 I'm Jay Fidel. This is ThinkTek Hawaii. We're doing global connections here. We're trying to understand the world as it is and maybe likely the world as it should be. Russell Liu, an old friend who has been on ThinkTek many, many times. Chang Wang. Chang Wang, did I say that right, Chang? Yes, you're right. Okay. And Alexander Morawa. Yeah. And Russell, I'm going to leave it to you to give a more full introductions to these two individuals. Aloha, Jay. Good afternoon. I'd like to introduce two really distinguished speakers today joining us, Alexander Morawa. He's an international legal counsel and a law professor with extensive practice and knowledge of European law as well as American law is taught in also in China. So he has a very unique perspective, very multilateral perspective. And next to we also have Chang Wang. Chang Wang is a practicing lawyer in the United States, presently practicing out in Minneapolis, Minnesota. And I turn it back to Jay and I'm Russell Liu, also a lawyer and a professor and I have been in China for past 18 years as well in the US. What an esteemed group we have here. Well, let's tackle it. You know, the first thing is, you know, when we looked after World War II, the United States was emerging as the leader of a liberal world order. And that has changed in recent years. I think it was changing before Trump, but it certainly has accelerated, the change has accelerated. And a lot of people feel it's a negative change under Trump. And today we're going to focus on exactly how that change has worked. And since we have the benefit of Alexander's European experience, we can talk about not only China, but we can talk about Europe as well. So I guess what I'd like to know, Russell, from you, is what is the state of the world order these days? And my second question is going to be, what is the state of the diplomatic relations between the United States and China these days? Yeah, I think with regards to these questions, first, I might really ask a pass over to Alexander just to say a little bit of the perspective globally, because he has that European perspective as well as America. And he's also totally China. And then coming back to me, I'll talk about that specific, the US-China relationship. So maybe Alexander, you can fill in some of your thoughts. Sure, gladly. I mean, the United Nations usually uses the interesting phrase, we're deeply concerned when something is not right. I think that phrase would really apply in the situation right now. China certainly is just one part of a much more multifaceted and broader international system that has bilateral but multilateral levels as well. I think the position in the United States definitely is weaker. And it's weaker because we decided where our leadership for the past four years decided to withdraw from a lot of constituent elements that really make up that system. If you're at the interaction with the United Nations, for instance, which is of course the biggest international organization, we have pulled out of organizations, sub-organizations there, where we should have been in. I mean, WHO, as an example, they could have been very helpful in coordinating the coronavirus response. We pulled out instead of cooperating, WTO for trade disputes. We blocked the restaffing of the appellate body in WTO so that that dedication is not working anymore. I think we're causing more problems by pulling out. And that reflects on bilateral relations, of course, which thrive in a stable environment. We're talking trade much here. Trade only works if the environment is stable, if the legal basis for doing business is stable. If not, it suffers. Well, so let me ask you, I mean, is it in the interest of the world in general to have a country like the United States act as act and, you know, take the role, so to speak, of a global leader? Does that benefit the world order to have that happen? Sure. I mean, especially if we are moral leaders too. Leadership by bullying doesn't work usually. Leadership by example, and Biden is using that phrase quite a bit works quite well. I think it's imperative really, and that speaks a little bit for China, plus the EU, plus others. If there is more than one leader, I think the existence of multiple leaders that can play roles is quite important. It's more of a give and take. Diplomacy is always multilateral. So I think we should not try to be the leader in every respect. In some respects, that's helpful too. Again, if we come with a moral backing and the integrity that allows us to have standing, not just because we have troops to enforce our leadership. Yeah, one other thing about that is, what is our interest in being the world leader? Does it help us? And losing our leadership the way we have, what effect does that have on us on the United States? The broadest question you can ask, if you have about six hours, we can dive a little bit into it. Not being the world leader is a good thing too. I mean, at times in history we decided to pull out and say we will not engage, we will not necessarily be the policeman of the world. There was not necessarily a disaster either, except of course, two world wars happened at that time, which pulled us right back in. So I think it is crucial to have a seat at the table. If you're not part of the overall progress of international relations, if you're not playing, you will only be an observer. That's the biggest risk. Even we have seen that sometimes, that we were kind of sidelined and people would just make decisions without the United States being properly represented and being able to voice our position. So that definitely is a damage. And if you look at trade relations, that's ultimately a financial damage. And who is ultimately paying the price with tariffs? It's not China, it's not the federal government, it's not the corporations, it's the customers. The other thing is, I guess, would you agree with me, Alexander, that the worst thing a given country can do is try to be or try to continue to be a world leader and do it badly and have little wars all over and come and go and make the wrong decisions, diplomatically make the wrong decisions in terms of military presence. Would you agree with me? Sure. I think we have to distinguish between making mistakes, which everybody makes, including leaders in the national level, on the international level, and systemic miscalculations or systemic errors that are based on the lack of knowledge and understanding. I think when you talk about China-U.S. relations, much of it is a misunderstanding, it's cultural and historical, as much as it's a legal problem. If you just make mistakes, you can fix that. And I think Biden's program, if you look at what he says on his platform, is we will not be able to fix everything right now. We will come back and we'll re-engage diplomatically. We will use the international system to be present. We will also be there to listen, not just to talk and try to make everybody see what we are coming from or where we are coming from and what we want. Isn't that the biggest challenge? Yes, to come back, but to do it in such a way so that other countries will have us back. That's not necessarily a foregone conclusion. You can try to come back and find that nobody wants you back, which I think is a great risk for this country right now. Do you think we can come back? Do you think Biden can achieve that? Sure, I'm a natural-born optimist. I think he can. It's not just him. It's the new administrations, ultimately all of us. We have to collaborate on this. The crucial thing behind all this is trust. I mean, have we lost trust when you travel to Europe, as an example, during the past several years, people would look at you and say, oh, you're from America? How is it like to live there now? My answer was, well, we still breathe oxygen and we eat three times a day. What do you mean? I mean, live with a person like your president and with the policy decisions that he makes. My answer was, look behind that. We are still, in many ways, the same nation that was actually the beacon of hope and that trailblazer when it comes to constitutional rights and the trailblazer when it comes to, if necessary, intervening and helping our allies. We are still there, but there is much in front of it. There's a whole facade of not that in front of it. We need to overcome that. My distance sarcastic remark is, we can only project trust in us to the outside when we trust ourselves, including our institutions, that they actually work. Let me be optimistic again. I think the last five weeks have actually shown that several parts of the federal system and many parts of the state system function reasonably well. Look at the judiciary. The judiciary stepped in and made decisions that were really based on what we call the rule of law and due process. Yes, we can say problems happen, but we're still a beacon because we have this. We still have it. Appreciate that. Russell, can you compare that discussion we just had with Alexander to the relationship we started out here with China and how it has done, that relationship has done over the past four years? Well, just a quick add to when Alexander said people in Europe ask him, what's it like in America? And that's a question I can in China. What's it like in America these days? I get that question all the time and I have a similar response. But again, what the specific state of the U.S.-China relationship? Well, Biden inherits a lot of legacy issues now. The reality, things are set at a point where prior to the Trump administration, the U.S. policy was of engagement. After Trump ramped it up a different policy, the three C's compete, counter, and contain. And that whole policy set by the Trump administration made China a strategic competitor and to a large extent they were casted as an ideological threat. So that caused China to take on in response to that a very different policy. And a lot of it, I think what Alexander said is correct is there's a cultural dimension here, probably that many Americans don't understand unless you've been in China for a while. But it's similar to what's in Hawaii, Jay. It's sort of like this as a lawyer, when you go to litigation, you go to trial, you have to leave some room for face so that people can craft some kind of settlement. When you get pushed back to your wall, as in the Asian culture, you lost face. There is no room. You have to come back strong as you are. You have to get your respect. That's more important. And Jay, I remember when in first lessons in China, I had this cleaning service come to me. They took my money, but they went bankrupt. And you know what they did? They came to me and every customer and bowed to me and said, I'm sorry. I'm in Chinese and very ashamed. So again, there's a face issue. So again, how we have encountered China in the last four years has been one of a real dynamic, cultural misuse, cultural mistakes. We did a zero sum game. And so now that's what Biden faces. And not only that, the relationship with China, it's also the political reality that within the U.S., Trump lost, Biden received 5.8 million more votes. Trump had 73.5 million votes. So it's going to be very hard for Biden to reset a lot of the policies created by this president administration, at least not immediately. The tariffs, he's going to have to probably keep that in place. There's the trade war, the tech war. Again, we've seen that ratched up. And again, there are all these issues that are really popping up. So these are a lot of things that have set the stage for a very different transition, very difficult for Biden to transition to. And getting back to what Alexander said, I think one of the approaches is that probably Biden will have to reach out to the allies. He needs a leverage relationship. And if he gets the allies on the same page, and if he's reasonable with China, maybe we'll start to see something happen. But there has to be some kind of engagement at some point. The question is, when and how he's going to do that? How he's going to approach China? Chang, it takes two to tango. And I think both the speakers before you have touched on one very interesting thing is you can judge the United States by what its government, Ergo, its president, does. Or you can have a conversation with people like you guys. And you can say, what's in your mind, Russell? What's in your mind, Alexander? How do you feel about China? Or how do you feel about the U.S.? And the answer is, if you answer that individually, you would say, I don't agree with what the government has done. They have not done a good job. And then you have to advocate to try to convince the person on the other side, whether he'd be from Europe or from China or Asia, that you are the real United States. You are the real deal. And the government is not the real deal. But as Russell points out, she was, we had 70 odd million people vote for Trump. So it's hard to make the argument. What argument would you make in order to demonstrate that the real United States is different than what Trump is doing? If I answer this question, let me get to share this imaginary conversation between Washington and Beijing. And Washington, after January 20th, 2021, Washington says to Beijing, let's reset, let's talk, let's rebuild our relationship. And Beijing answers, why should I trust you? And we made progress under Obama four years ago, and then everything was destroyed in the past four years. Washington said, but America is back, let's talk. And Beijing said, Obama is what America pretended to be. Trump is what America really is. Washington replied, but both Obama and Trump are America. And the Beijing said, okay, then why do I want to deal with a bipolar personality? And you'll swing and from this personality to another personality every four years. Why do I want to do that? And if we agreed on something and everything could be trashed four years later. And Washington said, but that exactly is what democracy works. See, if we imagine this conversation, and we can understand how difficult the relationship is right now. And when we talk about the relationship, it's two-way relationship. It's not simply you can just, okay, I abandoned you, I humiliated you, I trashed you, now I'm going to, I change, then let's restart. It doesn't work that way. And we hear this again and again, that the current US policy toward China enjoying bipartisan consensus. So this rhetoric being told by the departing Trump officials and being accepted by the media as fact. You know, everything will continue with the Trump route. I doubt it, because we don't know what Biden's China policy will look like. From the appointments of Tony Blinken and Jake Sullivan, we can have a basic idea how the Trump administration plan to do with China. But we have to be very cautious of presuming that Biden will continue whatever Trump has put in place, the China policy, which is a fiasco to put it mildly. The most distinct characteristic of the China policy for the past four years, or the Trump administration policy in general is arbitrary and capricious. The reason is arbitrary is capricious because he's lack of empathy. Empathy is what Obama believed is fundamental skill for politicians, which you can put yourself in the shoes of other people and to understand how other people think and feel, then you can have a relationship. If you do not, if you are not capable of empathy, you can't feel and understand other people and you can't build another relationship, a real relationship. You're talking about the relationship between the government of the United States and the government of China. But you know, Trump has demonstrated that he can bring divisiveness to any relationship. He can divide people so well. Look what he's done in this country at so many levels in so many ways. And so, you know, I think it's hard to say that there is unanimity about China in the United States. There's a lot of distrust now about China in the United States, more significantly more than there was before. It is also very interesting that he's created this special relationship with Russia, where a lot of people in this country who were suspicious of Russia before, now they trust Russia, which is ridiculous. But my point, my point though, is that he has created distrust among a lot of people in this country of China. And I would guess, maybe you have some thought about this, that that has created distrust in China about the United States. So he's created a rift between the two countries, now? Very well said. But may I just add, you know, for the past four years, there's China benefited from Trump administration. In November 2016, the first reaction, it was about 11 p.m. on November 8, when it was abundantly clear Trump would be reelected, would be reelected as the 45th president of the United States. And my first reaction, I can tell you, was the Communist Party of China will be there forever. And it's like a godsend to the Chinese authority that this, the old argument, Chinese government has been trying to persuade the public that the American-style democracy doesn't work. And the election of Trump and the four years of Trump administration basically provide abundant evidence to the Chinese authority that don't learn from the United States. That democracy is very messy and it doesn't work, doesn't defeat China. So for the past four years, if we do not know exactly the intent of the China people on the Trump administration, Peter Navarro, all these people, what they really want to do, but if they want to weaken the Chinese authority, they miserably fail the job. Because for the past four years, China's authority and credibility among its own people has been significantly stressed. Interesting. You know, one of the underlying thoughts of this conversation, Alexander, is that we expect people to understand that democracy is tumultuous and that there's a change in power every so many years. In this case, for the United States, the leader of democracy, if you will, everything changes every four years. And you can have a very abrupt, disruptive change of power in this country. And I think, you know, there's two sides that I would ask you about. Number one is, do people in this country understand the need to have a smooth change of power in order to look better and interact better with the rest of the world? And two is, you know, it's too bad, is it not, that a lot of countries out there don't fully appreciate the vagaries, you know, what did the Tocqueville say, the tumultuousness of American democracy? They should perhaps understand better, you know, that you get that. It's one of the characteristics you get that you're always going to get. But the third thing I would offer you to ask to ask you is that, wait a minute, is this really an inherent part of democracy to be tumultuous? Is it really necessary? Can't we do better? I mean, in a funny way, in China doesn't have this problem, as Chang mentioned, you have leadership that's going to last for a while. And there isn't that kind of tumultuousness. And there's a continuity consistency in policy that we should be envious about. And maybe we should take a hard look at that and try to achieve that, maybe change the way we look at our own democracy. What do you think? That's another wonderful question to sort of do an entire tour of philosophy, political science and law for the last 250 years. I think if you go back to the founders, they would probably have woken up every day in the morning said, this will be messy. And it will be messy for the foreseeable future or forever, actually. That's why they put all these checks and balances in the Constitution. That's why they put all the fallback options, the diversions and all these things in there, the legal uncertainties that the Constitution is one of the shortest in the world. If you look at modern constitutions, they beat the US Constitution by thousands of percent in use of word. They left a lot open. And I think part of the design really is this kind of tumultuous reality that happens. And I would say 90% of the time democracy can and probably even should be a little bit tumultuous because it's a give and take between different opposing positions in the political spectrum. That's what it is. But then there's some areas and the transition is probably the most important one. The second most important one I believe is the Supreme Court, where stability has to be there, otherwise the entire building collapses. Those are foundation stems. If those are entangled, if those are dragged into the tumultuous reality, then we have a problem. The Supreme Court with a surprising degree of sovereignty actually rejected this. Many of the lower courts with the same dignity rejected this attempt. So they kept out of this quite successfully. The transition process surprisingly enough, and I think much credit goes to Biden, he did not respond to every single thing, right? He when necessary sent legal teams to argue his position sometimes did not. But you didn't see him every day on the platform countering any argument that came out of Trump, Giuliani, or any other person that was involved on this. So that level of dignity I think also helps us understand that this is actually going well. Compare. I mean, we are sometimes a little bit in a bubble. We just look at what we are doing. If you look at Europe, right? Look at Italy for a moment. They had periods of time when there were eight or nine different governments every year. They collapsed after a month or less. And then they had new elections and somebody else came in and they also collapsed. Italy is still there. If you look at other continents, which we sometimes don't look at enough, I think specifically Africa, when you talk US-China relations, Africa will be a dramatically important area that we have to look at. Dictatorships, democracies would switch all the time. Sometimes we'd bludgeon. So is that ideal? Absolutely not, because they were missing the count cornerstone of a peaceful ordered transition. So that's where I'm really coming back to. Transition and traditional oversight really are the two elements in a democracy that we came out for go. Otherwise, we'll crash. Let me go to you, Chang, for a minute more because we're running out of time and I want to ask Russell to summarize and give us some advice going forward. But Chang, part of an inherent part of the relationship between two countries or multilateral arrangements too is business competition. And we've seen sort of a degradation of that in the last four years under Trump. And the question I suppose is can we achieve and how can we achieve a better, what do you want to call it? It's not just trade, but a business coexistence type relationship with China going forward. What does Biden do on that level? Again, I would come back to my original argument and empathy to understand how other people feel and how other people think. It's a common misunderstanding that the Chinese people want democracy and Chinese government against democracy. But if you read that the Chinese constitution and if you read the proclamation from the Congress and the authority, you read between the lines that actually the government and the authority know democracy is a good thing. But their argument is that China is not ready for democracy because of the education level, because of the math population. So there is a very strong, for a hundred years, there is a very strong pro-American and pro-modernization and pro-visonization thinking in the Chinese mainstream, both the media and the government think tank and all the intellectual community. So again, also, if we only read that the very limited news report and what there's a natural disaster, there's some corruption in China, and we missed the whole picture how China really is. And then we can't think like the Chinese and we can't effectively communicate with Chinese. So that I was born and raised in China. So I can testify that before Trump, Chinese people look at the United States with admiration. And today, Chinese people look at the United States with sympathy. And so there is a very little hostility toward the United States. If the US government and the Biden administration and the American people understand, there's a very little hostility from the China side and probably that is the first step to rebuild the trust and to rebuild the relationship. Thank you, Chang. Well, what a discussion. I'm really happy that we've had this discussion, Russell. And now I could I ask you to summarize it and talk about what it means going forward? Well, I think what it means going forward is that, like Chang has said, we've got to have hope and he's right. I think nobody knows really what's on Biden's mind. Everybody's taking bits and pieces and trying to predict it. But I really think that what we need to go forward have hope. And what Alexander said is correct. I think that from the China side, the people are looking and saying, well, you know what, even though they had this maybe abnormal period of time the last four years, the system worked, the rule law worked, the checks and balances worked, you know, I do teach law courses and I get that question about the checks and balances. And we've seen that even the judges that were appointed by Trump follow the rule law and the rule law prevailed, the Electoral College ran its route. So again, we have to face that. But I think above all, I think that American people don't understand the Chinese people. I think that we're also here looking at China and saying you have to change and be like us. Remember, it's only been 40 last 40 years that they have have really moved toward the direction to giving a people a better life education. They still haven't finished that route. We've taken over 200 something years. Okay. So again, it's very difficult to place our thought in theirs. And I think, again, and finally, I think the people of China, as Chang has said, and I think it's exactly true as my observations. A lot of people still respect America. And there's no hostility. Been there 18 years, I've never seen, heard anything that was hostile to America. So I think that I'm confident with these things that the right thing's going to get done. But I think one thing that troubles me more, Jay, is that America, we need to look at ourselves, we need to do things and invest to make us more competitive. Okay, we can beat somebody on the head saying, you know, intellectual property theft, but we ourselves are not competitive anymore. And that's the problem. We're still in, we're not technology, you know, in the Midwest, a lot of places after you drop off the main turnpike, they've got these rural places, they don't have internet, the telephone phone packages you pay $100 a month for a family plan, they can't afford that. They don't have a cell phone. And Americans use internet by taking your MacBook to go to Starbucks. And in China, you have internet everywhere, internet free, and people who have smartphones. So again, I think that to make us more competitive, that's what Biden should be doing also along this, because along these lines. Well, I would add that, you know, the bullet whizzed by our ear on November 3rd, it could have gone the other way. And God knows what would have happened to us and the world if it had gone the other way. So yes, our democracy came through, but it was not a far gone conclusion. And it isn't a far gone conclusion now. Our democracy, if we forget, we have to remember that it's fragile. And we have to work to keep it. And we have a lot of work to do. We also, we, all of us, all nations have a lot of work to do to keep the world together in the same kind of fragility, especially with due regard to things like viruses and climate change. But I'm hoping we can, all three of us, four of us can get together again, and continue this conversation. As you said, Alexander, these are larger questions. They deserve more time. I hope we can do, we can give them more time. Alexander Morawa, Chang Wang, Russell Liu, thank you so much for putting this together. Aloha, you guys, and happy new year. And a happy new year. Happy New Year. Happy New Year.