 I'd like to I'd like to welcome you all here today. I'm Ernie Bauer. I'm the Sumitro chair for Southeast Asia Studies at the Center for Strategic International Studies and I'm really honored to to have you all here for the launch of the US-Philippines Strategic Initiative. I'd like to thank in particular our guests for this evening's dialogue and launch. Secretary of Foreign Affairs Albert Del Rosario who's flown all the way from the Philippines for the launch and we really appreciate your support, sir. And a good friend and one of the leaders here at CSIS on strategy, former senator and secretary of defense William Cohen. Thank you for joining us, Mr. Secretary. I thought today was going to be just a fantastic day where we would talk about the critical new energy in the alliance, in the US-Philippines alliance, modernizing that alliance. And I thought that and we are going to do that. But I thought that one of the areas that we would be emphasizing was trade and TPA. But for those of you who haven't read your wire service, TPA just splattered on Capitol Hill. So I have to I was revising and amending my remarks as we came up to the podium. But I think we all have to hope that perhaps the Philippines can give us some a boost in thinking about our politics and on trade and get those trade. But we're here today to really look at one of the crucial alliances of the United States anywhere in the world and certainly in Asia and that's the US-Philippines alliance. And I think we really were encouraged and inspired by a visit last year from our colleagues at the Albert Del Rosario Institute, which is a new think tank in Manila that's been built by Dindo Monhit and his colleagues and the Philippines, Philippines Inc. that's chaired by Tony Boyko Hanco. These guys came to the United States last year and they came with a group of Philippine CEOs. And they basically said, look, we are private sector leaders, businesses, newspapers, civil society organizations. But we have a broader interest than just coming on a trade mission. We want to come to the United States because we want to understand where this alliance is headed. We think we have an investment not only in commercial and economic growth, but in security. And I think they understood the linkage between economic engagement and security. And I think that's something we've been talking about at CSIS for a long time. That economics, I think particularly in Asia, is the foundation of security. So it really rang a bell and a chord and we agreed to form a new initiative called the US-Philippines Strategic Initiative with the great support and encouragement of Secretary Del Rosario, Ambassador Quisha, our ambassador in Manila, and the leadership at State Department in the White House all thought it was a good idea. So we have welcomed the eminent persons group back here. They're here this week, my colleagues from Manila. We're doing a set of meetings over the course of the week. Many of them with Secretary Del Rosario who's here for the first two days of the launch of the initiative. And what we wanted to do this afternoon was just talk a little bit about what's going on in this relationship, what we should be looking at. I wanted to, I'll ask both of our experts and these great leaders today a couple questions about what their perspectives are. And then I'll open it up to, I see in this audience we've got an incredible amount of depth and expertise on the Philippines. I'll open it up to some of your questions and we'll wrap up within an hour and then we'll have a reception and celebrate this great new initiative. But maybe I can start with you, Mr. Secretary. You have, by all accounts, been a real leader in terms of speaking out for the Philippines' right to self-defense your sovereignty as a country. How do you look at the U.S. relationship, the U.S.- Philippine alliance in that context, context of your effort to promote the security and national security of the Philippines? Well, thank you very much, Ernie. I'm very happy to be here and with former Secretary Cohen. It's good to see you, sir. When Ernie calls, I jump. When he asks me to jump, I say, how high. And we have this great respect for Ernie that stems from the many years that I spent here in E.C. I was posted in Washington for five years. At the end of my term, I was fired. Now, I don't know whether Ernie had anything to do with that, but he's smiling. But Ernie was a very valuable resource for me. Initially, he was president of the U.S.-CN Business Council. And so he, when he speaks of economic linkages, he obviously knows what he's talking about. Ernie was my mentor, and he's now become my mentor. But I continue to use Ernie as he uses me. We are great friends. I think the alliance between the Philippines and the United States starts with the people-to-people links like Ernie and myself and, of course, you folks. We are, we only have one treaty ally, as you know, and so we have to like one another. We have no choice. We also have two, so far, two strategic partners, one of which is the United States. And so the linkage is very strong. We are, for example, in terms of a relationship, a working relationship, the U.S. is our number one trading partner. Number one, number three trading partner. Number three trading partner. Number two, in terms of tourism, is it? No, I'm sorry. It's number one trading partner. Number three, in terms of tourism, after China and Korea. And, of course, you are our number one provider of official development assistance, in terms of grants. So very strong there. The investments had been, FTIs last year were very healthy, as I said, number one, in terms of investments coming into the Philippines. In terms of defense and security, as a treaty ally, we have relied heavily on the United States for a partnership, in terms, especially we were, for example, focused in words, in terms of addressing our challenges of insurgency. But now we think that we have insurgency pretty much under control, and we have now focused on external threats. The military is on a modernization mode, and the U.S., obviously, is great assistance in terms of getting us to where we want to be. Of course, we could use more and more help from the United States, and that's why I'm here. We're trying to get more help. In terms of the challenges that we currently face, as you probably all know, we've got this huge challenge, which is now the South China Sea, and specifically the massive reclamation that's being undertaken by China. This massive reclamation by China is being utilized to define and enforce their nine-dash line, which is unlawful, as you know. We are taking the position that we must do something quickly, unless the massive reclamation results in the fact to control the China of the South China Sea. Why is that such a worry for us? It's a real problem because if we allow this massive reclamation to continue and for China to be able to seize full control of the South China Sea, then we have the problems in terms of the threat of militarization. We have the threat to the rule of law, and also threats to the freedom of navigation. We're here, actually, to see what more the US and the Philippine partnership can undertake, in terms of halting this siege of China, in terms of taking as much of the South China Sea as possible. I wanted to mention also that we do have the Asia-pivot, or Asia rebalance to Asia. This, of course, is a combination of providing assistance to the Asia-Pacific in terms of not only of defense and security, but also, as Ernie had mentioned, strengthening the economic aspects of the relationship. Unfortunately, as we have just learned, the fast-track legislation did not materialize today, and we hope that there can be another shot at it, because TPP, even as we're not on board yet, and we hope to be on board when it does finally come around, we believe that the economic aspect of the relationship is in combination with the defense and security, and that is the total partnership. That's what it's all about. We are trying to deliver the message that the Asia-pivot is not as focused and as strong as it should be, and we are providing inputs for the United States in terms of how this can be further strengthened. I don't know what else you want me to say, Ernie, but I think that's plenty. I appreciate that. I'd like to get Secretary Cohen's take on this. I think you started going to the Philippines earlier in your career, and I wondered if you could sort of put it in, put these remarks in you as context. Well, first of all, thank you very much, Mr. Secretary, and Ernie. Thank you for this gathering. I first went when you were saying that you have few friends. Actually, that's not true. You can't pick your relatives, but you can pick your friends, and we have chosen to pick each other. I remember the first CODEL I went on, a brand new freshman member of Congress back in 1973, and one of the very first stops he made in the Philippines. I had not made a trip like that before and had colleagues, Congressman Tom Railsback and others. We went into the hotel, checked our bags, and went down to the restaurant slash bar. I remember there was this beautiful Filipino woman singing, I left my heart in San Francisco, and she sang it with such exquisite wow. I went up to thank her for the way she sang it. She didn't speak a word of English, and I said, how was she able to sing that song the way she sung that song without speaking English? I didn't learn. Music really is the language of the universe, but it opened my eyes to the Philippines in terms of meeting the people for the first time. I used to be a basketball player, and so when Railsback and I saw some kids playing basketball, we jumped out of our car, took off our jackets, and stripped down to our t-shirts, and started playing basketball. So it's the people-to-people relationship that we found was really so fundamental to the U.S.-Philippine connection, and it's something that has stayed with me during my own career in politics, and I say this a little self-servingly. My wife had written a play, it has written a play that has been playing locally and elsewhere around the country, and it takes place in a place called memory, where you only exist if someone thinks about you, and that to me is more than the play, it's about everything. You only exist if we think about you, and we look back now and you say, well, two-thirds of the people in the Philippines were born since the Yellow Revolution, more than half the American born since the Yellow Revolution. So we don't have a history for the most, we don't think about the past, and if you don't think about the past, it doesn't exist, which becomes really critical in terms of why it's important that we maintain these people-to-people relationships, that we remind the American people, Filipino people, of our history together, and what it means in going forward. And so over the years, I have been very much involved. I was working with Dick Lugar, who helped bring about the democracy in terms of the relationship with the United States. President Marcos was there in 1973. We've had a democracy since that time, and we lost cubic, Subic Bay Rutherton and Clark, and I remember when we were trying to re-establish a status of visiting forces agreement. I was asked to go to a hotel, MacArthur, he stayed, and they invited, I had 12 members of the Senate, the Philippine Senate in a room. I said, I haven't met many senators when I was in the Senate, but I was trying to persuade them of the value of having this visiting forces agreement. Because of the history, because of the resentment, because a democracy didn't want to feel that it had a status of forces that were permanent, so they had to be visiting, and the sensitivities and dealing with that was really important. And we've made a lot of progress since that time, because things have changed. Things have changed in the Asia-Pacific region in its entirety. And Mr. Greenberg, who was a co-chair of this, I believe, this relationship they're having right now, as far as the study. He and I co-chaired, and Ernie was very much involved in it, the ASEAN study. And we said, why should we be concerned about what's going on in the Asia-Pacific region? Well, 50% of the population is in the Asia-Pacific region. That's where much of the wealth is going to be for the foreseeable future in the Asia-Pacific region. That's where there's also great potential for instability in that region. So we have a real interest, a real self-interest in being engaged in the Asia-Pacific region. And being engaged, and this is what's so disappointing about it, being engaged, we talk about hard power, soft power, then it became smart power. We want to be smart about how we do things. That means having a very vigorous trade relationship because with a prosperity comes a burgeoning middle class and growing investment and prosperity. And that's what's so disappointing about what's taking place on Capitol Hill. Sam Nunn, who's very much engaged here at the CSIS, and he's a great friend of mine, he gave a speech here one time. He said, he taught him a leadership. He said, you know, if you think you're a leader and you stay cutting a path and you're walking down that path, you take a look around and there's nobody behind you. He says, you're not a leader, you're just taking a walk. And that's to me what is taking place right now in this city. It's a real leadership issue that we have that we're not following. Something is in our vital self-interest. We're not following the president on this issue. And the consequence of seeing this rejected or at least postponed for another vote, it's very consequential for us because other people, certainly in the Philippines, but certainly throughout the Asia Pacific region, looking at us, they say, what's going on? You know, I like to go around the world and I do, promoting the values of the United States, saying we want you to be like Mike. We want you to be like us. And other countries say, well, be like you, but you can't make a decision. We have this agreement. We've been negotiating all of his time. It comes to the Senate and you can't make a decision on it. So how do we hold that flag up that we like to promote called liberty, democracy, capitalism, when in fact we're not seeing decisions being made, which are in our vital interests and that of our partners. And that's what the Philippines, our partner. And so you look to us and say, gee, this was going to be great. We were thinking of joining in on this. It's going to be vital for us as we look to this new pivot. You don't use the word pivot anymore. It's called rebalancing as we rebalance our force structure as such and our assets and our influence in the Asia Pacific region. This is key to that. And so when Capitol Hill rejects that and the president has lost that initiative as a result of that rejection, other people are watching and they're making decisions and calculations. So that's why it's vital that we're here today. That's why it's vital to talk to the business community to political leaders. That's why it's important to get up to Capitol Hill. When I think about this, I go to the Pentagon from time to time just to attend functions and a young man stopped me when I'm swearing in of the new secretary defense and a young sailor escorted me to my seat. He said, what's your name? I said, Bill Cohen. He said, where are you from? I said, well, I'm from the state of Maine. He said, well, what are you doing down here? And I thought to myself, he was only two years old when I was there. And that's the point I'm trying to get at. There is no memory that lasts very long unless you reinforce it. So we have really got to work to reinforce this relationship and to reinforce the need for this relationship on a security basis to be sure, but on an economic basis. So I wanted to be here thanks to Ernie inviting me to say a few words about how important I feel this friendship is and a co-equal partnership this is. And we need to remind people on the Hill and the Philippines and elsewhere why it's important that democracies really do work together. That as we look at this rebalancing, what has the president done? Something pretty important. We look at what's going on in Darwin, put a thousand Marines in Darwin, not a shift in the balance of power. We look at rotating and littoral combat ships through Singapore. We look at the strengthening of our relationship with the Philippines, Japan, etc. What is that designed to do? It's designed to make sure that no one power dominates the region. And we're doing it in a way that we say to the Chinese, we're not trying to contain you, you can't be contained. But we are trying to say to you that we have this relationship of democracies that we intend to continue and strengthen them so that as your economic power grows and it's significant economic power as your military power grows, it's fully integrated into the international norm. That's why this relationship is so important. So I feel a senatorial speech coming on and I'm going to cease and desist here. I want to ask you, I want to ask you both about EDCA. This is the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement. This is an agreement that the Philippines and the Americans together, put together, they've crafted it together. It's now been hung up in the Philippines Supreme Court for a year. You said you were in Manila Hotel, working on visiting forces agreement. But it seems to me that in one of our interlocutors during some of the meetings we've had over the last couple of days suggested, and I think he was right, that the EDCA, if you think about it, is probably the best, it's something we've built together, is probably the most effective, actual deterrent to Chinese aggression on the South China Sea that you could think of. It actually would, you think of what it would do to President Obama's trip when he visits Manila in November if he could come and he's working with the Philippines on providing defense material support in places that the Philippines has picked around the country. And think about that picture if he comes to Manila in November he doesn't have that agreement and it's still hanging out in the Supreme Court. I wonder if I could ask you to put your defense secretary hat on and take a cut at that. And then Mr. Secretary, I'd love your perspective on this. Just think about this. Poll take a few polls that 92% of the Filipino people have a high opinion of the United States. That's 10% higher than Americans have of the United States. And so you say, how does this, how do you adjust, how do you balance this? The Filipino people understand this really admire the United States. We have an agreement that's been negotiated. It's hung up a year later. So we have to ask what's going on because this becomes critical. If you have an enhanced defense relationship, then what does that mean? Well, we're going to have greater investment, more sharing of technology, more exercises, joint exercises taking place. All of this combined with the weight of the United States and with the participation of the Philippine military. What's the problem? I don't understand it. So I think it's kind of, it's very important that this be ratified or approved by the Supreme Court as such. And if it doesn't, it's going to be another indication that perhaps, you know, we really don't have it together over here or over there. And that to me is the wrong kind of signal to be sending to anybody right now. Mr. Secretary, you had a hand in negotiating that pact. Well, EDCA is, just to be sure, is a very important component of our defense treaty alliance with the United States. It provides a two-fold service. One is it provides for construction of new facilities or use of facilities of existing AFP controlled or old facilities. It also provides for a pre-positioning of this equipment, which of course is very important when you're able to find a situation where you need equipment right away that would be useful in terms of the performance of your mission. The, as a benefit, EDCA is obviously beneficial for interoperability, the idea of being able to work together. It's important for the modernization of the armed forces, the Philippines. It's important for disaster response. It's built in for a closer cooperation without going into what you call basing, which of course is not allowed by our constitution. It is also a, currently, as you know, it's tied up in the Supreme Court. But we have every confidence that the provisions, the constitutionality of the provisions is not in question here. What's in question is whether it is in fact an agreement or a treaty in which case if it's an executive agreement immediately, you can proceed utilizing it, whereas if it's a treaty, then it must undergo Senate ratification. The EDCA is there. We are already, it's been signed by the president. We are already working on the various locations that may be utilized jointly. So it's moving forward even as it is undergoing a process in the Supreme Court. Well, I sure hope that agreement is signed when the president arrives in Manila, because it sure would make a difference, I think. One of the questions that I had was about your arbitration, your arbitration case that you brought questioning the Chinese nine-dash line in the South China Sea. And I wondered if you could tell us, how do you make the decision to take that case to the court? And where are we now in that process? When do you expect the court might give you a decision if you can comment on that? Well, arbitration was a result of a very difficult and long process for us. We had this dispute with China on the South China Sea, and we tried every possible avenue to try to resolve it peacefully as we needed to do. The president, to begin with, is mandated by the Constitution to defend what is ours. And when this South China Sea disputes began, and there were this is this is driven by the nine-dash line, which of course is it's not valid, and it's against the UN clause and international law. We needed to look for a dispute settlement mechanism that would be perfectly tailored for what we were looking for. We wanted to defend what is ours. We needed to do it peacefully. We needed to do it in such a way so that the international community accepts the settlement procedure as a friendly, durable, and clearly a legal decision. So we selected arbitration, and the method of arbitration that was chosen did not require China to participate. So this was I think a wise move on our part because in the end of the day China decided not to participate, and even at this time they are not convinced that they should be part of it. We continue to invite them even at this late stage. There's an invitation out there for China to join in, and they refuse to do so. What's happened though is that there was a paper that was put out by China, and this is prior to 26 questions that we received from the arbitral tribunal which we had to respond to. I think it took us a couple of thousand pages to respond to these 26 questions. But when the tribunal saw the paper that China had put out, initially they thought that we would try to pursue a procedure in the tribunal where the jurisdiction plus the merits would be taken as one. But when they saw this paper to give China its fair day in court, the tribunal decided that they would bifurcate the procedure. But that's okay with us. We think that it may take a little bit longer, but the tribunal assures us that it's not going to be much longer because a lot of the information has already been submitted. So we are scheduling a oral hearings for the jurisdiction by July and then a little bit later for the merits of the case. But we hope to have a judgment sometime, perhaps early 2016. Okay, so you hope to have an award before elections? Yeah, I think that's where reason will be certain on that. You, Secretary Coney, I know you spent a lot of time in Beijing and helped get a lot of Chinese friends. What do you think China wants? What is China intending to do in the South China Sea? Any recommendations for the U.S.-Philippine alliance? You want me to read the Chinese mind? China, two years ago I was at a conference in Singapore. It's called IISS and International Institute Strategic Studies. They have a conference every year in Singapore and one in Bahrain in about December. Two years ago I went to the conference and foreign minister of one of the countries there took out a map and showed the nine-dash line but it was solid. It wasn't dash, it was solid. And he said, what do you think about this? And I said, I've never seen it solidified like that. And he said, no, the problem is what are you saying about me but what is the United States saying about that? And the answer was we weren't saying anything. And so I said, well, if this goes, they wanted me obviously to raise this, it was Chuck Hagel was secretary at that point, to raise this to Secretary of Defense that will say it's about, it's important the United States speak out about this because otherwise everyone just going to assume it's now filled in, that is the line. And it's no longer a question of being in dispute. And so thank you for seeking at least some way of having some decision making on this. But I think from the Chinese point of view, I admire what the Chinese people have done. I went there in 1978 and it was a different country. Beijing was a very different place than it is now. They had one hotel called, it was still called the Peking Hotel at that time before it became Beijing. They had one store where we could shop as Americans. It was called the American Friendship Store. And they had no cars. It was all bicycles. So think about it. In 35 years time, what they've been able to achieve, so it's pretty remarkable. On the one hand, very admirable and a little bit intimidating. You say if you could take 1.2 billion people in that shorter period of time and make that kind of a transformation, that's pretty number one awe-inspiring and also intimidating. So what do the Chinese feel? They feel that they have made a number of sacrifices to build their economy. They're now the number one, they will be the number one economy in the world or number two at least in terms of overall capability. But they're going to be a regional military power. They intend to assert their military prowess throughout the Asia-Pacific region and maybe even beyond that. And I think it's something that has been in the making for some time. I met Deng Chaoping back in 78. He explained his four modernizations. The fourth one was military because and I've argued this to the Chinese military academies. I went over at one point they were writing white papers coming out of China saying it's time for the Asians to take care of Asia. Time for the United States to get out. And I went to their academies and I said do you really mean that? You want us to leave? The fact of the matter is that by virtue of our presence since World War II we have maintained stability and peace. And guess what? Who's been the biggest beneficiary? China. Because of stability you've been allowed to develop in a way that has made you the economic powerhouse you are today. Now if we leave tomorrow which is what the white paper was saying. Who fills the gap? Nature pours the gap. And who's going to fill it? Are you going to fill it? Are the Japanese going to sit on the sidelines and watch you fill it? Will India sit over here and say it's not our problem? And you would have great instability if we were to leave as you're suggesting. And I think they realize that. But I also think they're going to continue to push as far and as much and as hard as they can until they see a resistance to say no we understand you're going to get bigger and stronger. That's inevitable. 1.2 billion people, 3 billion people. That's going to be inevitable. Stronger military to reinforce their economic power. That's just the way of the world. On the other hand if we have these relationships that I mentioned before and say to the Chinese we understand that you're a great country with a great history. And that you're going to get bigger and stronger. And your military is going to get bigger and stronger. But it needs to be folded into the international regime. Otherwise you're going to meet a very strong resistance coming from Australia, from the ASEAN countries, from Japan, and elsewhere to say no. We want you to be engaged in peacekeeping operations. We want you to work with us on one of the hosts of these issues that confront all of us from the climate change and what that's doing to the world and humanitarian rescue missions, etc., etc. We want you to be engaged in those measures and we understand there's going to be some tension. But you're now going to confront a variety of democratic countries who have come together to say we want you to be certainly peaceful. So their intentions I think if they go unchallenged, like anything else, they'll continue to expand. And that's why we've talked about before with this signal coming from Washington and as they watch us very closely. And by the way there's the old expression that amateurs study policy, experts study budgets. And they're looking at our budget. And what's been happening to the American budget? We've had this cliff that we've gone over and had sequestration. Now we've had a little bit relieved in the last two years, but sequestration is there in 2016. What does that mean for our military? What does that mean for our rebalancing? What does it mean for the security of all of our friends and partners in the Asia-Pacific region? You start cutting back. Well, how many ships? What kind of presence are you going to have? How much rotation are you coming through back here in Supe, etc. So that's why we have to get our house in order, certainly economically, but politically understanding the role that the United States is going to play in this century because we don't know right now. We don't know what our role is in this changing world. And that's not a good place for us to be when we're not sending a signal that we know what our role is. We know what we have to do. We have to remain engaged. We can't retrench. We can't come back to a continental cocoon. We're not going to walk away from the world because the world is not going to walk away from us. So we have to be forwardly. We have to be out there. And until that hasn't been resolved yet, frankly, we're still debating. Ever since Afghanistan, Iraq, etc., Syria, Ukraine, all the issues going on, Putin now wanting to have a nice dialogue with you, with Secretary Kerry, we've got to come back and say, who are we? And what's our role in the world? And look at the people who are relying upon us. And what do they see? Do they see constancy? Do they see a strong trumpet? Or do they see one that's hesitant and uneven? So we've got a lot of work to do. I'm getting back on my senatorial stage. I was just wondering whether you might want to go back to the Senate. We could sure use that. For a moment. No, your leadership there was fantastic. And we need more people like you there, I think. Let me open it up to some questions from the audience. And I think we've got about 10 minutes left. We'll start with this gentleman right here. Thank you very much. My name is Paolo von Schirach, editor of the Schirach Report. Senator, Secretary of Defense, you were talking about memories and things that we forgot. I do remember during the regular administration, we had a 600-fleet navy, right? At least as a plan, not as a reality. It was an aspiration. The sector of the navy wanted a 600-ship navy. Exactly. But the numbers, let's say, were quite higher. That's right. So 600 was a goal. We never got to that. And let's call it aspirational. Now we're what? Under 200. I forgot the exact number. And as we are talking about the rebalancing, et cetera, and you alluded to that in some of your comments, do we have what it takes to effectively convince everybody, ourselves, the allies, and the Chinese, given what's been eloquently described, that we have what it takes to have an effective rebalance, considering also that the strategic mission of the Chinese navy is interdiction. Not, you know, they don't need to go to Hawaii. They just need to control their backwaters. And our mission is much more expansive and complicated. With such reduced numbers, can we do this? Thank you. I don't think anyone else here can answer that question. Well, you know, I hate to take so much time or responding to something. It's an important question. Do we have what it takes? This is the old expression once again that quantity has a quality of its own. We know that we're shrinking our numbers. They're more capable. That's a given to the technology that we have on one ship today far exceeds any capability you'd have on a ship that has, you know, 6,000 sailors on board. But you can only reduce the numbers so small. And the absence of presence has its own consequence. Whether you could say, militarily, we can get there. We can get there with long-range bombers. We can get there with ICBM. We can do all of that from here. That may be true. It's not true right now, but it might be true sometime in the future. But the problem is other countries won't trust you that you'll come for them. I mean, one of the cruel truths that we have is we are forward deployed for a reason. Because if we have troops that are forward deployed, they're at risk. And if our troops are at risk, we're going to come. And that's another signal to other countries saying, hey, you're leaving. You're not here as much as you were. And when you leave, we can't know for sure whether you'll be with us. So any country is going to look for its own self-interest and start to make its own calculations. Can we rely upon the United States? That's what's going on now with this whole Iran discussion, isn't it? That's why the Middle East countries, the Gulf countries are coming here saying, OK, what's the deal? What's the deal going to be? Tell me the specifics. And assuming that I even can like the specifics, tell me whether they're enforceable, one. And if they're enforceable, are you going to be there to help enforce them? And number three, what's the compensation you're going to provide us in the meantime so we can help defend ourselves? It's a question of trust because they see, wait a minute, you're out of Iraq or sort of back in. You're leaving Afghanistan. You didn't get involved in Syria. You don't get involved in Ukraine. And so we see you kind of disengaging. And it's up to us to explain to the American people why we have to be engaged. We paid a heck of a price for Afghanistan and Iraq. It's almost $2 trillion, not to mention the loss of life and all the suffering we've gone through, the suffering we've inflicted as well. So a big penalty so people are fatigued over this. So let's just come back and take nation building right here at home. And you've got Republicans saying that as well as Democrats. Let's take care of us here at home. And so you have the issue that we have to take care of. We have the nation built here. We have to start investing in infrastructure. Take a look at the streets in the city of Washington, talk about infrastructure or the bridges, etc. So we've got to do that. And we know we've got to fix the national debt. Mike Mullen, our former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, what did he say? Number one, national security issues on national debt. It's $18 trillion. Okay, we know how to deal with that if we have the will. Now you had one Republican candidate from New Jersey say, hey, we've got a problem, so security. Here's how I'd fix it. We know what has to be done to fix our long term debt problems. It's just a question, do we have the will or we're going to keep doing what we're doing? Not investing, not engaging, simply squandering the heritage that we have by this kind of bickering is taking place. So I don't know if we have the will. I think it's going to take strong leadership, certainly coming from the White House, but also from the Congress of the United States and go out there and explain why it's important that we be engaged in the Asia Pacific. Tell us why. Well, let's look at the economic benefit number one. But think about what's going on in the world. Are we going to be a model, a democratic model for the rest of the world? Or is it going to be one of authoritarian governments? There's a real issue of governance in the world today. Can democracies govern themselves and make decisions in their own self-interest? Or is it going to be one where you have a strong ruler who rules by dictate and simply gives you the law of rule, not the rule of law? I'm Renato de Castro, an analyst in the ADR Institute and also a faculty member of Della Selle University. My question is addressed to the secretary. About three weeks ago, a very prominent politician in Manila who I've already declared that he want to run for the election next year said that when he, just in case he becomes elected, he became, he's elected to office, is open to the possibility of joint development with China. This basically means a 360 degree turn to the current policy of the Aquino Administration of challenging China's expensive maritime claim. How would this basically affect our position right now, a current foreign policy, and to a certain degree, our close security relation with the United States? What's his name, Pacquiao? I don't want to mention his name, but he's very, you know, he has a strong presidential contender. I think that when people speak of joint development, they normally are referring to the development of the natural resources found in the South China Sea. We are not averse to joint development. As a matter of fact, we are, we are promoting joint development, provided it is in conformity with Philippine law and does not violate our constitution. Board answer. Well, I'd like to, I'd like to thank both of you for helping us kick off this initiative. I'd like to encourage everybody in this room to be involved in this initiative. It is going to take, this one will truly take a village, several villages, to make this alliance vibrant and stronger, stronger in three years than it is today. And I have to thank Secretary Drozario for your inspiration. And your leadership. I want to thank Secretary Cohen for his, his stalwart support of CSIS in general, but particularly Asia. You've really been a leader who will step up and we are behind you when you take a walk. So I really want to thank both of you gentlemen. I want to just say a little bit about... Okay, just one last comment before I may be given that privilege. Yes, absolutely. There was a question that was asked previously and the Secretary responded that China wanted to be a naval power. I think that's evident. They want to be a naval power and they look upon the South China Sea as their lake. I think the message that I want to leave today is we have this problem in the South China Sea and I read something today which perfectly aligns my thinking to the author that that provided this paper that I enjoyed thoroughly today. It said that essentially that the most important dispute today is the South China Sea issue. Now why did the author say that? Because the author sees that the U.S. and China have goals that are diametrically opposed and the outcome of this contest is capable of determining the international order. Very significant statement. Think about it and I leave you with that message. That's the last word. Thank you.