South China Sea. Almost incident happened anyway within the nine dashed line with almost every country, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the U.S. and so on. But the turning point is the ongoing tension between China and Vietnam relating to placement of China deep sea drilling orach within Vietnamese EEZ. This is a new level of assertiveness. In various criteria, it's the first time China drinks in disputed waters. The project just prevents other countries from conducting oil and gas exploration. But here is the first time China actually drinks in the continental shelf. And second is that it's a high level of mobilization of protecting force. For the first time, they deploy more than 100 government and civilians ships to protecting the oil rates including military ships. And the first time, so long duration of tension, more than three months. And China continue with and more in term of mass, in term of location about ramming and later cannon firing techniques. And here's a video you can see China using water, paddling, and China and so on. And the position of parties regarding to these incidents, China considers the Paracels belong to China and China sovereignty is undisputable. That the oil rate location is within contiguous zones of Triton-Island. And the position of parties regarding to these incidents, China considers the Paracels belong to China and China sovereignty is undisputable. The position is within contiguous zones of Triton-Island, the most southwest future of Paracels. Vietnam position is that Vietnam has sovereignty over Paracels and China illegally occupies the Paracels by force in 1974. And China during activity violates Vietnam sovereignty rights is the error within its own easy measure from its coastlines. And we can see some weaknesses of China's argument. First, the argument is that China Paracels is indisputable. We can see no affirmative evidence proving China sovereignty. Even China official maps until 1929 did not include Paracels. And you can see two maps here, one by Western and one by China official China maps in 1929. The most southern point is Hainan Islands. For Vietnam, Vietnam also maintain claims and so evident at least in 17th century. So two countries maintain claims in the region. So occupation by military force violates international law of course. But here is also more significant this location of the rig is outside of Paracels waters. You can see here on the map, the equidistant lines between Vietnam and China and you can see the location of the rig is on the Vietnamese side of equidistant lines. For example, if Paracels can generate any kind of water, you can see also the location of the rig is outside the waters of Paracels. So some observation, my personal observation, China approaches the continuation of Salamis slicing strategy with more centralized and coordinated approach with garbage strategies, three levels of forces. And now we see some developments that state-owned enterprise is strategic weapons for foreign policy. And China now moving from reactive assertiveness to active aggressiveness. You see, in this incident, Vietnam did not conduct any activity before that. And the implication, deterioration of Vietnam-China relationship because the implication for freedom of navigation, ASEAN is more concerned on the issue. And for the first time since 1995, they released a statement on South China Sea issue. And we see U.S. is more active in this region on this issue. And U.S. positions also have spillover efforts on influence on positions of other parties. And Japan is also more active in voicing and in maritime cooperation with ASEAN claimant. And but so far, all of these coordinated or different approach could not prevent China from expansion. And we can see bilateral and multilateral approaches are effective in preventing China. And we need, I agree with previous speaker, we need more creative thinking on that. We need concerted efforts to impose more costs for China. China's calculation is based on costs and benefits in short term and long term. And in this aspect, ASEAN and U.S. should take a list on that issue with more coordination, with more rule-sensing, including more engagement from U.S. in this region. Thank you very much. Dr. Tui, thank you very much. Our next speaker is our colleague from CSIS, Chris Johnson. Chris is the Freeman chair in China Studies here at CSIS. And he has spent prior to coming to CSS, he spent nearly two decades working in the intelligence and foreign policy communities here in Washington. Chris. Thanks, Bernie. And I'd just like to thank my fellow panelists. I had a really rich discussion this morning and certainly that last presentation gives us a lot to think about in terms of what China's up to. I think what I'm going to try to do and in order to be in keeping with Chairman Rogers' suggestion that we not leave any ideas in the pocket, so we want to get to the audience actually as quickly as we can, get you guys engaged, I'm just going to offer a couple of brief overview comments. And I'm going to try to focus not on some of these details because I think they've been really well laid out already, but try to do ways we can think about why the Chinese are doing this. And how we should think about, how we should respond. And I think what's been driving my thinking on this recently is just that, you know, like any other problem one might look at as an analyst, I think you need to have an analytic construct that helps you filter the data to create some kind of a reality that has some explanatory power with any luck. And so I'll be honest in saying I would differ slightly with Congressman Rogers this morning in terms of my core analytic construct has been with China on most issues that generally speaking, they don't do things where they're shooting themselves in the face on a regular basis. They're generally pretty pragmatic in their approach, not wanting to create a lot of difficulty. And so when they're doing things like we've just been walking through that at least to us through our western lens seems so blatantly contradictory to their own interests and would seem to create a response in the region that is precisely the opposite of what they seek to have happen. I have to ask myself a couple of questions. I think one of those questions is what do the Chinese know or perhaps better what do they assess that makes them think this is a good idea when in fact I don't or at least a viable idea. And two, and I think perhaps more worrisome for all of us if it's true, is this being driven by some sort of sense that the Chinese over time have begun to buy into a self-generated narrative about their rising power and influence in the region and therefore that the kind of the sucking sound, if you will, of that phenomenon is sufficient to allow them to be very forthright in asserting their sovereignty and not face much of a response. So in recent trips to China I've kind of asked these questions of people I was meeting with and it was interesting. I got answers really in both of those directions so it's kind of interesting. I guess I would just offer three sort of big points to help us think about how we would frame a discussion on this. The first I think that helps us understand why they're doing this is to acknowledge that this is a defined strategy, not a series of tactical developments or responses to things that the neighbors are doing or the U.S. is doing and so on. And so I think it's quite dangerous actually if we find ourselves focusing on the possible tactical motivations such as, you know, CNOC or others want to advance their commercial interests or the military is fighting with the civilian leadership or in fact has the civilian leadership on the defensive. I mean my own view is just ridiculous given Xi Jinping's emerging power within the system. So we have to understand it as a strategy and as each one of these episodes linking together to advance that strategy. I don't think this is a blueprint, step-by-step grand strategy of some sort where they know exactly each move they want to make but there's an end point to all of this that is clear and obvious. So I think that's an important factor. The second I think frankly is really to focus much more on this issue of the mind of Xi Jinping as the new Chinese leader and I think that's very important now. I mean myself as a sort of Morgenthau realist in terms of how I approach international relations I don't like to dwell on pop psychology but I do think with Xi Jinping it's much more important and it's more important precisely because he has accrued so much power to himself inside the system and has really changed the machine if you will of how the Chinese crap their foreign policy and frankly I think it's much more difficult opaque system now than it was under his predecessor Hu Jintao who relied very heavily on the bureaucracy to get things done precisely because he didn't have a whole lot of intrinsic power to himself and so I think in some ways given that there were so many agencies in the know if you will about policy decisions it was easier perhaps for those of us as researchers to be able to pick up a general picture of what was going on. My sense now is so much of what's happening in these incidents is she makes a decision it's communicated to the relative the related arm of the Chinese government and it's executed and so therefore his thinking his approach I think is much more important perhaps for us to focus on. So what can we say about his thinking on these issues? I think two points that I would just stress the first is that I think Xi Jinping has a much more sort of ideological view of the world of China's position in the world than his predecessors have had and you know this is a difficult subject to sort of discuss here in Washington because sometimes we don't do nuance particularly well and there's an interest to sort of say oh ideological he must be a hardline communist it's Mao Zedong you know that sort of thing no not at all but he is a Marxist and he looks at things in dialectical terms and I think if you focus on and you think about things through a lens of historical determinism and the correlation of material forces in these kind of Marxist concepts and your China you're feeling pretty good about your position you don't see a real challenge to your position and as my colleague Ernie Bauer is so fond of saying in Asia economics is security and so to the degree that the Chinese feel that they're the only economic game in town as Chairman Rogers said this morning that I think makes them feel that the ASEAN countries others involved might complain a lot along this process but ultimately they will sort of stand aside because of their dependence and interest in China's economic prospects and so I really think this is where things like the Trans-Pacific Partnership getting our own house in order here domestically to provide that alternative economic entity for countries in the region to be able to rely on reliably is very important. The second point I would make is just to note that it's also clear I think so far from his actions that Xi Jinping's appetite for risk both domestically and internationally is much higher than his predecessors. I try to say that in a very value neutral way. I think it's important that we not say that this is implicitly bad I think it has a lot of potentially bad consequences but right now it's just a statement to suggest that he has this higher appetite for risk and we need to be aware of that and my own sense is that when you combine that higher appetite for risk with what I described earlier about changes to the way foreign policy decisions are made it means that indications and warning sort of indicators are much harder to see now and maybe much less likely. So for PECOM or for other folks who are tracking these developments you may not have the kind of warning that you might have previously that something is about to happen. So I guess I'll wrap it up there in the audience then. Excellent, thanks a lot Chris. Okay, so we've had four excellent panelists they've thrown a lot of ideas out there and so we're now over to you the audience. If you have a question we would prefer you have a question if you have a statement please keep it short and try to end with a question mark if possible. So please identify yourself and there are going to be mic runners who are going to give you the mic. Chris? Thanks, Chris Nelson, Nelson Report. Just a quick comment and then a question. Just imagine five years ago we had heard Chairman Rogers' speech what would we be thinking? We'd all be going holy cow what a winger you know and now here we are listening to that and we're following the analysis and we're all kind of there. You know the discussions are about how do we counter these things not oh my god what are you talking about? You know just five years ago it's stunning actually and I think we need to remind ourselves we should be stunned by what's going on. My question, this is a constant chicken and egg we all kind of agree that ASEAN and the Australians and Singapore and everybody that they've got to act collectively in order to have a chance of an effective counter to China but we also agree that especially given the narrative of U.S. decline and some of the false lessons that are drawn from the Crimea and Syria and all that that the U.S. has to lead in order to give the neighbors the power to do something. How do you bridge this gap? How do you what do we need to be doing actively beyond some of the things we're doing is it time for a more active Seventh Fleet presence? A symbolic use of actual force so to deter the possibility of having to actually use the damn force. Are we at that point yet? How do we work together? Who goes first? Can it only be collective or must we go first? That's my question. Thanks. I don't know. Patrick that's sort of seem to be your almost you want to start? Jump in if you like. Chris this is an ongoing saga that I think will continue for some time and I think it's going to take us multiple years to try to put in place a broader set of effective tools bilaterally, multilaterally including our relationship with China to hopefully ratchet down some of the rising tensions that are complex that we've heard about why these are ongoing. So I've outlined some of those tools I've even talked about flexing some muscle at the right time but I don't think that get into tactical solutions I don't think that's a solution per se I just want to give policy makers I think policy makers need more leverage more tools to gain leverage and the participating the claimants states themselves need more capacity for military defense and coast guard law enforcement defense up to a certain point yes that does introduce the complication of more triggers as Alan pointed out but I also think it introduces more deterrence. United States like every other country in this region including China is really less interested in conflict than it is with influence and the US doesn't have a particularly high appetite for confrontation on these issues but it needs to be willing to accept some greater risk including those shows of force at the right time to help dissuade Chinese leaders from thinking that this is an easy benefit that is making the nine dash line de facto reality Chris I know you've probably heard this phrase leading from behind and I know it's been disparaged a lot in the US it's actually happens to be an Indonesian phrase leading from behind but there's a lot to be said for the US not being out in front on the South China Sea disputes. It's not saying you shouldn't perhaps nuance your strategy a bit more and I can suggest some ways of doing that but I think it would be a mistake for the US to leap out here and do exactly the things the Chinese are accusing you of doing. At the moment if you look at this objectively the US is really in a pretty strong position. You've got all the countries in the region pretty much lining up the US to hedge against China's rise. The region is doing a lot itself to respond maybe not that effectively at the moment but it's difficult for China to really get traction on this argument that you're trying to contain China when you look at what US policy responses have been over the last three or four years. So I would have thought you could achieve your strategic objectives which is to maintain the safety of its international sea lands and global commons, provide support for your allies and friends in the region but do it in a low key non-confrontational way and be seen to be responding to requests from the region rather than the US pushing its own interest. That's the way I would go with the US strategy. I'll just add a couple points. I think again to think about it from sort of the 50,000 foot level I think one of the issues and it picks up on what Alan just said is that while we do need to think carefully about how we approach it you know ASEAN I think as demonstrated in an earlier round of this debate needs a ringleader it doesn't necessarily need to be the United States it can be an ASEAN country as Alan suggested earlier the role of Indonesia I think is very interesting going forward but there needs to be some sort of an organizing presence and I do think that for good or for ill they do look to us to play that role regardless of whether that's the case or not you know whether we deserve the influence we have or not they do watch what we do and listen to what we say very carefully on these issues as do the Chinese so my feeling is that if you want to get this right the first big step is to make sure that everything you're saying and doing is being crafted and thought about in the context not just of the political or the particular bilateral relationship you might be focusing on because of a presidential trip or something like that at that given time but how that decision is going to be viewed by the other players in the region and that requires I think then a lot of pre-briefing and post-briefing of allies about what we're doing because if you don't then those countries will you know do what we all do to craft their own narrative to explain what's happening and as we all know that when we're crafting our own narrative about something as usually the darkest possible narrative possible Michael Michael Yehuda from GW I think in the last week or so there's been signs of usual commentators, academics and think tankers in Beijing talking to western reporters in a rather questioning way about the way China has behaved and one at least has said that the United States should in some sense show that China has to pay a cost for its behaving others have raised questions about the fact that Asians do not seem to accept the official Chinese view about its history of humiliation and so on. Now I'd be interested in how the panelists assess this and whether or not they see this as some kind of domestic constraints upon China's recent actions. I think I've been reading the same articles you have and one thing that struck me about them while given anonymously in a few cases was how these Chinese think tankers I think primarily have been suggesting that there's a debate or at least some criticism inside the system about whether or not this is the right approach and that's pretty rare for them to do that especially with western journalists so I find that to be very interesting. I'm not sure the debate matters that much because I think those comments tend to conclude with but the boss has decided this is the way we're going to do it and they have a choice. So I think that's an important factor to underscore but it does suggest that there are at least some inside the system who are sort of wondering just like we're all wondering whether or not this is ultimately going to backfire on the Chinese and you know we hear a lot of discussion about the scoring of own goals and this sort of thing. I just like to emphasize that relying on the other side to consistently score own goals is not a strategy. It's wishful thinking and also I think that we should keep our minds open to the idea that indeed they may not be scoring own goals on themselves and they know exactly what they're doing with this strategy because they think it will be effective. I mean I think we have to at least keep our minds open to that possibility. We've heard some very valuable introductory remarks and I just want to try to get the speakers to broaden it even further. We're concerned with trends. I'd like to see where you think the South China Sea strategy and you're right it is a strategy fits in the China's overall foreign policy and its domestic policy. For example it's obvious that Hong Kong is going to be a crisis soon. Taiwan two years down the road will once again become perhaps more important than the current concerns over what are still just piles of rock. With Ma stepping down it's going to be very hard whoever succeeds him to continue the success cross trade agreements etc. When we look at China's domestic policy we see Xi Jinping is indeed a high roller a risk taker. He's engaging in more repression than we've seen his predecessors engage in. Can you relate the South China Sea strategy to these other emerging trends as well as to the East China Sea? How broad can the picture be meaningfully made? Sure. And no I did not pay Jerry to ask that question. Just so we're clear. Let me, I hope I didn't misspeak in my opening remarks. I wasn't simply trying to describe a South China Sea strategy. It's a comprehensive foreign policy strategy. When I say there's a defined strategy I mean in Toto. And the East China Sea and the South China Sea are linked. The behavior there clearly is linked. Again my concern is that if we focus on tactical explanations for individual episodes we're going to miss the big picture. And if your construct is wrong you're going to have wrong conclusions and therefore wrong policy recommendations. You asked if I could tie the domestic situation to this foreign policy strategy I could very easily do that but I tend to disagree with that sort of thinking that somehow there are concerns about the economy slowing and the need for distraction with bread and circuses and so on is driving this foreign policy. It tends to cheapen the idea that no, it's a defined strategy for its own purposes. The domestic obviously influences the external but I don't think it's being driven by that. What I think we see is the parallelism in the way Xi Jinping is running the country both domestically and abroad. And one key theme to kind of tie the two together is that he's trying to pursue a series of reforms that are very, very hard that have lots of opponents inside the system. This is true domestically but people forget that the third plenum document last fall also had a lot of reforms of the judicial system, social reforms, military structural reform which I think is playing a very big part in what's going on in their external behavior. And there seems to be a sense that's developing that because these challenges are difficult to be able to justify what he wants to do and get people on board he needs to create a certain sense of urgency or crisis with regard to both the domestic situation and the external situation. So in terms of how we can understand that as outside observers I guess one of my points would be what does it mean for the rest of us including the regional claimants and everyone else in the region that she appears to have concluded that he needs to maintain a certain level of tension both domestically and externally in order to be successful with what he's trying to do. Hong Kong and Taiwan I agree completely. I think Hong Kong is headed in a very dangerous direction in part because Xi Jinping seems to take a much harder view on Hong Kong than his predecessors. I tried to get to the bottom of why that is. It's been hard to do. I do find it interesting that his father was the party secretary in southern Guangdong province when in fact Hong Kong was a hostile base of subversion and the British were running in there and so on. I do think if I'm sitting in Taipei and I'm watching what's happening in Hong Kong I do find myself saying why is one country two systems a good idea? It's kind of difficult to see. We'll see whether they do the right thing on universal suffrage or not. But all these things certainly are should be seen as a cohesive net and I think the way to tie it all together is Xi Jinping's idea that it's about the party and its continued hold on power and it's about China's return to great power status and as such they're going to exercise their sort of behaviors both internally and externally as if they are a confident strong great power. I think that's the best way to try to tie it together. Can I just add a couple of points to Chris's analysis I think he's absolutely right on those questions but I'd say from a broader strategic perspective I think the South China Sea has become a critical element of Chinese strategy for a couple of reasons. One is if you look at their last two five-year plans you'll see they've given great emphasis to the maritime domain because essentially the South China Sea has become the major conduit and maritime highway for China's future economic growth. All the resources it needs the energy and so on have to come through that sea. It's become critical to Chinese thinking whether it's economic or geostrategic. Secondly you're aware of the fact that the Chinese and Hu Jintao in particular have referred to the Malacca dilemma that is the concerns that in a future conflict with the United States for example that the U.S. may choose to cut off the flow of goods to China through the Malacca Strait. And that's been specifically mentioned and PLA strategists look at this now all the time as to how they can find ways around that. So I think if you see it in terms of the military strategy they're putting enormous resources into their maritime capabilities. They're not doing that just for fun. They're doing that because that's where they see most likely sources of contention. These are the vital sea lanes for China and they're tired of outsourcing Chinese economic security to the U.S. 7th fleet. They want the PLA and the U.S. 7th fleet down there providing protection for Chinese goods and energy. So I think all those factors play into Chinese strategic thinking about the importance of the South China Sea. Can I just throw in one more comment on that because I think what Alan just said is really important. The other piece here is as Chris was saying earlier we're sort of saying what happened here what's going on. This is very shocking and so on. They've actually told us exactly what they were going to do starting from the 18th party congress in 2012 in the work report the political work report that the predecessor Hu Jintao delivered said China's now is a maritime power and people say it's one sentence who cares. They hadn't said that for several hundred years so they were very clearly indicating a direction with that. They also said in that document that the size and composition and so on of the People's Liberation Army should be consistent with China's growing national power and strength and interest abroad. That's a pretty broad sort of definition for how you're going to build your military and then Xi Jinping himself has held several of these Politburo level study sessions on the maritime issue where he's also been very clear about the direction. So to me they haven't been exactly hiding how they're thinking about this issue and we should read what they say very carefully. My name is Nguyen Ngoc big with the National Congress of Vietnamese Americans. I have a remark and then a quick questions addressed to Dr. Chan-Chung Thuy. My remark is that we are sometimes trapped by our language by calling this massive international water the South China Sea somehow it predisposes people to think that somehow it belongs to China whereas even the Chinese named for it Nanhai doesn't say anything about China it just says Southern Sea. So I think that's why there's a Vietnamese foundation called the Nguyen Thai Hock Foundation that has been circulating a petition that said now receive over 100,000 international signatures calling it the South Asian Sea. I think that would probably can have consensus on that. So that's one issue. The second issue is that we are also trapped by our representation. The Chinese I think the weakest claim of the Chinese to that South Asian Sea is their so-called nine dotted line. It started out as 11 and then it becomes nine recently it becomes 10. So I think the responsibility of the Chinese government is to try to define what does that mean? If this discontinues so then what does the discontinued part means? Do they claim to the discontinued part or only those that has a line? By representation as we saw in Dr. Tui's representation as a continuous line or as you can see in Vietnam know you it's a continuous line. I think we are giving the Chinese some credit because they themselves do not claim to the whole continuous line. Why should we give it to them at that advantage? Thank you. Dr. Tui? Thank you for question. First on the name of the sea I think the name is not indication of sovereignty over the sea for China for example the Gulf of Mexico is not belong to Mexico or Gulf of Thailand is not belong to Thailand. So for international audience of course we use the more well-known of South China Sea. Of course for Vietnam we call it is Vietnam sea is sea in Vietnam. Sorry. It's Vietnam sea in Vietnam. Regarding to the China Nidus lies first we don't have any clear explanation from China on the meanings especially the meaning of the Nidus lies. We talk a lot with Chinese scholars and they give different meanings on the Nidus lies it's lie to indicates sovereignty over islands or lie to indicates waters within the lies but since 2009 and 2010 after communication regarding to joint submission of continental shop between Vietnam and Malaysia and when China attached a map to United Nations, we see China is more clear in defining the lies. Now they are more rely on the concept of sovereignty over islands also on the economic zone and continental shop of islands and besides that also they claim the historic rise for China in resources exploitation as a fish or oil and gas. But more important I think it's not about China claims but about China activity within the Nidus lies and as I mentioned in the map we see a lot of incidents a lot of activity that China conducted within the lies and in reality they want to change Nidus lies to the factor China waters and turn the China scene to China lake. So I think in my map I also draw a lot of lies and it's maps just for illustration and not for claiming something. Hi my name is Paul Pham from the Federation of Vietnamese American communities of the USA we all know that China and Vietnam are alive for long time and Vietnam depends heavily on China treat but Vietnam doesn't have defense agreement with the United States in the case of Vietnam request or ask for help from the United States will the United States will the United States be willing to just Vietnam enough in order to help Vietnam. Secondly the United States behave differently or act differently on several cases the United States did not respond on the China China invasion of Paracel Island in 1974 and the United States did not respond concretely on the China occupied of Scarborough of the Philippines but the United States support completely the case of of Japan. So the question is that will Asian country trust the United States determination in helping them to protect themselves. Thank you. Patrick maybe that's an idea with this issue in part in the paper that I've written that should be circulated later. It's a fair question it's obviously the context of history matters a great deal so let's take the Senkaku island issue this was part of the Okinawa prefecture from the US perspective first World War II US occupied Japan and Okinawa and it only negotiated the reversion of Okinawa and Okinawa prefecture in 1971 to begin in 72 and under the Mutual Security Treaty with Japan territories occupied or administered by Japan are included under Article 5 of the treaty. So it's a statement of fact that the United States has over time reverted territory back said you're now administering this territory and yes it's included in the alliance so that's sort of a statement of fact it's also true that we were fighting a war in Vietnam and then we were losing that war and retreating from Vietnam and there were much higher stakes in the Cold War that Dr. Kissinger and others and these are documented and I cite some of the documents that have been declassified in my paper basically cited completely with being soft on China and it was a valuable sort of partner in breaking what we thought was a consolidated communist phalanx with the Soviet Union and it was in that division that separation was strategically valuable at the time so that was the context in which 74 parasols we looked the other way essentially as did other countries Indonesia thought they had private agreements with Joe and I and it's only recently now as we've just heard that they're wondering whether those agreements really still stand right now because it's not as clear so we're all reinterpreting China in the context of a risen China China that has risen so quickly has so much more capacity and so much more capacity than its neighbors and yet is trying to exert economic and political influence as well perhaps in line with more historical context or framework that we're concerned about this so now we do want to increase the US-Vietnam security relationship and that went through a period of normalization that took time went through a period of creating a serious strategic dialogue and returning with port visits that's taken time and I think this next phase needs to step up a notch and it will take time but it will not be an alliance we will not look for bases but we can increase engagement we can increase as I mentioned as well as potentially especially ones that are oriented toward maritime information, intelligence security of defense just as we support what Japan is doing in terms of patrol boats for instance to Vietnam and we want to see that turn back on as quickly as possible there's been a concern over corruption on the defense on the development assistance account so it's not going to be a guarantee but there's going to be willing support going back to Alan Dupont's admonition US is responding to what we're hearing out of Hanoi we're responding to what we're hearing out of Manila the United States is not suddenly pushing this approach we are indeed responding to this and we do have to if not lead from behind because that's a phrase that does not go well in Washington we are listening and working with others in the region and that's important so Vietnam is a critical partner and I think it's going to be a more important partner in the decade ahead than it has been even in the past Can I just ask the same question to you what's the Vietnamese perspective what are you prepared to accept from the United States in terms of support what are the limits I mean your country has a long tradition of independent foreign policy how much US assistance will your country accept I think we could put the US within the foreign policy of Vietnam of diversification and multi-religion of eastern relations Vietnam since 1986 adopted the Skype policy to expand relationship with own countries including major powers but in that aspect I think US now play more and more important roles in foreign policy of Vietnam in security and also development aspects and in South China Sea issue I think Vietnam and US share a lot of common interests in South China Sea namely respect of international law freedom of navigation peaceful system of disputes ASEAN centrality and also China rise will be peaceful it's one of their share common interests on practical aspect I think US and Vietnam have a lot of thing to do in improving cooperation in just aspects I don't expect Vietnam and US will become allies because of a lot of issues but until the level of ally I think a lot of issues we can develop including military paramilitary, economic aspect law enforcement capability and I think in just aspect economic and law enforcement capability I think the most important one in terms of South China Sea issues Pacific Fleece or Southern Fleece travel around South China Sea but it will not create any significant impact on current contests for resources in the region it's mainly with law enforcement agencies within Clemens countries and China of course goes far away from that we cannot interfere on the context of the issue but on economic aspect I think US can play more and more important role US now puts more important on TPP negotiation but I think it's still a long time of negotiation still a long time to come but on bilateral economic relation I think we can improve a lot and as demonstrated in the case of Philippines and China tension after Scarborough incident for example China imposed a convention on Philippines but US and Japan promote cooperation with Philippines and we see now Philippines economic growth is even higher than previous tension so by that way US can promote diversified economic relations with and strengthening Vietnam overall capability in dealing with China so unfortunately the time is up for this panel I see there's many questioners still out there but we're having a day and a half of meetings I'm sure you'll have a chance to ask your questions in the other panels please we're going to pause now for five minutes to transition this panel to the next one but before we do that please join me in thanking Dr. Tui, Patrick, Chris and Alan thank you