 All right, hello everyone. Welcome to the security panel of the 13th China US Symposium. My name is Jason Fan and I'm currently a sophomore studying quantitative economics and international relations at Tufts University. Today, I'll be moderating the security panel with the help from my colleague Artem who is a sophomore studying biomedical engineering and is interested in the economics and the politics of Southeast Asia. Over the past decade, China has built a blue water fleet of advanced destroyers and aircraft carriers. The PLA Navy is now the largest in the world in terms of vessel numbers and has become more active than ever. In the South China Sea, the country claims 62% of the water through its so-called nine dash line. Although the claim was refuted by an on-class ruling in 2016, China rejected the arbitration and has since expanded its presence in the South China Sea through assertive Coast Guard patrolling and building new artificial islands and military facilities. Elsewhere, Chinese companies are building or funding maritime infrastructure in many strategically located developing countries under President Xi Jinping's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative. This panel will discuss China's maritime strategy and naval expansion and their implications to neighboring countries and the United States. We are honored to have four distinguished panelists with us today. Artem, why don't you start the introduction of panelists? Sure, thank you, Jason. So we will start with Dr. Colin Cox-Willing, who is a research fellow at Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies, a constituent unit of S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, RSIS, based in Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is especially interested in researching naval affairs in the Pacific, focusing on Southeast Asia in particular and generally issues related in naval technologies, naval modernization, naval arms control, and the offense defense theory. Colin is also a coordinator of the U.S. program at RSIS. Besides research and teaching, Colin also contributes his perspective to various local international media outlets, including BBC, Bloomberg, Channel News Asia, Roadster, and the Strain Times. In addition, Colin participates in activities with geopolitical risk consultancies, Oxford Analytica, and Wikistrap. And Colin is actually joining us from Singapore, which we really appreciate you staying asleep with us. And now I would like to introduce Dr. Mia Noance, who is a senior fellow for Chinese Defense Policy and Military Modernization at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, which is IISS. Here to that, she worked at the European External Action Service as a policy officer in Taipei, Taiwan, and as a trade analysis in the EU delegation to New Zealand. She has previously worked in the private sector, consulting firms and international organizations on topics of foreign policy, security, and defense. Mia's expertise lies in Chinese cross-service defense analysis, Chinese defense industry and innovation, as well as China's regional strategic affairs and international relations. He's a colleague of Chinese security project with the Mercator Institute for China Studies and leads IISS research on China's digital soul growth. And I leave it to you, Jason. Thank you, Arton. Professor Robert Ross is professor of political science at Boston College and associate John King Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University. He received his PhD in political science for Columbia University in 1984. He has taught at Columbia University and at the University of Washington. And in 1989 was a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. In 1994 to 1995, he was Fulbright professor as the Chinese Foreign Affairs College. In 2003, he was a visiting senior fellow at the Institute of International Strategic Studies, Tsinghua University, Beijing. And in 2014 was visiting scholar School of International Relations, Peking University. In 2009, he was visiting scholar, Institute for Strategy, Royal Danish Defense College. From 2009 to 2014, he has been adjunct professor, Institute for Defense Studies, Norwegian Defense University College. His research focuses on Chinese security policy and defense policy, East Asian security and US-China relations. Thank you so much for joining us today, Professor Ross. Next, we have Professor Rockford Weitz who is a professor of practice and director of the Maritime Studies program at the Fletcher School of Tufts University. From 2008 to 2013, he served as funding CEO at Cargill Metrics, leading the effort to build a VC-backed financial technology business that started in his Cambridge apartment. Prior to co-founding Cargill Metrics, he was a senior fellow at the Institute for Global Maritime Studies, a team leader of Fletcher's Abu Dhabi project, a fellow at Fletcher's Maritime Studies program and a fellow at Fletcher's Jackson Center for Counterterrorism Studies. He has taught courses in jurisprudence, maritime security, and global maritime affairs at the Fletcher School and published OPEDs in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor and the Strait Times, among others. Thank you so much for joining us today, Professor Weitz. So the panelists will present in alphabetical orders. Each panelist will have 10 to 15 minutes for presentation. Once the presentations end, panelists will have a chance to address each other's remarks. After that, I will ask a guiding question to the panel for discussion. We highly encourage the audience to send their questions to the Q&A function any time during the panel. The last 20 minutes of the panel will be used for Q&A. Dr. Colin, the floor is now yours. Can you hear me? All good? Okay, yeah, great. Thank you so much for inviting me. For this very short presentation, I'm going to just simply focus on one aspect of the Chinese maritime strategy. I'll be talking largely about the China Coast Guard Law that was recently being unveiled earlier this year. I think it's important perhaps for me to raise a few remarks related to the context for better understanding of the Coast Guard Law in order for everybody to better comprehend what is the potential ramifications for regional security. So after my presentation, I'll be more than happy to also touch on the other issues during the Q&A. I think firstly is that the Coast Guard Law that was being promulgated earlier this year was actually much in the media limelight. I mean, for some very, I would say understandable reasons because of the fact that some of the issues were considered rather ambiguous. In particular, the mention about waters under Chinese jurisdiction, that particular clause had in fact created much of the media commentary so far. With respect to what extent China will apply the Coast Guard Law and in what area of responsibilities that we are talking about. And by the extension, most people will be referring to or interpreting the Coast Guard Law as applying to, for example, the waters and clothes within the nine dashed line in the South China Sea. And that necessarily also overlaps into the other coastal states, EEZ. So this is one aspect that has been raised in the media commentary. And the second has also been the issue of the use of force. I think it's important to put a context here that a number of Coast Guard laws around the world will have provisions that relate to the use of force. So to that extent that isn't exactly anything novel for the Chinese. But the issue here is if you compare the draft that was unveiled much earlier last year and you compare it with the approved draft by NPC this year is very clear that there are some restrictions that were earlier proposed were being removed. For example, in the draft, there was much mentioned about the Coast Guard personnel will fire, they shall not fire underneath the water line of the foreign vessel, but these particular costs was being removed in the approved draft. And this seems to give the interpretation that Coast Guard personnel out there, they could potentially use force according to their own discretion. And that actually creates grounds for concerns. So these two are the key issues, I believe are of particular note for the Coast Guard law. But I think it's important to highlight that, beyond that it's important to look at the context here. The context here is that for a number of years, especially we're talking about, ever since China merged the various discrete maritime law enforcement agencies together under a unified Coast Guard a number of years back, there had been quite a bit of debate within the Coast Guard community regarding the difficulties they face when they conduct the maritime law enforcement or broadly speaking, maritime sovereignty and rights protection out there in the South China Sea in particular. The one of the complaints is that first, they always, most of the time, they will actually encounter not a rival Coast Guard vessel out there. Most of the time they would encounter a rival's naval vessel and that actually puts them at disadvantage. So they claim that they will put in the disadvantage, notwithstanding the fact that a number of the Chinese Coast Guard vessels are actually larger and in some respects better equipped than the rival Southeast Asian Navy's patrol assets. So that is one aspect that has been raised within the Chinese Coast Guard community. The second, I think that actually could help explain why there has been a shift towards looking at Coast Guard law is also the fact that when all these agencies come together, they actually come without a unified legislative mechanism. So they have discrete mechanisms that deals with different things. For example, one mechanism that deals with, say marine environment and another mechanism that deals with another aspect of the maritime law enforcement. So what they want to do is to have a one stop legislative mechanism that could potentially allow them to deal with many issues. So the way we're looking at what we call an omnibus kind of agreement or legislative mechanism. So that is the second concerns and what we call internal domestic issues that they are talking about when they have the Coast Guard law. And of course, the other one is more of an organizational issue that when they form the Coast Guard after 2015, I think it's important to note that the Coast Guard wants to be seen as the foremost maritime security institution and having a Coast Guard law to them will be a way to assert themselves as an institution. So there are those domestic context that we have to consider here when the China Coast Guard law was being implemented. But be that as it may, I think one thing is that while the international community may come gradually to understand the domestic context, that underpins the Coast Guard law, it's important to look at the ramification. I think much of what has been talked about would be to what extent the Coast Guard law will actually alter China's behavior. My argument is that we're not really looking at the Coast Guard law altering China's behavior. I think more importantly is how the Coast Guard law could alter the other rival states behavior in the South China Sea, for example, or in the East China Sea with Japan. In a way, the Coast Guard law would be designed to create what I would deem as a sense of self deterrence. It is part of the lawfare or gray zone strategy where the more important thing is not to actually go through conflict and best as possible, nobody ought to fire a shot. And these would potentially weigh very heavily in the minds of rivals out there in the South China Sea. For example, with the assumption that if they ever take action, for example, against Chinese fishermen and they might potentially invite a retaliation from China and thereby deter them from taking action. So I think that is the end result of what the Coast Guard law or what the objectives that Coast Guard law was designed to achieve actually. Not so much, trying to encourage the Chinese maritime law enforcement agencies to take action at the first instance. But of course, the law itself will provide the provisions to use force when necessary. So I think that is something that I believe is the more important ramification for the region. So with that, I think I probably exhausted almost 10 minutes of the time. And I look forward to the discussion with our fellow panelists and everyone later. Thank you. Thank you so much, Dr. Colin. Now we'll go to Ms. Nowens. Thank you very much, Jason. So I'm going to talk a little bit about the PLA's modernization, how the Navy fits within that, and relate some of my comments more particularly towards a Taiwan contingency and lastly touch upon some realistic limitations of how non-regional powers such as from the European Union, European Union member states I should say rather, could play a role in the future. So we know that China has in 2015 begun a new round of military modernization efforts according to Xi's goals that he set out of the 19th Party Congress in October 2017. China aims to have a fully modernized armed forces by the 2035 and a fully fledged global top tier military by 2050 that's capable of fighting and winning wars. And within the PLA's modernization and recent reforms, I think most importantly to our discussion today is the shift in the PLA's priority domains. So land no longer outweighs the sea and in the minds of the PLA, China's critical security domains are instead an outer space, cyber space, and of course in the maritime domain. And Xi has made it clear that for China to achieve its China dream of a national rejuvenation by 2049, China will require a strong military that's commensurate with its size as a great power that can project power globally and protect its interests as well. But national rejuvenation of course also rests upon one other thing and that's the reunification of Chinese territory and what we should be here of course importantly is the issue of Taiwan. The PLA thus have been and continue to be focused on a Taiwan mission. If peaceful reunification can't be achieved I would say at this point it seems extremely unlikely that peaceful reunification will be achieved. Military intimidation hasn't worked, economic incentivization hasn't worked, economic coercion or diplomatic pressure have not moved the Taiwanese public opinion closer to the idea of abandoning the status quo and accepting a Hong Kong style one country two system solution. And indeed I would argue that what we've seen in Hong Kong last year and the passing of the national security law makes this almost entirely off the table from Taiwanese perspective. So the PLA Navy and other PLA forces that play a role in the maritime contingency thus I think have been and will continue to receive heavy prioritization within the PLA in years to come. So what capabilities has the PLA been developing? And we know that the PLA has been developing a range of new capabilities to modernize its fleet and new platforms to modernize its fleet to project more power, more effective power for key flashpoints around territorial integrity within its near seas, as well as to project power further afield from China's shores through building a blue water Navy. We can think for example, to look at its numbers of intermediate range ballistic missiles as anti ship missiles in particular, its fifth generation fighter aircraft which are increasingly offensive in nature, its aircraft carriers, its submarine building program and of course a huge investment in its naval platforms and systems as well. I think it's difficult therefore to underestimate or understate rather the PLA Navy's modern ship building acquisition of recent years supported by a significant and in some ways very impressive domestic shipbuilding capacity. Since the 1990s, China's naval shipyards have produced a large range of different vessel types improving on their predecessors. More recently shipyards of course and the last few years have settled on newer designs like the Type 52 destroyers. And just to put this into numbers, since 2014 China launched 14 of these ships according to the 2021 AAAS military balance book. And that's twice as many Type 52 destroyers or twice as many as the UK Royal Navy's total number of destroyers. Furthermore, the most prevalent vessel builds in terms of individual hulls to date for the PLA Navy has been the Type 56 Jiangdao Corvette of which 28 were launched between 2014 and 2018. And that's a faster rate of production and on a scale larger than any other comparable vessel since the end of the Cold War. And between 2014 and 2018 China launched more naval vessels with a total greater tonnage or total tonnage greater than the tonnage of the entire French, German, Indian, Italian, South Korean, Spanish or Taiwanese navies. So it's important to remember of course that these vessels are just for the PLA Navy. And I haven't even included the shipbuilding numbers for the Chinese Coast Guard of which Colin just gave an excellent presentation on which is also benefited from an equally impressive shipbuilding program. And the Navy ships are being built in larger numbers but they're also comparatively larger than their predecessors in size, meaning they can accommodate more modern weapons systems and sensors and more of them in general. And lastly of course, I'd argue that the PLA now has access to a much better grasp of maritime domain awareness as well within its region and near seas. For example, on the Chinese occupied features in the South China Sea, the last time I counted China had built a suite of over 40 radar installations of different types across these features. So in general, we're looking at a PLA that has greater resources at hand to project power in the way that the CCP has deemed it should. Now does this mean that with the heightened tensions around Taiwan we're likely to see a Taiwan scenario become reality soon in military terms? I would argue that this isn't necessarily the case. Shipbuilding of course is one thing but translating larger quantities of more advanced vessels into two naval combat power and capability is another thing altogether. This requires years of operational experience of which the PLA does not have much of course and greater leveraging of technical capabilities and a clear command and control structure as well in place. In addition to of course, hiring and retaining more qualified and better trained manpower. So the weakness of the PLA, the last time I discussed this with the PLA itself it was not just of course the Navy but across all service branches really comes down to inexperience in the personnel of the PLA. We therefore see an ongoing professionalization effort that is still very intensive and I think will continue to take a few years to mature. The PLA of course has become more confident despite all of this. We see that trainings are becoming more varied and more complex. For example, these include night landings on aircraft carriers, training in complicated weather so fog, low visibility, et cetera and at night, training further away from China's coast waters with exercises past the first island chain, training in joint operations with the Navy, the Coast Guard, naval aviation forces in the Air Force. And of course we've seen the first batches of newly trained naval aviation pilots come through their first tour of four years of training and continued efforts remain to recruit greater numbers for China's planned carrier groups. But doubts in the PLA, I think it's really important to underline are still reported as to their ability to think through train and launch complex naval operations according to Chinese sources. For example, a recent article in the PLA daily quoted that the results of a meeting of a naval operations, on naval operations rather, sorry, held by the PLA's Navy Submarine Training Center in which their participants claimed that research into maritime tactics isn't deep in lax insight into methods of tactical command. This meeting also found that the PLA Navy is still overly risk averse and that battlefield training gives much consideration to safety but little consideration to the enemy circumstances. Lastly, PLA linked online literature over the past year or so has also made clear that deciding to launch any offensive attack on Taiwan and risking fighting the United States would be akin to China throwing all of its eggs into one basket and really risking all the successes that it had built over the past decades. For the CCP, I'd argue any attempt to reunite Taiwan with the mainland by force must be successful if decided upon or started and the party or the party could face existential questions at home. And so the larger political context is just as important here and I think we need to remember that with regards to the PLA's modernization successes. Now, I wanted to spend the last few minutes raising the point that the possible intervention by the U.S. and its allies in the region in a Taiwan contingency as well as those allies willing to enable from outside the region will be incredibly important to either dissuading force reunification attempts or in the event of an actual attempt to reunify the island by force. We've heard that the U.S. Navy is now smaller in ship numbers than the total PLA Navy and whilst this might be true, I think it's still important to qualify that the U.S. Navy still outstrips the PLA Navy in another term and that's in total tonnage. So there's two sides to that story that we need to keep in mind. And as I explained previously, the PLA will require still years of training to become a fully operational and combat ready and truly integrated force. Nevertheless, of course, the leveraging of coalitions and coordination of militaries of like-minded countries will be important levers of power in the event of an actual military conflict with China. We recently heard that Japan has formally agreed that it will support the U.S. in opposing coercion from China, including in a Taiwan scenario. And this is an important official statement, though not totally surprising. In the event of a Taiwan scenario, Japan will likely be drawn into the conflict considering U.S. Navy basing on its territory. Nevertheless, of course, this is a really important political signal that I think Japan and the U.S. are sending to China. There's also been a lot of reporting recently and I'll end soon on in the past few years about European powers becoming increasingly interested in looking at projecting power into the region and potentially playing a greater role in upholding the rules based on our national order in the Indo-Pacific. France, Germany, the Netherlands in the last few years have published Indo-Pacific strategies. The UK has recently announced an Indo-Pacific tilt in its integrated review with a carrier group led by the HMS Queen Elizabeth sailing to the region later this year, joined by American and Dutch vessels. But while these are positive signals that European powers are looking more towards the East and also thinking about how they can practically engage in the region, they are, of course, limited by the resources they have to do so. So if we just think about total principal surface combatants according to the AAAS military balance, China has 80, France has 22, the UK has 21, Germany has 10 and the Netherlands has six. So with an increasingly sort of Russia on the one hand and then sort of China on the other hand, European powers I think will be stretched and will have other priorities in their immediate neighborhood to consider as well as potentially looking towards the East. So what does all of this really leave us with just to sum up a PLA Navy that is larger, more modern and equipped with more advanced weaponry than ever before? A PLA Navy that supported with political will to improve on its weaknesses in the next few years and in doing so will become more confident and a slow but building pressure around the PLA's Taiwan mission. The US, of course, will therefore continue to be an important and much needed security provider in the region with a growing but still very weak European ally to presence. And I look forward to your questions. Thank you. Thank you so much, Ms. Nowens. Now we'll have Professor Ross. You're muted, Professor Ross. You're muted. Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here. As I mentioned to our organizers earlier, as a Tufts alum, I remain loyal and pleasure to talk to the students. Arnhem raises the critical issues at the beginning of the seminar. China has more assertive, more rising larger Navy. What does it mean for the United States and the local powers? And I'm gonna walk through these issues and try and how we think about China. How we think about China as a rising power. And of course, there are two ways to think about this. One way is if this would be a Washington view, and a Washington view would be, what's China doing in the United States and how should we respond? And if you work within the Chinese, the DC culture and the DC sociology, you're going to want your assessments to resonate with the policy-making community. To use the term, you want to be relevant to policy-making. So you're going to adopt vocabulary, which will resonate with politicians and policy-makers. The other perspective that you might want to develop is as a political scientist, someone who studies politics, not who is a policy-maker. No one hopes our policy-makers understand politics, but that's not always the case. But nonetheless, as those who are outside the Washington community, we tend to study great power politics, international politics, and thus we tend to see China as an actor. And that's what I want to talk about today, how we understand China within the realm of international politics. And so that first perspective is, well, what do we have with China? Well, we have two things. We have China as a great power. Let's make no mistake about it. China is now a great power. It is no longer a rising power. In East Asia, we now have a bipolar region. Going on at least five years ago, the US Navy was unprepared to fight a surface war in the South China Sea, simply too dangerous. The Taiwan Strait, the Americans assume in planning for a war in the Taiwan Strait that they will be inferior to China within the Taiwan Strait and the Taiwan Theater, reflecting both the Chinese Navy and of course their land-based surface-day missiles and their land-based medium-range intermediate missiles. So this is now a great power, right? So we wanna understand China as a great power. And we wanna understand China both as a rising power because it has objectives, as a great power that reflects the fact that it's been rising over the past decade or so. So the first thing we wanna understand is what is China's perspective? Then it informs its objectives. Well, we should be clear. China's perspective is one based on security. It's an actor in international politics. And since 1949, October 1st, 1949, it has been surrounded by U.S. air and naval bases. Air and naval bases in Korea, Japan, the Philippines, the facto base in Singapore, Changi, Subic and Clark in the Philippines, using basically Port Kulang in Malaysia as naval bases and air bases. So the British, the United States, Navy and Air Force has encircled China's coastal waters since 1949. And it has treated the South China Sea, the East China Sea, and until recent years, the LSE is an American lake, going in and out as you want. That is simply unacceptable to a great power, period. So when you think of Chinese ambitions, what do they wanna do? Well, it's quite clear. They wanna do what any rising power would want to do that was not at the table when the United States created spheres of influence that it dominated the waters. It wasn't there because it was weak. It's now strong. It wants to reorder this security system so to give it greater security. What does that mean? It wants to challenge U.S. alliances. It wants to weaken U.S. alliances. It wants to weaken U.S. dominance of the waters on its perimeter. That's just building the Navy we heard about. And it wants to weaken U.S. ability to use the air and naval bases around the perimeter of Chinese coastal waters to threaten Chinese coastal security and ultimately Chinese land-based security as well. This is normal. This is not aggressive. This is not a belligerent. This is not even expansion. It's in a normative sense. Although it is expansion. It's the one to expand its influence. But what do you expect? You expect a power that's now the size of the Chinese Navy to say, oh, we're going to accept the 1950 series of influence where the Americans dominate our coastal waters and treat the South China Sea as an American lake? No, unacceptable. So regardless of what you hear in the Washington community, this is what you expect great powers to do in international politics. Beginning and end of story. This is normal. The next question you want to ask about China is, well, what about the policies you're using to achieve those objectives? And do we hear the word belligerent and aggressive? Well, we live in a world where the word belligerent and aggressive are value-laden terms. Belligerent and aggressive compared to whom? Well, we have two bases of standards. Compared to rising powers in the past, certainly less belligerent and aggressive than American gunboat diplomacy and occupations and regime change in Latin America in the late 1890s and early 2000s. Early 20th century. Much less aggressive. Certainly much less aggressive than Nazi Germany, World War I Germany. Certainly much less aggressive than a rising power of Japan throughout the 20th century. And certainly much less aggressive than the United States policy since the end of the Cold War in the Middle East. The United States has attacked Syria, attacked Iraq, attacked Afghanistan, attacked Iraq twice, I should say. Attack Libyan, supporting them, going to Yemen, right? Forces in Morocco, went into Bosnia and since World War, and since the end of the Cold War, it was through the government Panama as well. Let's be clear. I looked it up the other day. I think it said 7 million refugees pouring out of Syria since the United States targeted Syria and the war in Syria. Those refugees, almost 90% of the results of the US aerial campaign over Syria. China has not killed a single person with this military since 1989. It has not invaded a country or an air attack on a single country in East Asia since 1989. It's not used as Navy to attack another country's ship since 1989. In the realm of great powers who are seeking to revise the regional order to give itself greater security and to challenge the alliances of the great power and to exercise greater sway over its coastal regions be it the Gulf of Mexico, be it Central America, be it South America, be it Germany in Southeast Europe or Eastern Europe and be it Chinese Asia, this is really in the realm of great power politics this is really benign. Having said that, that doesn't mean it's acceptable to other countries because this is a major challenge to American security, major challenge to Japanese security, a major challenge to Philippine security. Just because it's challenging another country's security doesn't mean it's belligerent, doesn't mean it's aggressive. It means in other countries more powerful and says we want more security and we're going to use our military capabilities and ways to enhance our security. And yes, in international politics, it is a zero sum world. So China wants more security, other countries, the United States have an experience, less security. So what is China doing with this Navy? Well, as I said, this Navy and Coast Guard and what have you are spending an awful lot of time in the waters near the Philippines. An awful lot of time in the waters in Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam and South Korea and the LLC and their Navy's there all the time. And what's that Navy saying? We're now here, we're now powerful. Better start respecting us. These countries don't need China to act out. They don't need China to start killing people. They can read the balance of power. They can see the United States is now no longer the dominant power. And what are they going to do? They're going to put their finger up in the air they're going to see which way the wind is blowing and they're going to accommodate the rise of China. So China doesn't attack them with their Air Force. So China doesn't attack them with their Navy. So China doesn't use force and kill their fishermen because they don't trust the United States as much as they did before because they don't trust the United States because the war to defend the Philippines would be far more costly. So maybe we won't do it. And second, if we do do it, well, you know, it's that old Asian expression, Taiwan's going to die if there's a US China war over time line. The Philippines are going to suck Singapore or sync if there's a South China Sea war, right? So their objective is to stay out of a war. So what are the implications of the United States? The implications are very clear. America's losing its allies. They're gone. They're worthless. We can no longer count on using Changi in Singapore in Singapore during a war because one, we can't get in with our surface ships and two, Chinese intermediate range ballistic missiles can destroy Changi in a day and we'll repair it and it'll destroy it the next day and we'll repair it and it'll destroy it the third day. And if there happen to be American ships in that harbor where they launched their DF-23Cs, those ships die too. Same with Subic and Clark. Same with Klang. Same with the ports in South Korea and the airfields in South Korea. Those alliances that give American naval and air facilities in the South China Sea are now worthless as strategic assets in the United States and war. And we're losing our allies as political partners because Singapore's out front saying, we're not taking sides and it's up to America to find a way to get along with China. And the Singapore Prime Minister has made that very clear. Rising China is going to be expected to change the regional order. All great powers do this and to keep the peace of America must adjust to the rise of China. Malaysia said that, Duterte said that the Philippines to think Duterte is a little wild but if you look at what he says, it's no different than the Prime Minister of Singapore. It's no different than the Prime Minister and President of Malaysia and increasingly it's no different than President Moon of South Korea. They're all saying, we're going to move toward equidistant. But the reality is rising China, we got to find a way to get along. Well, America's losing its allies. Well, what's America's response? America's response is two folks. One is, we are acting religiously as possible. Now, keep in mind that we are both playing historical roles that are repeated throughout history of a rising power and a declining power. America's declining power in international politics powers relative. If you used to have a hundred tanks and you still have a hundred and the other side got 50, you just declined because all you got is a manager of 50 and you used to have a manager of 100. America is a declining power relative to Chinese power. As it's so, as a rising power times benefit of the last 30, 40 years of peace and development, stability and cooperation. It doesn't want to rock the boat. It wants to continue to have access to the American market. Once they have access to American investment, access to European markets, European investments. It loves peace and stability. America's not happy. Why is America not happy? Because peace and stability is enabled China to grow. So the source of the tension is the United States because the United States is pushing back on the rise of China. How are we doing it? A unilateral launch of a trade war, a unilateral launch of a technology war. China doesn't want those tech wars. China is doing just fine the way things work. The United States has changed its Taiwan policy. Clearly it's changed its Taiwan policy and it's gotten more revisionist under Biden than it was under Trump. So how are we doing that in East Asia? Well, we think of human navigation operations. There are not human navigation operations. There's shows of force to persuade the region America has to resolve to stand up to the rise of China. Why are we sending our navy to the Taiwan Strait? Not to enhance the terms because there's no evidence whatsoever that the mainland is preparing for war. There are the threat is not growing. We're using phone ops and transit to the Taiwan Strait for the same reason that is the state of the region. China doesn't like us doing this. So we're gonna do it. To evidence the region that the United States is not gonna be passive in the rise of China. The second thing the United States is doing is it's retreating, it's retrenching. So you hear talk about the Quad. The Quad is not very important. The Quad is a chat room for diplomats to get together and talk about things. What really matters is the Indo-Pacific threat. That's what really matters. So don't look at what countries say. So first of all, go back to these phone ops. They're worthless. The region doesn't believe the United States. You can posture all you want with shows of force but if your military capabilities are not meeting the requirement to defend your allies the allies aren't gonna believe your shows of force. So we've been doing phone ops for the last almost 10 years now and they get more and more frequent and they don't matter. These countries have signaled their move toward equidistance despite everything United States has done this out trying to see these China seeing yellows. The only exception is Japan. We come back to that later. But what is the Indo-Pacific strategy? Well, we have four countries in the United States, Japan, Australia and India. Where's Singapore? Oh my God, we seem to have left out Singapore. Where's the Philippines? You couldn't ask for a stronger signal to the states of Southeast Asia. They now become secondary importance. We have discovered India. We have visited India a lot more than we visit South China Sea with our generals and our diplomats. So what are we doing? We're reaching out the India, Australia to develop access to their naval and air facilities outside the South China Sea. We are drawing a ring of air force and naval bases on the outside of the South China Sea to develop a A2AD strategy to prevent the Chinese Navy from getting out of the South China Sea. China's got its A2AD. United States surface fleet can't get in. The US Navy and air force, whether it's the Andaman Islands in India, whether it's the Indian East Coast, whether it's Cocos Island, whether it's Western Australia, whether it's Manist in Papua New Guinea, whether it's Wake, whether it's Solomon, United States is building new air force and naval facilities in the Western Pacific and our allies are building them in Cocos Island and the Andamans in order to give greater access to American facilities. The US is retrenching because it's finding its bases and facilities inside the South China Sea are no longer effective or useful. We need to move elsewhere and we're moving out. The United States is doing two things at once. It's increasing tension, hostility with China, even as the US Navy and Air Force recognizes that it must retrench because it's losing inside the South China Sea. So the question I posed to all of us is how much tension is necessary for the United States to try and maintain its security against the rise in China? Is it necessary to do a phone ops a month? Is it necessary to improve it? And remind you, we're not improving relation with Taiwan to protect Taiwan. Ever since Trump, we've been using Taiwan as a pawn to signal American containment to China. And so doing, we're challenging Chinese interests in Taiwan, raising the tension in Taiwan straight. Just to put this into context, there are four or five leaders around the world signed on with the Trump administration because they were looking for support for religious policies that every prior administration said was unacceptable with the King of Saudi Arabia, whether it's the President of Turkey, whether it's Putin in Russia, whether it's the Prime Minister of Israel, each one of these countries used Trump to pursue policies that were unacceptable to the American establishment and Tsai Ing-wen is no different. She knows that everything she is doing is provoking China and she couldn't get support for those policies under the Obama administration. She got him under Trump and she's getting him now because Trump and Biden are using Taiwan against China not to support Taiwan. So how much of this tension is necessary to compete with China? And so one of the questions is, how important is the South China Sea? How important is Taiwan? Is it enough to risk a crisis? So yes, we're not gonna see a war over Taiwan but we can see a crisis over Taiwan a month but we've been pushing every Taiwan button you can imagine against China. At some point they're gonna say, stop, it's getting dangerous. Is it worth a crisis? And I can tell you in a crisis, the US is gonna be wanting to back down. The Chinese had a balance of forces in their favor of the Taiwan Strait and this is not 1996. This is 2011, not 2021. So don't let anyone tell you there was a national interest. Taste repose. There was no national interest. There were values. And how much do you value the South China Sea? How much do you value supporting Taiwan? How much do you want to try and maintain American dominance in East Asian waters? And is it effective? And what would the cost be to social security, welfare systems, health care, inflation, so on and so forth? That's it. Thank you so much, Professor Ross. Sorry, I talked too long, Jason. No, you're fine. Thank you so much. Now we'll have Professor White. Thank you so much. This was quite a distinguished group to follow. I'm gonna share some slides. So I will try to go through this quickly because most of the relevant issues are on the table. I'm very excited for our conversation after. So I'll try to go through these quickly. And so this is the world as we see by globe behind me. I prefer global as an analytical tool, but we're stuck with maps when it comes to PowerPoint. So here's my best effort here. So this is the world from the Northern Hemisphere. This is important to think about because it shows the context that even Singapore is a Northern economy, 100 miles north of the equator. And of course, it's on the most important seaway in the world, the Malacca Strait. And India, Sri Lanka, Northern economies, Ethiopia, Northern economy, Egypt, really a Northern economy. We don't really think about the world this way, but we should. And so especially as the Belt and Road Initiative that China is doing now has a polar road that will go over here. I think it's important to think of Eurasia and I'm a maritime person. So I think of Eurasia as the world's biggest island. That's a minority opinion among Eurasian specialists, but that's how I view these things. So let's look at the global shipping networks in the world. So this is an area where I have a fair amount of practical experience, not every part of, so the oceans cover 71% of the world's surface area, but not every part of the ocean is equal from a shipping perspective. And I would say really great points raised by the previous panelists. And I think one of the key questions that Professor Ross raised is why is the South China Sea important? Well, from a shipping perspective, the South China Sea is actually very important. It's about 40% of global trade. From a Japanese perspective, it's over 95% of its hydrocarbon imports pass through the Malacca Straits and then through the South China Sea. You can go around the South China Sea, you can go here through the Lombok Strait and Macassar Strait. Suna Strait actually has an active volcano in the middle of it, so it's less of an alternative. But as we, I think that kind of using a few current events, this is a very timely panel. The ever given grounding in the Suez Canal, I think highlighted the fact that even a relatively unimportant part of the maritime trade system, the Suez Canal, if it's disrupted for long enough causes global implications and supply chains. And the Suez Canal carries about 12% of global trade. The South China Sea, about 40%. So a big difference there. So just something, just some context. Okay, so now let's look at, this is kind of looking at it from a naval perspective with shipping there. These are, so in red or what are considered kind of the key choke points to use a naval term all around the world. And that includes capes and just have a position there to control movement of navies, at least for surveillance purposes. Theoretically to disrupt shipping like we saw in World War II. And you see here in yellow, the sort of smaller, what are considered less important from a global perspective straits. And you see that the Taiwan Strait and the Strait of Luzon there. So now let's kind of zoom, or before we zoom in, let's not forget the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea. This was, this is the constitution of the oceans. It's the most comprehensive international treaty ever. And it is very important when we think about maritime boundary disputes. So one of the things just really quickly, so we have this for context for our audience is that under the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea, a few things happened that raised the challenge for potential disputed areas. So the territorial seas were expanded out and agreed to a 12 nautical mile zone. Some had claimed three, some had claimed 12, some had even claimed 200. And it was all kind of settled for most of the world through the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea though, not Turkey is one outlier. And then you see where beyond those territorial waters, there's a 200 nautical mile from the coastal baseline exclusive economic zone. So this is rights over fishing and we'll talk about that later. Also, so the water column, but also the seabed. So oil on gas extraction or mineral extraction, maybe for green energy technologies. You can see where's the part of the ocean that is red. This is where it's disputed. So this is another reason why the South China Sea is relevant in a global context and the East China Sea. So there's also other ones around the world, but most of the action is here in the South China Sea. So now this is an old map and it's intentionally not very detailed, but I just wanna show because this, so the South China Sea, this body of waters is a roughly equivalent to both the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, which was the sphere of influence that the rising US power to kind of relate back to Professor Ross's presentation when the US in 1898 established kind of its sphere of influence pushing out external powers. It was over the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea, roughly about the same. Now there's differences. It's not a perfect analogy, but it's just something to bear in mind. But let's also look that most of this, if you're looking at this from a Eurasian perspective, looking kind of to the East toward the Pacific Ocean, that's a lot of territory. The Pacific Ocean's a lot of territory. And I have the globe behind me, I can spin it. And you can see if I have it just be focused on the Pacific, the world looks like it's all ocean. So, and that's the barrier that the United States enjoys. So now let's kind of combine a lot of these things, but zooming in here, not only on the South China Sea, but also the East China Sea. So we have here, so this is Strait of Malacca. This is the world's busiest shipping lane. There's Singapore here. Here are the Spratly Islands, the Parasau Islands. You see a lot of trades coming up here. The Pacific Asian economies import a lot and they export a lot. So you have a lot of commercial shipping here. Here's the Luzon Strait and the Taiwan Strait, which we talked about before. These are your exclusive economic zones and outside of that's high seas. You see there's not a lot of high seas here. So now let's keep cruising. So just some terminology. It's been already referenced by previous panelists, but so this is a US-centric view, first line of defense, second line of defense. And there's even a third island chain, which would include Hawaii and Midway, further into the Pacific as a third line of defense to the US homeland. We've talked a lot about the first island chain here that goes down from Japan through Taiwan down Philippines to Malaysia to Borneo here. And then the second island chain, this would be Guam. So just for context and I'll keep moving, because so much of what would be an issue in some kind of hot conflict, which would be what would happen to the shipping in the South China Sea if it were disrupted at scale in some kind of conflict between China and the US and its allies. Well, you have other alternatives. I mentioned the Lombok Strait and Strait of McKessar. And then you can go out here to the to the Philippine Sea and up to Japan. So there are alternatives. And so it's not, anyway, it's just like there were alternatives to the Suez Canal Blockage. You can go around the Cape of Good Hope. So it causes disruption, but it's not maybe catastrophic, if that makes sense. And so now let's just, not a lot has been talked about this, but I think it is an important thing. The features that were mentioned by our second panelists about the artificial islands that have been built in the radar stations. So these are in both the Paracels and the Spratlys. And there's a lot that's been in the news recently since that Chinese Coast Guard law that Professor Co mentioned at the beginning was passed. And we have right now in the Whitsun Reef, kind of essentially maritime gray zone warfare, hybrid warfare happening with Coast Guards and fishing fleets or what Andrew Erickson at the Naval War College calls the Chinese maritime militia. And so this is that nine-dash line that was mentioned at the very beginning. And these are the overlapping exclusive economic zone claims. So this is Vietnam's, this is the Philippines, here's Malaysia's, here's Brunei. And so it's kind of key takeaway, it's complicated. So that's a recipe for disaster. Okay, so now let's look at the Spratlys in particular. Now, these green areas, these are shallow waters. Why is this important? Shallow waters have more fish. And really in many ways, what the real competition commercially is at this stage in the South China Sea is one of fishing rights. That also lends itself to that maritime militia or hybrid warfare possibly. And it also lends itself to a reaction of Coast Guards and we'll get back to that as I wrap up. But I just want you to have this. And then kind of pulling this all together again from a global perspective, but not a US-centric perspective. So usually the US-centric maps have the Atlantic in the middle, but in reality, and my European students always kind of get a little frustrated when I tell them that Trans-Pacific trade exceeded transatlantic trade in the mid 1980s. They still think it exceeds it. So it just shows you that really the world's economy moved to the Pacific almost 40 years ago. And so those commercial zones, this is where the action is. And this area that's in dispute, it really is of course central to China, the US, although a dominant maritime presence here in the Western Pacific is literally an ocean away. And so I think that that's something to bear in mind. I'll just briefly mention this, just the Belt and Road Initiative. This includes the Polar Silk Road and I think that's an important context, but I'll close with this. So I have two points and then I'm done. So I think that lots of great conversation points put on the table already. So what needs to happen moving forward and taking a US-centric view as I am here in the United States, I'll offer a couple of things for the US and its allies, though I am fairly well traveled in China. So I can give that perspective to the best of my abilities. But I think that there's two things that really need to happen here if we're gonna think strategically about how we move forward with China having, as previously mentioned, already the largest Navy, the PLA Navy is the largest by vessel number, has the largest Coast Guard by vessel number, the China Coast Guard and has this giant maritime militia. We can talk about that. Japan has invested in its Coast Guard in response to the Chinese Coast Guard's creation and growth. And I argue we need a much bigger and more global Coast Guard. One idea I've kicked around with a student this semester is whether the literal combat ships would be transferred to the Coast Guard and painted white. I think that a better idea would be to go back to World War II and think of what were or were the two most successful vessel types in the actual hot war between the United States and Japan, the submarine force and the PT boat force. And the US submarine force is still very good. And I would say it's probably the one advantage that the US would still have even in the China seas. And the second is gone, we don't have a PT boat. And I'll just say this, I've been, this is a research project of mine. I've interviewed a Texas entrepreneur was built a new shipyard, a Hamilton Marine. He has done all the designs and he can build a modern, long range, heavily armed stealthy PT boat about a hundred feet long for $40 million a haul. So at that price point, you could have 325 of those for one four class carrier. And if it were me and I'm not in charge, I would rather have 325 vessels than one that doesn't even work right now properly. And so I think we have to think differently in the United States, those PT boats could operate in squadrons just like the old PT boats did, they'd have anti-ship missiles on them, they'd be stealthy, they don't squadrons of six to 12, some of them could be painted white, be Coast Guard vessels, others could be Marine Corps. The point is, I think I really agree with Professor Ross that freedom of navigation operations don't serve any point. I think I actually find them frankly to be counterproductive. I think it's much better to have presence and have presence that is relevant to our local allies in Southeast Asia, help them with fisheries enforcement. That's a US Coast Guard help, help them with Marine pollution or search and rescue. Oh, that also falls under the Coast Guard. Having that extra band, that Indo-Pacific ally have them staffed with a bunch of these. It would also give our naval officers command opportunity. And the US Navy's been talking about distributive lethality for years. This would actually let that happen. And I think that what we see in partnership building and exercises from with Japan, all the way down with the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia, Singapore is we'll send our smallest vessel, which is a Aegis destroyer. It'll be next to a vessel that is much smaller from the local partner. It'd be much better to send one of these PT boats that I've been looking at in research. You could also use the offshore patrol vessels that the Coast Guard are just about to turn out, something much smaller and more appropriate for that task. And I think that's a clever way to have presence that's relevant, viewed in a friendly way, a welcome way by the local partners, engages them. And that's where I think to kind of round back to Ms. Noyan's point that that's where actually the European navies might be able to send something because yes, their destroyer level vessels are relatively small, but they have a fairly large Coast Guard if you look at the EU in a whole or NATO as a whole. So anyway, just some fun thoughts for conversation. I look forward to that. Thank you so much, Professor Weiss. Now I turn it to my colleague, Artem. Thank you, Jason. So thank you all for the talk, provoking presentations. Before we move on into questions, I want to give the panelists the opportunity to address each other's presentation and have the discussion. So please. Yeah, please, Dr. Russ. I'm sorry, you're muted. So Rockford raised an important issue about trading the South China Sea and how vital it is. So when we talk about values and interests, people will often associate the trade that goes from the Malacca straight to the South China Sea. The numbers are less persuasive than you might otherwise think. The United States has, I don't think United States is in the top 10 countries that trade through the South China Sea. The number one country that trades in the South China Sea is China. And after that, it's the other countries that are around China who are trading with China. So when we say that we're defending the South China Sea, we're defending it from China. So you have to ask, you see, and not even the European countries do a lot of trade with the South China Sea. Or if they do, they do it with China. So if any country has an interest in defending the trade lanes with the South China Sea to maintain a stable economy, it's China. So we have two dilemmas to think about. One is, if we have such little interest, why do we take upon ourselves when we're declining relatively against China to spend so much of our resources defending an economic interest, which is not a very big interest. And second, if China has such a strong interest in it, they're not going to shut down the South China Sea trade routes because that would hurt them more than would hurt the United States. So there is no real threat to the stability of the trade routes going through the South China Sea because China has the most vital interest of any country in the world in keeping them open. So this is just one of the things you need to think about when you think how much resources the United States needs to spend to deal with the rise of China inside the South China Sea. Now, of course, if you live in Singapore, Colin, you wonder what you would hear me saying is, well, who needs Singapore? It's not important. So this is another thing to keep in mind. That's not a very nice scene for Singapore to hear, but another thing to keep in mind is not the purpose of American policy to defend its allies. We have allies to help American security. If the allies are no longer valuable to American security, then the reason to defend those countries is not so apparent. Now, you may say it's about credibility. Well, maybe, except if you don't have the resources, they're not gonna rely on you anyway, no matter how much you protest your interests in defending them. But then second, the United States has a preoccupation with defending credibility with the war in Korea. 10,000 Americans died in the war in Korea over credibility. Went to war in Vietnam. Over 50,000 Americans died in the Vietnam War over credibility. Is that reason enough to fight or to contend and create tension and risk war with China and South China Sea? Because we're concerned about credibility. When, if you don't have the resources to back it up, they're not gonna believe you anyway. I'm just gonna add, I agree with you, totally cracked by the way that the trade going through the South China Sea is mostly coming from China, but I would say important also South Korea and Japan and Taiwan, part of China depending on how you think of the world. And so it is important, but you're right from a US, a pure US interest perspective, not that important. The two things just to qualify that. Most of that trade that you've known about Japan, well, most of Japan's trade with the United States across the Western Pacific. But Japan does ship oil through the South China Sea. That was many, many years ago, many years ago. And I believe the Australian CIA did a study of how much it would add to the price of a gallon of gasoline. If you had to ship oil from Saudi Arabia around New Zealand up to Japan, two cents a gallon, right? So again, you just have to ask yourselves, is this an interest in which United States is risking war and crises for the South China Sea? Or are these China Sea? We've already given up the LLC. It's gone a long time ago, right? So again, it's values, it's interest and trade off. There is no such thing as a free lunch. You want to do, you will pay a price for trying to resist the rise of China's South China Sea and you have to calculate that price and ask yourself, is it worth it? Or is it worth it in the United States to fall back to Australia, India and Japan, is that good enough so the Chinese Navy can't reach the Western Pacific? That's the alternative the Navy is pursuing. Yeah, Dr. Colin May, I do have any comments to add? Very interesting comments from the panelists. Since Singapore has been talked about a number of times, maybe I should address Singapore, right? This is, sometimes we tend to look at Singapore from what it appears to be. Singapore wants to be in the middle of both China and the US. Generally that's true. Singapore has a very vibrant economic relationship with China and if anything, Singapore is the largest foreign investor in China compared to the rest. I mean, that is based on figures that came out at this number of years back. And of course, to note that Singapore does have a very vibrant security partnership with the US, it's not an alliance. We have no basis of the US. It is a set of facilities, we made it very clear, even though it has been popularized in the media that Singapore is an ally of the US in anything but name. To some extent, it sounds very hilarious but it's important to highlight here one important fact is that Singapore and the US has a very strong investment relationship. Much of the investments of the US in Southeast Asia are vested in Singapore. And this is often missed out in the commentary out there because most of the media commentaries out there tend to try to portray a sort of bifurcated relationship, a security relationship with the US and economic relationship with China. That is not really true. There is an economic dimension to that. More importantly is that, I think it's evident that on the one hand it's important to note that Singapore has been trying to build deeper defense relationship with China but there are structural limitations to that, largely to do with cultural and organizational differences. Of course, in terms of the fact that Singapore does want to maintain a level of trust with the US when it comes to access to military technology. So there's also a reason why it's very difficult to move deeper into more complex areas like more complex combat air exercises or more complex naval exercises. And one important thing that I wanted to highlight here is that Singapore does have a clear interest to keep the US entrenched in the region. Some examples here. One is while in 2019, many things happened. In 2019, we signed these enhanced agreement on defense engagement and security cooperation with China. And that was taken as a landmark agreement with China but just a few months later, we signed two things with the US. One is we signed first and foremost a protocol to sort of extend the US access to our facilities. That was based on the 1990 MOU, so we extended that. And I think another thing that is important to note is we signed an agreement that allows the Singapore Air Force to have a permanent fighter training attachment in Guam. And why Guam is important here? Because it comes at the time when there were already much talk about how the growing PLA missile capabilities would threaten US post posture in the region. And having a fighter detachment in Guam appears at the very least to signal Singapore's resolve in maintaining the US presence in the region. So Singapore is very small. I think Singapore is trying its best to do whatever it can to keep the US engaged. We couldn't speak for all of the Southeast Asian neighbors but generally this seems to be a general sentiment that is floating around in the region at least. There are evidences clearly to show that even while Southeast Asian neighbors are trying to cultivate closer economic links with China but on the security front with the exception of the Philippines under the 30 administration, there has been not just maintenance but at least a level of enhancement in the engagement with the US military. So I think they're just speaking from a Southeast Asian perspective to add to the discussion. Thank you. I think Colin makes a very important point that I tried to make earlier. We are not seeing Chinese dominance. This is a bipolar region. There are going to be two great powers and we're not seeing the Southeast Asian countries folding into a Chinese sphere of influence. The word I use is moving toward equidistance. They're going to try and stay out of each side, stay out of the conflict. And so you're right. While the Chinese are moving and that logistics agreement with China was very important. But at the same time, they're having exercise with the United States, enhancing ties in the United States so that both countries are going to be important to the entire region. But the key issue here is 10 years ago there was only one country that was important to the entire region. Now it's two countries and you can ask for a more fundamental change in international politics in the addition of a great power to the balance of power. Maybe I'll just jump in here with a couple of thoughts as well. I think that the idea that the US is losing allies in the Indo-Pacific is a really interesting one and I'd be keen to hear some more evidence for that assertion because from where I stand working at an institute that organizes regional security summits, security and defense summits, the Shangri-La Dialogue every year in the Asia-Pacific region. That's not at all what I see and that isn't at all what I hear from engagement with actors and countries in the region either. I fully agree with Colin that actually the desire to have the United States present and active and engaged in the region even militarily is seen as a counterbalance to China's increasingly assertive and aggressive actions both by the military, the Coast Guard and paramilitary forces. So China doesn't need to sink a ship in order to make its point clear. It's already making its point clear below the threshold of war and that doesn't make that any less real or any less confronting to the interests of all the other countries in the region be they medium, small or large. And I think that's really important to remember here. We're looking at an actor that in the maritime domain has not upheld international maritime law, has disregarded a ruling by the permanent court of arbitration according to Yun Klos, a UN law that the Chinese signed and ratified and are supposed to uphold in the region. And at the end of the day, yes, China does have a right to have a large military, does have a right to have military forces commensurate with its size and its strength and to of course project power to protect its own interests. But at the end of the day, don't we want to see a region that is based on an international order whereby small, medium and large countries all adhere to the same rules and the same norms and the same values. I'd argue that that's at the end of the day what we're talking about here. And that's the threat that China poses to countries in the region that don't have a large military and that can't project power in the same way. And that's where the US comes in and where the US maintains and continues to be and I think will be an increasingly important ally for these countries. And just to make that point clear again, Japan didn't have to sign and announce that agreement that are made with the United States with regards to stating that it will assist and support the United States opposing China. It didn't have to do that, but it did. And that I think is a really important signal to the views from the region as well. Lastly, in terms of EU powers sending smaller vessels to the Indo-Pacific, I think that's an interesting and creative idea, but I would argue that those vessels are incredibly important in Europe's own region of course as well. And considering, for example, the need for EU naffar forces in the Mediterranean and furthermore to the North in the Baltic as well. So, there is no simple solution to Europe here and I think that's why we still seen ongoing discussion within Europe about how to pursue those interests in those relations that Europe wants to strengthen with countries in the region. And I think to take your point, Rockford, there were some interesting comments that you made that I think are realistic in terms of supporting capabilities through trainings and through other things, but at the end of the day, it remains a difficult scenario. Thank you for the amazing discussion and I'm so sorry we just lack of time. We will just jump to a Q and A session with one question from the audience. So, I will bring up a question from Edward Zhao and he's asking that what do you guys think is there a way to ensure peace for all actors in the region without any individual actor feeling existently threatened? With the current state of affairs, tensions are high due to the mutual feeling of immense threats. So, please. I'll just jump in quickly here. So, really great points by both Professor Koh and Ms. Noyens. My point on the small boat vessel is just that Europeans could build more of those, more cheaply and maybe deploy, especially France because it has all the Pacific assets, but it was just an idea. What I would say for how to avoid war, I think if you wanted, I don't get any royalty for this, but former D of the Fletcher School just wrote this book 2034, which is a novel and it's a cautionary tale of how to avoid the next world war and it starts actually in the South China Sea. And so if you wanna check that out, there's a bunch of YouTube videos if you want. I think there's no easy answer to that. I mean, I think that the real challenge faced is that the last time there was a hot war involving great powers or large powers, you can argue that the Falklands war between the UK and Argentina was that though, I would dispute that as being a real good example just because Argentina is not nearly, it just doesn't really fit that great power stature. Then you have to go back to World War II. Now, what has changed since World War II? Well, we have satellite, we have cyber capabilities, we have long range missiles. It's just a totally different technology situation. I mean, it was rare for a Japanese Navy vessel to have radar. I mean, it's just a totally different world. And so that's part of the challenge is that we haven't had a real great power hot war for 75 plus years. We don't really know, you don't really know until things are actually hot how vulnerable you are and how great your secret technologies are. Who knows, you just don't know. And so it's very concerning. And I think there's, I'm hopeful that the shared interest, because everybody loses in a hot war, everybody, United States, China, Japan, all the Southeast Asian countries, everyone loses if it gets into a hot war. So that should help keep, mitigate the risk. But that being said, domestic politics matter and miscalculations happen. This book is essentially a book of miscalculations, how you stumble into war. And that's what I fear. But we'll see, hopefully we can avoid it. Yeah, thank you for your thoughts. So just to remind, there is a question from audience and he asked, whether there is a way to ensure peace for all actors in the region without any individual actor feeling extensively threatened? So considering the Southeast Asian region, please. I'm happy to weigh in, but want to defer to my colleagues on the panel. I'll just quickly make the point that I do think if it's one reason I was trying to make the Coast Guard point, I think if there's a strong Coast Guard presence around there, that's inherently less threatening than having these Navy vessels either interface with a Coast Guard or a maritime militia or a civilian vessel. And so I think that that's one way, obviously some of the things that, that like the Shine Green Law Dialogue that enable conversation and diplomatic efforts I think are very helpful. And so that's just one other idea, but I'll stop talking about others way. Quickly on this, I agree with Professor Rockford, but just to simply add that, while it is in theory important to note that Coast Guard vessels are inherently destabilizing, but I think in the very recent years, as what we saw in the case of China, this theory has been put on completely overturned, I would say that it could be that the use of Coast Guard might potentially embolden actors in pushing for the gray zone tactics. So I think that is one concern that we have. And I think another thing is that for a number of years, especially since the early 2000s, there had been talk in Southeast Asia on expanding Coast Guards. But again, the bigger problem here is that we always face more or less inter-agency competition and most of the time, militaries tend to dominate the discussion and therefore, may least tend to continue to be the lead actor when it comes to regional security and that of course, not least the self-Chinese. So just want to add to your point, Professor Rockford. Yeah. I guess we just ran out of time and thank you so much for all the discussion and I will just leave the panel for Jason, please. Thank you, Arton. Now we'll conclude the security panel. I want to thank the panelists for the informative presentation and I want to thank the audience for being with us today. I hope that the security panel has been thought-provoking and brings awareness to the South China Sea. I hope everyone has a great day. Now we will begin the break and please come to our economic panel at 2.45 p.m. if you're interested. We'll be talking about the economic decoupling between the West and China. Thank you guys so much once again.