 All right, I think we have most people now, so I'll start up this session. So hello, everyone. My name is Jason Phan, and I'm currently a sophomore studying quantitative economics and international relations at Tufts University. My classmate Guan, who is the senior studying international relations and I will be the moderators for today. We are beyond excited to welcome all of the high school students to the 2021 Inquiry Simulation, which will focus on China as a regional and global influence. Even though the format of this year's Inquiry Simulation is virtual, it is great to have everyone here. We begin this year with the Hunter Farnham Inquiry Memorial Lecture to be given by Robert Ross, professor of political science at Boston College and a renowned expert on China's security and foreign policies. The IGL begins a Hunter Farnham Inquiry Memorial Lecture to honor Hunter Farnham, an educator and humanitarian who spent most of his career working for the US agency for international development in more than 35 countries. When he retired from government service, he taught at Phillips Exeter Academy and brought many delegations to the Inquiry Simulation. He also became a member of the IGL External Advisory Board. He was a great friend to the IGL. Today, we are honored to have Robert Ross here this afternoon to deliver the Inquiry's keynote address in his name, along with being a professor at Boston College. Professor Ross is also an associate at the John King Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University. In 1994 to 1995, he was Fulbright Professor at 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 at Peking University. His recent publications include Chinese Security Policy, Structure, Power and Politics, China's Ascent, Power, Security and the Future of International Politics and New Directions in the Study of Chinese Foreign Policy. Professor Ross has testified before various Senate and House committees and the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee. He advised US government agencies and he serves on the Academic Advisory Group, US China Working Group, United States Congress. So for today's lecture, Professor Ross will first give a brief lecture on China's security for 20 minutes, which is followed by a Q&A session. Then at 4.45 PM, we will send you to a different meeting and have you guys go to breakout rooms for discussions. In the end, today's meeting will adjourn at 5.15 PM. Professor Ross, the floor is now yours. Thank you, Jason. It's truly an honor to be here. My relationship to the Institute of Global Leadership goes back at least 20, 25 years. I work closely with Sherm Teichmann when he was the director of the program and many of your students and alumni. So it's a pleasure to be back. And as a Tufts alumni, I will not tell you what year I graduated. It's still a pleasure to be back. And it's an honor to be teaching and working with this program on the engagement symposium. Perhaps there's nothing more important in today's world today than the rise of China. And there you can do a lot worse than to spend your time trying to understand the rise of China, what it means to the world, what it means to the regions. In the limited time we have, I wanna quickly sort of ask some questions about what China means for regions and the world. We begin with understanding what it means to be a rising power for the world. We say in international politics that there is no real consensus about how to run the world. The most powerful sit around the table, they make up the rules and the rest sort of follow along because the United States or Europe decided what to do. And so the rules of the road, whether who's allied with whom or who's got the largest navy or who's got the most security or who made the rules of trade or investment, they were made when China was weak. When China was coming out of civil war in the 1950s and 60s, when it was going through extreme poverty and revolution and the culture revolution. And so it wasn't at the table, we say. And so now that China is a strong great power, it looks at the rules and says, well, you know, we have to renegotiate these rules. They don't really represent our interests, they represent your interests. And so we wanna place at the table. We wanna negotiate and talk with you about how we can change these rules and change the international politics. So it better reflects just how powerful China is today, that China is an equal in many respects in the United States and it should have an equal say. And so this is the process of change we're seeing today as China wakes up and says, well, we don't like the way this is and we weren't around when you made these rules, it's time to change them. Now we see this process all over the world in every respect you can imagine. We see it in East Asia. So the United States and East Asia, if you will, created the regional order after World War II. And what did we do? We put bases for our army and our air force and our Navy in Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, and our Navy controlled the South China Sea and the Sea of Japan. And what could China do about it? Absolutely nothing. Because it was either dealing with Mao Zedong and revolution and instability or was still weak and getting stronger. Well, now China says, we don't like your bases surrounding us. Now that's not an unreasonable demand. After all, American power surrounding China is gonna make China fairly nervous now they have something to do with that. But China doesn't have to do much. Simply because it's more powerful. Other countries are saying, oh, now there are two countries we need to be nice to. They always had to be nice to the United States because it was the only great power with the Navy and air force. Well, now there's a second power, China and the United States with air force and Navy. And so they're saying, well, we need to be nice to two countries. So all of a sudden you begin to see America's long-term friends, South Korea, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia. They say, well, we're not so sure we wanna cooperate with you as much as we used to because we have to be nice to China because they're powerful too. And so we're finding American friends and allies not so cooperative with America and our alliances are weakening. Now when America's finding itself in East Asia as becoming no longer number one and we're used to being number one but that's what happens when you have another rising power. And so we're seeing East Asia change. But we're also seeing Europe change. United States is used to having the NATO countries cooperate with America because America was so important to NATO security. Well, two things happened. One, we talk a lot about Russia in the United States these days but Russia is really very, very weak. So the European countries will say, well, maybe we don't need you anymore. We can manage Russia. They're not that threatening. But then second, I know you're concerned about China but China is very far away. And we're gonna be more worried about Russia. And you want us to help in dealing with China but the European countries say, no, you can't count on us for China. Why? Because China is so important economically now. So it's a rising power militarily but it's a rising power economically. And the European countries say, we need to take advantage of China cooperate with China for our economy and we're not going to risk that to help you in Asia, when Asia's so far away. So we have countries in East Asia, South Korea, Philippines to say, we're not gonna get involved in the US-China conflict. Why? Because China is powerful and they need to be nice. That's what new countries do to other countries. And we have the European countries say, you have to manage China on your own. Don't ask for our help. Why? Because China is now a major power in the world. It was important to them and they're not going to cooperate in Asia when Asia is not important to them. All this is new. All this is the rise of China. Now, what rising powers do, and that includes China, is that it makes the other established powers nervous. Because the United States is used to being number one. And now we have to share being number one. We used to having allies. Now we don't have allies anymore. We used to be number one in the South China Sea when our military was the strongest, but now there's a second military there. And so the United States is nervous just losing its allies. United States is nervous because in Asia, maybe China will take over Asia. That makes the US nervous. And we're a little nervous because we're dealing with China alone because Europe won't help us and Asia won't help us. Except for Japan. So when you think about the tension and the problem in US-China relations, they are indeed the result of the rise of China because the world is changing because of China. But that's different than saying how you respond to China. What do you do about this? Now, when we think of US-China relations, China is being very cooperative with the United States and the world. They're saying, let's have stability. Let's trade. Let's get rid of the trade war. Let's see how we can cooperate. Why? Because China is benefiting from cooperation with the United States and cooperation with the world. The United States is the unhappy. They don't like the trend because cooperation and stability is helping China grow. So if you look around the world, the United States is challenging China with its Navy, its relationship with Taiwan, with trade wars with Donald Trump, technology wars, the US started the trade war. China said, why do you want to have a trade war? Well, because we're not happy with rising China. Technology war, well, was fine for China before. They'd like it to go back. America says no. So America is pushing back on China. And that's where the tension comes from. Now, it's not to say the tension is right or wrong. But you have to ask yourself, is this helpful? How should America respond in a way that are good for America? Is the trade war good for America? Is the technology war good for America? Is military tension good for America? And there's no right or wrong answer to that. But that's the debate America's having about what do we do about the rise of China. But that's understanding China from, if you will, security perspectives and economic perspectives about Europe and Asia. But it's almost not appropriate anymore to talk about the rise of China. China is already a great power. In many ways it's equal to United States. So we used to say the world was unipolar. I don't know if it ever was, but certainly it's not anymore if it ever was. Asia's bipolar, China and the United States compete in Asia. In the aid relations around the world, China's a great power. We have to think about China's impact as a power on the world stage for the global agenda. And the global agenda is very large. The agenda of global problems is long and none of these problems can be solved without Chinese cooperation. You ignore China, you don't bring them to the table, they will not be solved. On the other hand, if you want China to come to the table, you have to cooperate with China in two respects. One, you have to say, what does China want to make an agreement possible? They're just not going to say, tell the world what you want and China will do it. Because we said before, they have their interests, they have their values and you need to meet them at least halfway if you want them to cooperate with you on the global agenda. And then second, these issues are not possible to resolve without Chinese help because China can simply walk away. And I think of the long agenda that China might or might not accept because the rules of the road, the rule-based order we said before, just as in East Asia was made without China. So they're going to want to change things. So think of the agenda. International trade, well, if you want to stabilize international trade, you need to have cooperation with China. So you don't have trade wars or sanctions or tariffs, right? And you need to have agreements on investments. You don't have investment wars. You need to have agreements on finance. You don't have currency wars. So you need to negotiate. Now you have to ask at the same time, what are China's objectives? Is China a revolutionary state that wants to overthrow the order? Or does China want to reform the order? So if you look at Chinese behavior in trade, in aid, in various things, China clearly was a beneficiary of the system that existed. And so it clearly doesn't want to overthrow that system. Again, we have a process where the world is saying, you need to agree to the old system. That's the problem. You're strong now. You must accept the rules as they were written. And China says, we like our behavior. We like our trade policies. We don't want to change. So you have to ask, to what extent do you want to have a trade war with China to make a change? Or to what extent you can manage this because China's demands are not that great? If you look at Chinese behavior, it's a reformist state. It's rules on banking, international aid banks, not that different than the World Bank. Yes, it has a larger role for the state and its economy, but interesting enough, after four years with Donald Trump, China has a more open economy for trade than Japan and the United States. So that China's not wanting to overthrow this system and there may be ways to work with it instead of coercive efforts to change China. And of course we have to ask ourselves if you want to make China change and they say no, well, you have some responsibility if you retaliate for destabilizing the world trade system. Where else does China matter? Well, certainly China matters for climate change. You cannot manage climate change without China. Now, China clearly is a problem. If you look at the data from 2020 on the amount of coal-fired energy plants that were shut down, it was a good year. But China built more coal-fired energy plants than the number that were actually shut down. So China's making the world worse despite the progress elsewhere. Well, what do you do about that? China says it wants to cooperate. On the other hand, China says I want to grow and develop faster and keep my people employed and it's expensive to do climate change. There's no free ride out there, it's expensive. So what do you do when China says we need to promote growth for employment? Pandemics, how do you cooperate with China to manage pandemics? There's with 20% of the world's population, you don't bring China on board, you're not going to manage pandemics. On the other hand, China doesn't allow free access to its health system. So how do you have true cooperation? And do you accept the limited access to for any matter of cooperation rather than say we won't cooperate because you don't follow the rules everyone else does? What about human rights around the world? Well, there are two parts to that. The Belt and Road Initiative. China attaches no conditions to giving aid to other countries. That's different than the World Bank. On the other hand, China bills them a lot faster and the roads get built and the bridges get built and the pipelines get built. Maybe that's better for development than having conditions. And what about Burma? What do we do with Chinese human rights? Well, we should be clear that China doesn't like democracy inside China. So why should they care if there's no democracy in Burma? And of course, what should we do about Xinjiang? And there's a human rights problem. What do we do about international drug trafficking? What do we do about nuclear proliferation in Iran and North Korea? There is no way to solve these problems without Chinese help. Well, this creates a real problem. On the one hand, China wants its own rules and you have to ask whether they're big or they're small, their demands. China's not following many rules and you feel that it's destabilizing the system and you want to make China comply. But then that would be treating China like an adversary. That would be treating China like an enemy. That would require sanctions on China, retaliation against China. But if you do that, you're not gonna get Chinese help on anything you want. North Korea, Iran, pandemics, human rights, because then they won't cooperate with you. So it's easy in our domestic climate to say, we must retaliate against China. But we have to ask, will it be successful? One, in changing China in the Pacific issue, we're sanctioning, but two, what are the costs of all the other things you want China's cooperation on? Because China only cooperates if you're being helpful to China. So now we can do Q&A. Thank you so much, Professor Ross. So now we're going to open up for questions. Students, please use the chat box to send us your questions. And I'll get us started, Professor Ross. So under the current Biden administration, what do you think is the most important area that the US should cooperate with China? And what do you think is the most important area that the US should compete with or condemn China's action? Thank you. The challenge for the United States is to cooperate and compete simultaneously and to compete in ways that do not unnecessarily create a greater risk of war. So in many ways, the Biden administration is more aggressive or adversarial than the Trump administration was. They have said, we are going to compete with China unless it's in American interest. I don't hear them say mutual interest. I don't hear them say cooperating with Chinese interests. We're going to compete unless it's in American interest. And there's an effort on the Biden administration to signal how tough America is by strengthening its alliances around the world. And they believe Trump was too friendly to dictators. And they believe we could do it better. And so you're seeing the Biden administration actually challenging China more than the Trump administration on Taiwan, in the South China Sea, in economics. And so that is because the Biden administration says, we don't like the rise of China. We're going to try and stop. Well, are these policies, for example, the trade war that Donald Trump won, China's winning the trade war, Trump started, but China's winning it. Its economy grew faster during the trade war than the American economy. And second, the trade deficit in the United States with China got bigger during the trade war. So you may not like the rise of China but is a trade war the right policy. You may want to be tough on Taiwan so you can signal the world how tough you are. But if you create a later likelihood of war, is it worth being tough on Taiwan? You have to manage the competition to minimize unnecessary tension. But then second, where do you cooperate? Well, you know, there's a long list. And let's be clear, you're not going to get Chinese cooperation on Korea or Afghanistan and Iran when you're treating them like an adversary over Taiwan, which is very important to them. But we need Chinese cooperation on North Korea to try and get North Korea to agree to freeze in this nuclear development. We need Chinese cooperation in post war Afghanistan. If we pull out, there's a vacuum and we need Chinese help in making sure the place doesn't fall apart and in aid programs to help promote stability. Why should they help us in Afghanistan? We need Chinese help in persuading Iran to return to the nuclear deal. Well, Iran's reaching out to Russia and China for support so that Iran can save the United States. We don't like the deal you're offering. And they are willing to resist US pressure because they have Chinese help. So you can't really put pressure on Iran to make an agreement without Chinese help. So from my perspective, the most important issues are North Korea, nuclear proliferation, Afghanistan and Iran nuclear proliferation. Now, many people might feel this climate change. My personal feeling is that this is not an area open to negotiation. China will make all the promises it wants but what drives the Chinese Communist Party is stability. They are afraid of unemployment. They are afraid of chaos. So they are afraid of slow economic growth. And they're never going to agree to reduce pollution because of an international agreement if their economy is slowing down, because that frightens them. And there's a pattern over time and the pattern is clear. When the economy slows down, Chinese pollution increases. When the economy is doing well, you see more efforts at environmental regulations. We should try and cooperate with China but we should have no illusion that it will be successful. History of the world suggests that in the issues of climate, inequality, child labor, unions, they all happen after countries get developed and wealthy so they can afford to spend money on other things. And China doesn't feel it's there yet. And second, with the Communist Party that's worried about being overthrown on a daily basis, it's hard for them to sacrifice growth or pollution. Thank you so much. Now we have a question from one of our high school students by Karin Dacosta and she asked, what, if anything, does China want to change about the current global economic system? How would that affect other economic players like ASEAN? China doesn't want to change anything. So if the other countries in the world that are saying to China, your policies, you are not complying with the rules. So when Mao died and Deng Xiaoping took over, if you didn't matter anymore, you didn't matter, you're a weak country. You are a developing economy. So you broke all the rules and we even let you break the rules. We had special rules for you because you were developing country. You're now the second most powerful economy in the world and what you do matters. This is what happens with rising powers. All of a sudden the world cares. Chinese will say, how come America is so critical of China? Well, because you're a great power until we care. Well, now the China's impact is so great that the rest of the world is saying, you must change. And that's the problem. The issue is what happened to China doesn't change as a great power in economics. What does it do to global stability when as a great power it has its own rules and it doesn't want to change. China was a weak power and had its own rules. No one cared about China in the international economy. And that's what we're fighting over. China, you must change your domestic rules so they are the same as other advanced industrial powers. China for the most part is saying no. Well, what do you do about that? You start trade wars or you sort of find ways to negotiate and change China at the margins. You understand the world wants China to change and China's refusing to change. And of course, now that it's a great power it's insistence on keeping policies that are no longer appropriate will change the world if China does nothing. Because the world will respond to create a level playing field and that's the danger. If China's closed, other countries will close. If China's investment is biased and other countries won't let China in and then you have a potential for trade conflict. So the world will change not because China's changed but because other countries saying we need to protect ourselves against China because China doesn't play by the rules. Thank you. So in your opinion, how thoughtful was the previous administration's trade war policy and how the trade war was handled? Oh, forgive me for revealing my political bias but I'm not sure they gave much thought to their trade policy at all. There was a basically the administration did not like China because China was growing and Donald Trump had America first which means America must remain the greatest power in the world and every challenge to America must be resisted so American remain number one in the world. And so it's not all clear the administration did any analysis of what a trade war would mean for the relative distribution of power to the two countries. Would China rise faster because of a trade war or slower? I don't think they ever ran the numbers. If we put constraints on Chinese investment would that hurt China or hurt America more? I don't think they ran the numbers. And so the trade war was very badly waged because it hurt America more than it hurt China. China grew fast in the United States. So remember China retaliated with putting up their own tariffs. So American exports to China declined and that hurt American GDP and when did it hurt American GDP? During the COVID crisis, we were in a recession anyway. So it hurt the American economy when Chinese retaliation but China grew fast in the America and the gap continued to clothe. And technology is not clear. The long-term is good for the US. The trade deficit got bigger and bigger during the trade war. So it didn't narrow the trade deficit. So again, China says, when you want to negotiate a new trade agreement and then you're willing to take down your tariffs and the trade war and Chinese might say to America, we're no hurry to end the trade war. It might hurt China, but it's hurting America more. So that means the rise of China has happened even faster than before. And that's the irony of the Donald Trump policy is that China actually might like it. Thank you for your answer. Now we have a question from another student and she wants to ask, what is the biggest or most common mistake or misconception that American policy makers make in US-China relations in your opinion? I think one, there's a growing sense that China is preparing for war against Taiwan. And there's no evidence of that. But because Americans are soon nervous about the rise of China, have strong times becoming, they say, what will China do with all this power? They're getting so competent they may start a war. But that's not how countries think. We could, United States could have invaded Cuba a long time ago and defeated Cuba. But why, it was too dainty. It would have been a long war, a nasty war, expensive war. Why do that? So there's a sense that China is becoming more and more aggressive against Taiwan. But the second thing Americans don't do well, and no country does this well, is they don't understand the impact of American policy on China. America always sees itself as reactive and the other country is taking initiatives. But all countries think that way. We're a nice country. We're just, we want peace and cooperation. The other guys are always the bad guys. So are we provoking China by our Taiwan policy? No one asks that question. Are we provoking China with our naval activities in South China Sea? No one's asking that question. Are we provoking China with our human rights policy? No one's asking that question. It's all China's fault. And so the solution doesn't require America to change his policy. But you can't solve anything unless you mutually compromise. But the perspective is, it's America, it's China's fault, America's doing nothing wrong. And of course, from the Chinese perspective, they see many things America is doing to challenge China. And it's going to be hard to change Chinese behavior unless you acknowledge that and try and understand how you're undermining Chinese interests. Thank you. Now we have a question from another high school student, Alex, who asks, from the perspective of other smaller, less powerful East Asian nations, such as the Philippines, South Korea, Japan, et cetera, what should be their goals in the future to grow and increase regional security while potentially limiting China's growth and influence? Well, let's begin with the basics. There is nothing Singapore, Philippines, South Korea, Malaysia can do to limit China. Only another great power can constrain a great power. The small powers are going to find ways for protection. You put all that power in China, you put all that power in the United States. I mean, imagine we all think Canadians like Americans. Well, maybe they do, but they also live next to the most powerful country in the world and that makes them very nervous. And so they always want to find ways to be nice to us. And that's what happens in Southeast Asia or Northeast Asia with South Korea. You can't constrain China. You have to find ways to get along with China. So China doesn't think you're an enemy and have to hurt you. Now, part of that is because China, you don't want China treating you like an enemy and part of that's because they need to develop. And that means no country in the world today and compete in international economics without trading with China. It is the largest market in the world, the fastest growing market in the world. You want your economy to develop, you sell to China. You want your economy to develop, you invest in China. Every Southeast Asian country, every East Asian country knows that. So you would down the list, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, South Korea, they all have more important number one trade relation with China, number two is United States. And they need to preserve that for their development and to preserve it, they have to make sure China doesn't say to them, oh, you want to use our economy, get strong now, we got sanctions on you. And we need to remember, Americans will, you hear talk about how China's using its trade power to hurt other countries. Yes, it is. Well, welcome to the United States. United States is the sanctioned king of the world. We put sanctions on everyone. This is what great powers do. So you ask what mistakes America makes. We fail to see China in a comparative perspective. Is China using its power to get other countries to do what it wants? Of course it is. But is it acting in a particularly dangerous way? Well, let's see, has it killed anyone since 1979? No, that's 30 years, hasn't killed anyone. Started a war? No, attacked another country with its air force? No. Well, that sounds like the United States is the most dangerous country in the world, but we're killing people all the time in the Middle East. You don't see China's behavior as a great power in context of what other great powers did. What China's doing in East Asia is gunboat diplomacy. Well, you know, in the scheme of things, that's not too bad. You're not killing anyone. Thank you so much. So now we have a question that has a slightly different focus. This is more of a human rights question from one of our high school students. So if the Biden administration is attempting to apply pressure on China on human rights issues, then how come Biden calls the detaining of the Uruguay Muslims part of China's different norms? Say that again. Sure, I'll repeat this question again. So if the Biden administration is attempting to apply pressure on China about their human rights issues, then how come Biden has also called the practice of detaining Uruguay Muslims part of China's different norms? Oh, Uyghur Muslims, Uyghur. Uyghur, yes. I thought you said Uruguay, and I'm not sure why we're talking about Uruguay. Well, yeah. So, I mean, this is part of the larger problem. We have a problem in Xinjiang, of the detainment camps of Uyghurs. That's a big human rights problem, there's no question. But because of two things, the Biden administration's strong intention to show that they are going to stand up to China, so they use signals. We're going to resist the rise of China. We're going to balance China. Our allies can depend on us to resist China. You should lean toward America to balance China, and you can depend on us. And so they use human rights to show their willingness to challenge China. Second, we have domestic problems. You don't want to appear weak on China with the Republican Party. And so we call China's policy in Xinjiang genocide. Well, by the international legal system, it's not genocide. It just isn't, it's bad, but it's not genocide. So you can see we're already accusing China of something that the world community says it's not. The second, you would accuse China of genocide or hypothetically don't go to the Olympics. Don't expect any help on North Korea. Don't expect any help on Afghanistan or Iran. Don't expect any help on pandemics. Don't expect any help on anything. Because you're saying the government, you're saying Xi Jinping is a genocidal leader and you want his help. No, you can't call someone genocidal and ask and expect for cooperation. So again, we have this contradiction where you want to show your resolve because China is challenging the, with its power challenging American alliances and friendships and challenging America's role in the world. On the other hand, you need Chinese cooperation to achieve many of the things you want to achieve. And then trying to show your resolve, well, maybe you just can't get help in North Korea. Thank you so much. Well, Professor Ross, right now we still have many questions incoming and I know that earlier I have mentioned that we're supposed to move into breakout from sessions at 4.45, but could you stay here for longer to answer more? I have a problem I would be happy to, Jason. Thank you so much. So now we have another question from a high school student by Carrie. So she asked, you said that it is important for the Chinese economy to be thriving if there is any hope of the Chinese reducing carbon emissions and getting on board with climate change initiatives. Do you think that China can really be expected to join any international agreements on such issues that affect China's economy when foreign countries such as the United States are actively trying to hurt the Chinese economy? Well, understand why the Chinese like coal. They like coal because they own it. You don't have to import it. And all countries to the extent possible prefer to have their energy domestic. So if you depend on the Middle East for oil or electricity that makes you very nervous. So if, because Chinese have so much coal, they're going to make sure that most of their energy comes from coal so they can be self-reliant. Now, we need to be clear here. 92% of Chinese energy is domestically derived. About 70% is coal. They like it like that. Then another 20% is China's own oil, China's own natural gas, China's nuclear energy, China's solar, China's hydropower and dams. They like it like that. So China is only going to be eliminating coal production gradually as other sources of energy can replace it. Slowly, more hydro and of course there's no free lunch. We know that China is killing the rivers of Asia from dams. Well, what are you going to do? You want coal, you want hydro, right? Nuclear, well, people don't like nuclear. There's no easy answer to these things. But coal seems to be in many ways the worst. But Chinese are going to give up coal until they can replace it with something else. And that's never going to change. That's just a rule. Second, we need to understand that they could burn coal cleanly. Too large, isn't it good? But it's expensive. Burning coal to reduce emissions of particle emissions raises the cost of energy production by 15%. That's a lot. And second, it means because you are using energy to burn it cleanly, you have to burn 15% more coal. And where is that coal coming from? Chinese coal mines with horrible conditions and workers are dying every day working in coal mines. So, but they're not going to burn it cleanly because it's expensive and it would lead to more deaths than coal mines, as you. So China will agree to anything. But like every country in the world, they lie. They lie all the time. And their purpose out there is to make friends. And who made more friends? Donald Trump says, we're pulling out of the Paris Accord and we don't like you anyway, so goodbye. But China says, we love the climate accord and Paris Accord and we love it. We're going to buy it, but they really don't. Who made more friends? China did. So all countries lie and I don't, again, we're back to where we were. China will have a better climate policy when it's wealthy enough and it can make sacrifices to its economy. Thank you for your answer. We have another question from a high school student who asked, are there any parallels between the current US-China situation to the Cold War? And does the public's perception of China affect US policymaking? That's a very good question. And one that's part of our debates in America right now. We're looking forward to a new Cold War. And that has three things we must say, and I'll say it quickly. One, America has a short history. We think every great power conflict has to be a Cold War. No, that's just not true. Europe in the 19th century, all of these great powers and they traded and they had political exchanges and educational exchanges, they didn't have a Cold War. The US-Soviet Cold War was particularly unique in how bad the relationship was. Second, what made it bad was the big Soviet Army sitting on the border of Germany and Americans and Germans and French all worried that they'll start a war tomorrow and the Western Europe will be conquered by the Soviet Union. No one's worried about the Chinese conquering Asia. Then I'm gonna invade the Philippines or invade Singapore, invade Indonesia. There's all that watered across and why would they want to do that anyway? So the threat of the Chinese to conquer Asia is not equal to the Soviet threat to conquer Europe. So we're less scared. And when you're less scared, you don't need a Cold War. But then third, Soviet Union was largely responsible for the Cold War because it didn't want Americans coming in. It was afraid of capitalism, afraid of American investment, afraid of American trade, afraid of American students, afraid of American culture because it was a communist state wanting to change its society and worried about its control. Chinese are like that. So we have Donald Trump's trade war can be whatever he wants, but we still have a lot of trade with China. That's not going to end. But it's still gonna have a lot of investment in China. That's not gonna end. We don't have any ideological conflict. There's no ideology left in China. There's Xi Jinping's power. There's the Chinese Communist Party, but you can't say in China, we want to create a communist society. No one believes in that. So that's not there either. So we should understand that for all the rhetoric about a Cold War, this doesn't need to be a Cold War. And then second, it's not going to be a Cold War. People use that to mobilize anti-Chinese support to build the defense budget or to compete better. But in reality, it doesn't need to be and it will not be. Thank you. So going off of that question, another high school student asked, how should the United States employ an offshore balancing strategy and work with other countries in East Asia to check China's rights and advance its own interests in the region? Well, we talk about offshore balancing sometimes. We talk about having other countries take some of the responsibility. And if we were to do less, if you will, other countries would do more. Now, we've already said, there's nothing Singapore or Malaysia, the Philippines or South Korea are gonna do, right? I mean, South Korea has a population of 40 million people. They're gonna compete with 1.4 billion? No, South Korea is gonna find a way to accommodate China. So when people talk about offshore balancing, they usually say, if we were to do less, India, Russia and Japan would do more. No, this is simply a dream of Americans thinking that we don't have to, if we could do less and we still wouldn't have to worry about China. The fact is that India is a declining power. Why? Because its economy is growing much, much less than China is. So it's actually getting weaker compared to China. Its military is getting weaker compared to China. Its technology is getting weaker compared to China. So you can imagine if the United States feels challenged by China, India can't do anything about China. Russia is the same way. Russia's got a very weak Navy and is very worried about the Ukraine and NATO. There are no Russian troops, no Russian Navy, no Russian Air Force anywhere in the Russian Far East and Siberia. So what do they have to do? They gotta be nice to China. And Japan has been growing at 1% for the last 30 years. Technological innovation is very, very low. It's got a declining population and aging population, massive budget problems. And it's gonna balance China? No, it's already working as hard as it can to maintain its current capabilities. It's the United States with nobody. We balance China and no one balances China. Now that could be okay. You might wanna say China, you can have Asia. Why would you say that? Because between the United States and China is a huge Pacific Ocean to protect us. So we don't really have to worry. China is never gonna land in the United States because we have nuclear weapons. And third, the United States can be secure because we control the Western Hemisphere. And that's very nice to control the Western Hemisphere. One big American sphere of influence. Do we need to be in Asia too? That's something worth discussing. Thank you. So a bit of a topic transition. One of our high school students wants to know, do you anticipate that a sustainable resolution to the Taiwan Strait conflict will be reached in the near future? And what path would you propose for a successful conflict resolution when it seems that all parties involved are unwilling to change their stance on this issue? Thank you. I believe a resolution is close to impossible. Let's begin with the reality. The people in Taiwan do not like the Chinese Communist Party. The people in Taiwan do not like China. And the people in Taiwan do not want to give up what they have and become a province of China, period. So how would the mainland go about changing that? Nothing the mainland could do could ever change that. They're like who they are. So how would they ever change that? They'd have to invade them. And that would be very dangerous for the mainland. Suppose it became a long war. Well, then could the Communist Party survive? Suppose it became a long war. How many planes would they lose? Well, then you are going to waste all those planes fighting Taiwan. And the next thing you know, the Americans are number one again, very dangerous. So the issue is not to resolve the problem because Taiwan will never say they're part of Communist China. And the mainland will never go to war to make them. So what you need to do is try and avoid a situation where the mainland, the mainland that we sometimes we will say in English is the 600 pound gorilla in the room. We don't like them. We think they're wrong. We think that they should allow Taiwan to have independence, but it doesn't matter what we think. They're the 600 pound gorilla in the room and you've got to deal with that reality because in the 600 pound gorilla gets angry, we're all dead. So the challenge is for Taiwan and the United States to find a way to give Taiwan security without provoking the mainland. Now, in reality, it's not hard. All Taiwan said in the past is Taiwan is part of China. Didn't say mainland, didn't say Communist China, didn't say the People's Republic of China. They said Taiwan is part of China. And that China is the Republic of China, meaning Taiwan. And then we can go on buying weapons from the United States and cooperating with China on trade. What China is worried about is maybe the leadership on Taiwan will declare independence and independence means war. So what Taiwan has to avoid and Americans have to avoid is giving the mainland the impression that this could lead to war because Taiwan declares independence. You should be able to do two things at once, protect Taiwan, avoid it becoming part of the mainland and simultaneously not provoking the mainland by making them worry that Taiwan could declare independence. We haven't seen that for the last four years. Taiwan has been moving closer to independence very, very slowly. So there's no threat of independence. But the mainland will say you're moving in the wrong direction, we worry, you American support's growing. Maybe the leadership will do something stupid because they think the Biden administration will back them maybe they'll do something stupid because they think that America will prevent the mainland from going to war. And next thing you know, we're in war. So America needs to constrain its support for Taiwan so the mainland doesn't worry. And Taiwan needs to signal the mainland that it's not gonna declare independence because Taiwan's part of the mainland, not part of the PRC, part of the mainland. And then we can reduce the tension, maximize trade. Remember, no one can ever develop any stage without trading with China. The Taiwan can maximize its trade with the mainland and avoid heightened tension. Thank you. Now we have a question from a high school student about the BRI. So what do you think the implications of the BRI will be for the participating nations? Does this think that it will lead these nations into a larger debt trap or may it truly be beneficial for those countries? So the term debt trap has become quite popular. And it began from a journalist, I believe, in India. And then got picked up by an American journalist writing, I believe, for the New York Times. And next thing you know, we have a new image of China using aid for debt. And the classic case is Sri Lanka. But I would recommend to everyone in the room to read the recent article in the Atlantic magazine on China and Sri Lanka. And the story is just the opposite. When Sri Lanka was having trouble paying its debt, the mainland said, well, let's make it easier for you to pay the debt. And two, they actually didn't take control over the port because they couldn't pay the debt. So the myth has developed about debt traps. When Malaysia couldn't pay the debt, the mainland said, let's renegotiate. The mainland has actually worked with the International Monetary Fund to help countries who are in financial crisis because of COVID to reschedule their debts rather than making them pay or taking control of their assets. So in that respect, the mainland has not been as evil as countries say. Second, countries need infrastructure. The mainland is going out there and saying, we will give you loans, build trains and railways and pipelines and airports and seaports. What do you think? And the world says, thank you, we need infrastructure. So Italy's building infrastructure from Chinese BRI. The Greeks are building it. Rotterdam has taken funding. Malaysia's taken funding. Philippines has taken funding because the countries need infrastructure is good for investment. It's good for development. So I mean, there were issues. China has no intention of China's willing to be corrupt and help leaders. China's willing to overlook environmental issues or maybe child labor. That's those are real issues. And then you have to ask yourself, there's no such thing as an easy answer to anything. Is it better for these countries to not care about the environment, not care about child labor, get the bridges built so they can increase their economic growth and that will be the surest way to end child labor through economic growth. I don't know, but these are worth debating. But for the most part, I don't see much of a problem with the BRI in terms of global norms. Remember, it's an aid policy. We can't get too upset about an aid policy. No one ever called American foreign aid a critical element in global war and peace. It's an aid policy. Again, you asked me earlier what American mistakes make about China to see the BRI is this great Chinese strategic plot. Come on now. It's a, they're giving loans for building bridges. Everything China does is a plot to take over the world. No, it's an aid policy. Thank you. But just to build off of that, so how can we ensure that the BRI and other related projects meet environmental goals, especially within the Asian nations who are mostly impacted by climate change? Well, these are bilaterally negotiated agreements. If the Philippines wants a Chinese assistance that is environmental, the sustainable environment, sustainable policy, let them negotiate with China. If the Malaysians want an environmentally sustainable investment, let them negotiate that with China. If Ethiopia says we don't care about environmental sustainability, Chinese say fine, we'll build the bridge. So if you're talking about the ASEAN countries, it's up to them to decide what they want. And it's also up to Ethiopia to decide what they want. Now, having said that, we should understand that the Asian infrastructure bank, Asian infrastructure investment bank has worked closely with the Asian Development Bank that has Japanese leadership and has worked closely with the World Bank in joint projects so that this is not a pariah state and outlier challenging the World Bank, challenging the Asian Development Bank. They have hundreds of joint projects they do. There are World Bank officials who retired are now working in senior positions at the infrastructure investment bank because China wants their wisdom in how to run these banks. Is this a Chinese bank? Yes, is it gonna serve Chinese interests? You bet it will. The same way the World Bank served American interests because the United States ran the World Bank for 50 years after World War II. Is it gonna serve Chinese interests? You bet it will. But to what extent is it going to serve other countries' interests too? That's the question you have to ask. Thank you. Now we'll go to a different topic. One of the high school students asked, how should the United States approach the growing issue of intellectual properties by China without greatly worsening its relationship with China or not taking a hard enough stance? Very difficult problem. First, two problems. Two problems. First, China doesn't have a legal system. Let's be clear about that. Very few courts, very few lawyers, very few accountants who can look at the books, very, I mean, very few lawyers who are capable of defending and prosecuting. Judges don't understand these issues. People don't solve problems in Chinese society by going to court. That's not how it's done. So that the ability of a legal system to enforce intellectual property rights does not exist. You know, I mean, you think about the horrible governments in Iran and horrible governments in Burma, the horrible governments in North Korea, these governments don't collect taxes. They don't have, they do one thing. They repress people from expressing their individual opinions on human rights. Other than that, they have no power whatsoever because they're weak governments, minimal bureaucracy, minimal regulations. So the Chinese legal system is not equipped to enforce an intellectual property rights system. So you can steal intellectual property rights and no one will do anything about it because a legal system is not going to go after you. Second, we have to recognize the reality at the local level that the number one objective of the local level officials is development of their local industries. So some guy is going to steal IPR, put it in their factory, hire 200, 300, 500 local people and the local party officials gonna say you did a bad thing, never gonna happen. Cause he just, or she just raised the GDP of that small, the economy of that small county by a lot. And that's the most important thing for that party member to get promoted. What do we call that? We call that corruption. You have the party member working hand in hand with the owner of the factory to make sure that if there's a lawsuit, the judge in the local court doesn't rule against the factory owner. And what can the Beijing do about it? Not much because it has very weak control over local officials who are trying to improve the economy. We think, how can they be a weak government? Look how oppressive they are. Of course they are because one, there's a common interest in local officials and putting people in jail will challenge the government. So they're happy to do it anyway. And two, you wanna please Xi Jinping. Xi Jinping has said stability is the number one issue. And how do you keep stability? You put people to work. So if China lacks the ability to do something about it, how important is it for you to make an issue of a new US-China relations when you are not going to succeed, period? And yet if you put sanctions and everything else, they will retaliate. And so you're only gonna hurt yourself with no upside because they can't enforce the intellectual property rights anyway. Now, in the past, what have we done? We signed great agreements and never get carried out. And we knew they would never get carried out, but we wanted to sign an agreement so we could move beyond this issue of conflict because we knew it was fruitless and try and cooperate elsewhere. So you wanna be cynical, reach an agreement with China and intellectual property rights. No, they'll never enforce it. But you can tell the business community what a great agreement we signed. You can tell Congress what a great agreement we signed and that will make US-China cooperation elsewhere better but no progress on intellectual property rights. Depends on how cynical you wanna be. Thank you. Now we have a question that asked. So you had said that Russia was once very powerful. So how has the rise in China changed the dynamics between US and Russia? So now does the US not care about Russia anymore because China is more powerful? Well, again, the United States has a domestic politics problem. Russia interferes in our election. They seem to be a bully around Europe. And so we consider the Russians a threat. Now, if you are analytical about these things and not political, you say, well, how big is their navy? Not big, well, they can't be a threat. How big is their air force? Not big, can't be a threat. How big is their economy? It's a midget economy. It's the size of Spain. Can't be a threat. So what are the Russians doing? They're challenging us in areas where we really don't want to fight a war. So we're not really stopping them. But on the other hand, they're acting belligerent. And so we see this belligerent activity. And if you read the defense reports, they're all, they're finally being honest and they say out of the Pentagon, China's number one threat. And they actually, I think the last one ranked the Soviet, Russia is equivalent to Iran. So it's just not that big a deal. Iran's not a big deal. So that means two things. It means that many people would feel Donald Trump had the right ideas and wrong methods. We gotta get out of Europe. The United States cannot afford to take the responsibility on and defending Europe against Russia. When our budget deficit's off the chart or defense budget's off the chart, our Navy is collapsing before our eyes and China's rising. We can't do both theaters at once. And second, because Russia's weak, the Europeans can do it themselves. They don't need us. So that's the transition you're seeing is the United States trying to find a way to get out of Europe in the context of which the Europeans don't need our help. And how do you get the Europeans to do more? You get out of Europe. I will give Donald Trump, I won't name that will not be mentioned. I'll mention the former guy and give him some credit. He's so scared of the Europeans that we were leaving tomorrow that they started spending more in defense. They are now spending more in defense because they don't trust us for two reasons. One, three reasons. They can see us declining. Two, they know we care more about China. And three, they're afraid we might leave. So that's where we're going because of Russian weakness. But having said that, we will never be able to get the Russians to be our friends against China because the Russian Far East in Siberia is so seven million people in the entire Russian Far East compared to 400 million Chinese just south of the border. So Russia in the Far East is no different than South Korea, the Philippines. They better damn well be nice to China or the West they got a problem. And I don't care what American policy they got to be nice to China. Thank you. I think this will be our last question for today. Thank you. So a high school student asked, in a hypothetical absence of the COVID pandemic, how do you think U.S-China relations would have developed over the past year and how might the outlook change with the new Biden administration? I don't think COVID made a big difference because first the prior administration and now the Biden administration was using everything possible to mobilize opinion for containing China. So what we did on the controversy over COVID didn't reflect the importance of COVID. It reflected American efforts to use COVID as part of our overall strategy. COVID didn't drive anything. American policy drove our policy on COVID. Now we can see that because we're not going to change. COVID is history. This come from a wet market in Wuhan. Did it come from a Chinese lab? I have no idea. I assume it came from wet market. But I don't really care. The issue is what do we do now to protect lives? And I think we can all agree that that should be the priority instead of blaming China for what happened in the past. But the Biden administration continues to blame China for what happened in the past because they know that saving lives is the most important thing going forward. They know that cooperation and trying to open up China in the future is more important but they're going to use COVID to rally public opinion against China around the world. Same way they call China genocidal. Is it genocidal? Is it not? But it's a word that can be used to arouse hostility toward China and cooperation in the United States. So we would be where we are today in US-China relations regardless of COVID because we were going to use something else to mobilize opinion against China. In some respects it's made it worse because China has become quite a lot more confident. They think America is declining faster than ever and the future is China's. Why look how badly America handled COVID? Look how badly American economy did toward COVID. Look how well China did. China's clearly got a better government, better economy. So if anything COVID it was better for China they think than the United States but in terms of policy, now it didn't change much. Thank you so much Professor Ross for your lecture and your answers to all the questions. Now we will adjourn today's session and I want to thank all the high school students for being here today. And I hope that the lecture and Q&A time are intellectually stimulating in preparation for tomorrow's inquiry simulation. Once again, I just want to thank everyone for being here today. Thank you, Jason, Gwendolyn, Anastasia. Thank you very much. Pleasure to be here. Bye-bye. Bye.