 We thought it was a good idea to take a moment at the end of a very long day many seeing article after article one of the main things that I do is what the debate is what is the range of the debate and where the disagreement lies seems to me that in many cases the when different people are debating issues this the split depends on their view of China China as a partner China as a rule maker China as a rule breaker or perhaps trying to look at how China is seeing the issue in and of itself and that regardless of the areas that we're talking about whether it's institutions or military modernization or economic ties that there are always sort of two sides to every story with international institutions is it a good idea to involve China as much as possible in these institutions to mesh them in the current global order to provide some sort of restraints or shaping of China's choices so that we can have the peaceful rise that all countries are hoping for or institutions just leverage for zero some purposes that the more involved China is in international institutions they're just acquiring a new type of power that they can leverage in their own self-interest to the detriment of other countries the trade-off also exists and economic ties are we in a situation in which Asia which is now more economically integrated than Europe that that economic integration is leading to more peace and incentives for stability or are we in a situation in which asymmetric power specifically Chinese economic power over its neighbors are leading to incentives for coercion you can see in some cases for the former and some cases for the latter seems we also debated today what do we want what does China want do does the United States really want a more active China would it be good for the United States if China began to define its interests globally if China for example got rid of the non-interference policy that we've heard about before I was content I think that there's many cases in which people would say that it would be better if China adapted and was more flexible as non-interference but then I would also warn and say that maybe US officials that are so used to other countries accommodating US preferences might not be so happy as China becomes more intimately involved in some of the areas that they've currently taken a hands-off approach about on our rule maker panels there are many comments being made that sort of showed this two sides one was that we want China to join international institutions and we want them to make rules on one on the one hand but not at the expense of other countries on the other hand right to me there seems to be a very clear tension between all of these issue areas and on an issue to issue basis we might be able to make judgments okay is this an area which China's acting as a partner or a rule maker rule breaker but then you move to bilateral multilateral global you can't do it on an issue by issue basis there's too many permutations and combinations and so I think this is driving people to try to connect all these behaviors and some sort of overarching theme we want to know what the strategy is we want consistency we think that there's some sort of playbook that will tell us how we can predict what all countries are going to do in certain situations given the stakes that we are currently facing it seems to me that many people at least in the United States if not in China as well no longer want to cross the river by feeling for the stones we want to know exactly where every pebble in that river is and this is in my mind an impossible standard but the purpose of the conference today was hopefully to get us a little bit closer to maybe identify a few of those stones and at least we have a sense of what we know and what we don't know so I hope that we achieve that goal today and those were that's sort of the main goal I had and all of this is perhaps not only to clarify for our audience members we've been clarified for myself what it is that we are currently facing and the challenges and opportunities that we have in front of us but with that I'll pass it over to you okay so I'll just be very quick I am grateful for everyone for coming today I founded a very useful conference to look at China and all of its complexity I still remain relatively optimistic because in the we spoke we heard today about ideological constraints how difficult it is for the Chinese when they have non-interference in the five principles of coexistence and hide your capacities and buy your time etc but above all the Chinese are very pragmatic and so there usually is a very cold hard cold calculation of Chinese interests in any given situation but increasingly those are overlapping and as I said earlier particularly in places farther and farther away from China where China simply needs to have peace and stability because it has people on the ground it has investments and the like there has been also a bit of a socialization process which is we work very differently in many ways and so getting some type of confidence in those areas places like countries in Africa that are undergoing unrest Middle East to a certain extent and even in South America I think there's opportunities so hopefully by working on those we understand a bit more about how we work on different things one thing is for example we spoke a little bit about new type of major power relations there's a difference in viewpoint in the US we just want to get going on something we don't wait for sort of mutual trust to already exist we recognize an opportunity there's something that we both need to get done and we do it and through the process we create trust and maybe we'll get to a grand concept afterwards whereas the Chinese sort of start with the concept and then work down to the details these are just things of sort of cultural historical it's it's things that can be that can be dealt with through further interaction so based on that based on the fact that we have a plethora an increase in non- traditional security threats everything from terrorism to climate change to drug trafficking to to nuclear weapons I think that we have a lot of areas on which we can work and in so doing not allowing the areas on which we do have differences in for example we might have the same goal but very different approaches you know trying to navigate that but there are situations in which our our goals and our approaches also diverge and those shouldn't prevent progress on the very many issues on which there are ways to move forward thank you Stephanie and I'd like to welcome Dave Maxwell he's the associate director of Georgetown University Center for security studies and our security studies program he's also a 30-year veteran of the U.S. Army which the majority of his assignments I think we're in Asia so I'll turn it to you for some of your thoughts on the conference thank you Oriana and it is a it's great pleasure to be here I've really had a great day listening to I think some very distinguished scholars and practitioners which I think from a Georgetown perspective and specifically from the security studies program we really focus on you know the nexus of theory and practice and today I think the every speaker was able to demonstrate the synthesis of theory and practice and for our Georgetown students that are here I think this has been a great opportunity I'd like to thank all of the all of the speakers who have participated because I think the information the ideas the discussion is very important it's obviously very timely the president is in Asia you know as we speak and so I'm thankful for Oriana and Stephanie to to time this just right to have given up our space on Air Force One really yes yeah but the panels themselves I think we're very unique each of the topics the themes that Oriana and Stephanie have developed really allowed us to hear you know alternative perspectives you know those perceptions and I think sometimes more importantly the misperceptions and we've we've heard a lot today a lot of important things about the the trauma myth complex of course the Chinese dream China rising versus China rejuvenation provocative statements from from James Mulvennan I really like the idea of China having to centralize its cyber for the perverse reason that those processes would would grind it to a halt just as it is here in the United States so I think I think those kind of statements though while provocative are important and we've heard much today about keeping our eye on the strategic relationship the need for effective cooperation reducing or preventing surprise and and again strategic communications and crisis management and developing those relationships that will be able to allow us to manage crises and and maintain open lines of communication I really would like to thank Stephanie and Oriana for their vision and for the work that they've done to do this I think everybody will agree with me and saying that this is one of the finest conferences that we get here in Washington DC I'd also like to thank the U.S. Institute of Peace first of all for this fine venue and just a great day but it's it's not not facilities that make things great it's really the people and the people on the staff of USIP they deserve a great round of applause and and I really appreciate all their hard work and to partner with Georgetown and our staff this is really I hope the start of a great partnership for the future not everybody was here probably all day and so to those of you that missed the earlier panels which again were excellent I commend you to the USIP or the Georgetown websites to be able to to watch these panels I think that filming these and having these for posterity will provide professors and students with with a lot of good material for future discussion and dialogue in the classroom and outside of it but lastly I'd like to thank Philip and Patricia building and the Asian security studies fund that they've established because their generosity has really allowed USIP and Georgetown to partner to bring this conference together for all of us here and so with that I think we will conclude and I say thank you for everybody for for joining us here today and I'd like to give everybody a round of applause USIP Georgetown staff and Oriana and Stephanie