 Good morning. My name is Robert Hutter from the Center for Transatlantic Relations. We're very fortunate this morning to have a one of the top officials of the Pentagon here to give us a particular perspective. I have to start immediately by qualifying that the title of the book, A Transatlantic Pivot to Asia, I will say for the record, he may contradict me, the word pivot doesn't come from the Defense Department. It comes from other places in the government. The Pentagon says rebalance, which I think is a more appropriate title. But if you're a basketball player, pivot means you have to have your foot solidly planted someplace, and then you can move one way, you can move another way. My own personal judgment is that place you have to have your foot is in the Atlantic region. We've seen this in terms of the way the Allies work with us. We know for example that the Allies ultradiated them, went with us to Afghanistan, not really because they were worried about al-Qaeda or Taliban coming to to downtown Brussels, although they may have offices there, I don't know everybody else does, but really because they wanted to make sure we remained a European power, pinned to Europe, and especially to deal with Russia. And this is payoff time. So in terms of getting Allies to be engaged with us in places like the Middle East and the Far East, etc., our demonstrating that we continue to hew to the fundamental grand strategy that we adopted in 1917 as second only to defense of the homeland still applies, that is to prevent the domination of the continent by regional hegemon, and working out whatever is happening with regard to Ukraine and elsewhere with regard to Russia, now becomes a fundamental task for American leadership if we're going to be able to do other things. We have nobody better who could talk about the security dimensions of this in the broadest sense of the term as Derek Chalet, who is the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs known in this town as ISA. He's also the Principal Advisor of the Undersecretary of Defense and Secretary of International Security Strategy and Policy related to the nations and international organizations of Europe, NATO, Middle East, Africa, Western Hemisphere, what part of the world he doesn't have isn't worth talking about, if I can say that. Prior to that, he was the Strategist in the White House. Before that, he was Principal Deputy Director of Policy Planning at State, he has served in more institutions in this town, think tanks and the like, and if he hasn't, they're not worth being at. CSIS is one of them, so I haven't insulted our host today. He's also written a lot of books, speechwriter, advisor to Richard Holbrook, to Secretary of State Talbot, foreign policy advisor to John Edwards in one of the campaigns, the 2004 Kerry Edwards campaign, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. We couldn't ask for anybody better to tell us this morning about what we ought to think and where we ought to go. Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for sharing your wisdom with us. Thank you very much, Ambassador. Thanks all of you for being here. Hans, congratulations to you and your colleagues on this terrific book. I had an opportunity last night to read a couple of the chapters, and it's a very important contribution on an effort that has been an important part of the rebalance, or the pivot, depending on where you sit, which is the effort to engage our European partners on Asia issues. And there's a lot of really good ideas in this book. As many of you know, serving in government is an exercise in depleting your intellectual capital, and it's books like this that give people like me who can barely think about what I'm doing in the next hour or so. The ideas and the insights that can help us forge a way forward. I want to also give thanks to Ambassador Hunter, Robert Hunter, who was, I think, the longest serving U.S. Ambassador to NATO, and he served there during a pivotal time, and it's fitting to be with him this week on the 15th anniversary of the first round. Of NATO enlargement, and he played a very key role 20 years ago in what was then the big strategic move of the U.S. administration, which was redefining the transatlantic alliance in the post-Cold War era and the partnership for peace, and of course, leading to enlargement. So, I'm very glad to be here. I know it's an impressive group of folks who are speaking with you. My colleague, Danny Russell, spoke with you earlier today. It's fitting for me to be here in some ways because I cover, as the ambassador said, I cover every part of the world in my job at the Pentagon except for Asia. And so, I'm well aware of the stresses and the anxieties that have been sparked in other parts of the world, particularly in Europe, by the articulation of our rebalancing strategy. And, but I could say that clearly and authoritatively from where I sit at the Pentagon, as someone who wakes up every day thinking about our defense relationships in Europe, in the Middle East, in Africa, and Latin America, that the fact that we have been executing this strategic move over several years of rebalancing to Asia, in no way means that we pay less attention to the challenges and problems and opportunities of the rest of the world. In fact, it's clear, and the essays in this book make this point over and over again, our security interests, our economic interests, our political interests between Europe, the United States, and Asia are deeply intertwined. And so part of what I try to do is work very closely with my colleagues in the government who do Asian with my Asian friends to bring us together with Europe. I'm not going to get into all the details of the rebalance. I think that's what Danny did for you earlier this morning. I'll use the balance of my time just to make three quick points, and then really what I want to do is engage in a dialogue with all of you. The first point, and it's one you would expect me to say, but I have to say it's very true, which is the Transatlantic Alliance remains the cornerstone of U.S. security interests. Our European partners are our closest partners on the toughest security issues we face around the world, whether it's in Syria and dealing with the very negative consequences of the Syrian civil war and what's occurring in the destabilization of all the states around Syria, whether it's Iran and working with our European partners to first strengthen the economic noose around the Iranian regime to continue to isolate the Iranian regime and thwart its efforts to develop nuclear weapons, but also as security partners in the Middle East. North Africa, a part of the world where from a defense perspective we have been thinking more and more about over the last several years as the security threats have been emanating out of North Africa, I'm thinking of particular Mali, Libya, obviously Sudan, where our European partners have deeper relationships, they have from a military sense more capability in the theater, and we have to work hand in glove with our European partners. In many cases supporting them, for example the French in Mali or the Central African Republic, but also working very closely with them on an issue like Libya, where none of us has a silver bullet answer to the security challenges in a place like Libya, but we all have a shared interest in Libya's security and prosperity. Ukraine, and the situation in Ukraine as it's evolved over the last several months, serves as a stark reminder that there are still security threats emanating from within Europe and challenges in the U.S.-Russian relationship, and despite the progress that has been made over the last two decades in our efforts to bring Russia into the fold, we still have a long ways to go. The Ukraine crisis has shown the importance of NATO. For those of you with experience in the mechanics of the Transatlantic Alliance and working NATO, you know that sometimes it can be frustrating, it can be slow, but in moments of crisis like the last few weeks, if we didn't have NATO, we'd have to invent it. And I think the Alliance has shown its importance, its value, and the ability for all of us to work together and contribute, not just in political statements or sort of symbolic acts, but actually deploying real capability within Europe to reassure our European partners and also send a message to the Russians that the Article V commitment, the collective security commitment of NATO remain strong and we remain deeply committed to that. The reassurance steps the United States has taken along with our NATO partners, for example, the bolstering of the Baltic Air Policing Mission by deploying additional air assets, the United States deployed the first round of those air assets and now the British are following up the location or the placement of a ship in the Black Sea, we've had now three ships rotate into the Black Sea over the last six weeks, the deployment of ground forces in the Baltics in Poland, 173rd Combat Brigade team, 600 folks sprinkled along the four countries of Poland in the Baltics, very important reassurance message to our partners and the bolstering of our bilateral aviation detachment in Poland, all efforts to build up the capabilities of our allies but also send a clear message to our allies that we are there for them and we've got their back. Those efforts are the kind of the down payment of what we're going to be doing over the next several months in terms of continuing to rotate forces through and those are not just going to be United States forces, those will be NATO forces as well but for NATO to remain relevant, it has to evolve and that's been a recurring theme of the alliance since the end of the Cold War. This year is a particularly important year because of the Wales Summit that will be coming in September and the inflection point that the NATO alliance is facing with the transition in Afghanistan and all of the questions that that raises about what the alliance, the purpose of the alliance, what we will do on the partnership agenda and how we can sustain this very strong muscle that has developed between NATO partners operationally and NATO allies and also of course the recurring theme we all face, many secretaries of defense have dealt with and all of my predecessors have dealt with which is building up European defense capabilities. That's that's a subject of a whole nother conference but I think that the Ukraine crisis clearly brings into the bright spotlight the importance of maintaining a strong defense across Europe. We have had very intensive conversations with our European partners over the last several weeks. Here in Washington many ministers of defense are here this week for various other meetings and we've been seeing them at the Pentagon and obviously at the upcoming NATO defense ministerial and then the summit in September a big topic will be how we collectively can build up our capabilities in the defense realm. Second point I want to talk a little bit about is the flip side of what I've just said which is that the transatlantic relationship is the cornerstone. We still have a tremendous amount of capability deployed in Europe and we're prepared to do more but the flip side of that is that our commitment to transatlantic security and particularly the recent focus on Ukraine and the reminder that that has served for all of us that we still have unfinished business in Europe this does not diminish the commitment or energy that the administration has towards the rebalance towards Asia. Our quadrennial defense review which is every four years the major strategic document coming out of the Pentagon was released about a month ago. It makes very clear that the Department of Defense is still deeply committed to implementing the rebalance. You saw several years ago the first iteration of that which was the when the president was in Asia in the announcement of the stationing of some marines in Australia and just last week when the president was in Asia again the announcement of a very important defense pact with the Philippines and to renew our defense relationship with the Philippines. The President's trip itself was a symbol that we remain very committed to the rebalance. Secretary defense Hegel has been to Asia four times in his little more than a year in office. He was just there two weeks ago and one of the initiatives that he had put together was a meeting of ASEAN defense ministers that we he hosted in Hawaii to try to deepen the conversation among Southeast Asian partners and ourselves on defense issues. I have to say in my although my current job I don't deal with Asia issues in my previous jobs at the White House and State I was I was much more involved in the broad strokes of our of our Asia policy and inevitably in the press or in conversation you're asked well you know is there is the rebalance being fulfilled or you really as they were kind of putting your money where your mouth is and I think that that there is clear evidence that that we are committed it's not just words it is deeds as I've as I've just explained and I do recognize that it particularly when you're executing a strategic move it's oftentimes hard to see the the impact at any snapshot in time and that part of what our job is in government is to understand that that even a particular moment it may look unfulfilled it's how it's what the trend line is and that where you'll be 20 years from now and I think that what we've been trying to do is patiently persistently incrementally execute the rebalance both in terms of our whether it's measured by visits or meetings but also from the Pentagon perspective deployments and posture so what this means for what the books about the transatlantic relationship the U.S. relationship to Europe I think the way forward is pretty self-evident which is this isn't it's not a turning away from Europe this is this is something we have to do together and we have to conduct as the book title said a transatlantic rebalance pivot rebalance we needed we do this together secretary Panetta the former secretary of defense when he was he gave a speech in London in January of 2012 at King's College where he he took this on directly and and in addition to talk about many other things regarding our transatlantic security relationship said to our European colleagues that we need to find ways to work together in Asia that it's we can't measure U.S. security in a zero some way when it comes to working with our closest partners and more but we have shared security interests in Asia so it's incumbent on us to work together I think Danny mentioned to you earlier this morning some ways that through diplomacy we've been working with our European partners to bring the Europeans more into the Asian conversation and I think that many of the ideas in the book some of which I read last night are very very good ones about things we can do differently whether it's structuring different meetings or certain initiatives to bring the Europeans closer to us with our Asian treaty allies and partners in that intensive engagement is absolutely necessary also I'd like to say since I think about all other parts of the world that I think our Asian partners can be more involved with the U.S. in Europe and it can go the other way and I think there are many tough problems that the United States and Europe confront I mentioned a few problems from North Africa problems in the Middle East and Afghanistan for example where many Asian countries have stepped up but I think having the having our Asian allies more engaged in trying to deal with some of the security problems emanating from other parts of the world it would be important as well because I think one thing that's very clear is although the United States remains the most powerful country in the world and we have a unique role and we are indispensable we can't do it alone and given the challenges that many of our European friends are facing given the challenge we're facing we need all the help we can get so I'm also trying to always look for ways that I can bring my Asian colleagues more into the conversation of the challenges that I'm dealing with in other parts of the world so with that why don't I open it up for questions thanks for your time again congratulations Hans on the book thanks well speaking as a fundamental Europeanist I'm sure glad that you're in charge of that shop and thank you for an extraordinary introduction to a set of problems which are as complicated and as demanding as anything we've had in the last 20 years so you're in the catbird seat second prizes you have to do it for twice as long yes first question over here right the lady in blue in the back thank you very much I'm Hailey Channer with the East West Center here in Washington I'm wondering what you think that US allies in Asia can do to better support the rebalance and specifically Japan Korea and Australia to better support the rebalance well I think we'd be getting and again that's I will preface my remarks by saying I'm not the I'm on the other side of the the bureaucratic house so to speak but it seems to me that we first of all the rebalance has been warmly accepted throughout the Asia Pacific are particularly the our closest Asian partners the three that you mentioned where we have deep relationships going back many many many decades we have worked very well with them to sort of help execute this I think to me though the thing I've been most struck with in terms of the rebalance is the way that we're reengaging or reengaging with Southeast Asia and that's what the Secretary of Defense was trying to do with this ASEAN defense ministers meeting in Hawaii and it's not so it's not just rebalancing within between Asia the Asia Pacific and the United States it's also rebalancing within Asia where we are still of course have treaty commitments and close relationships and a lot of capability deployed in Northeast Asia in particular but within the within the Asia Pacific there's more we can do with particularly our Southeast Asian partners which their economies are growing very fast the security threats as you all know far better than I do are are evolving at a fast pace so I think that that we have gotten a lot of support from our long-standing treaty allies and that's good but I think also some of the more interesting work is being done in Southeast Asia. Park. Gentleman right here in the very nice blue poll over. Steve Winters, Washington based researcher. I've heard some reports from Mongolian friends about Secretary Hagel's stop there and they told me that he suggested some defense initiatives between the US and Mongolia. I wondered if you could comment on that and whether that's part of this concept of the pivot to Asia where Mongolia fits in. Secondly I also hear from the Mongolians that they're quite interested in playing a role in resolving the situation on the Korean Peninsula and of course they did have this thing with the Japan abductees but I have also been told that the US has been discouraging them from trying to get in as joining the Sixth Party talks. Could you comment on the role of Mongolia and the pivot as seen by the US? So again prefacing my remarks by saying I don't do Mongolia however I can say that the Secretary I think he was the first Secretary in some time to have visited Mongolia and that's purposeful. Secretaries of Defense just don't drop into places randomly and I do know that he had very good talks there. I myself actually met with a Mongolian Defense Minister at Shangri-La last year. Mongolia is again you all know better than I do is a extremely interesting country that thinks strategically because of its neighborhood and who it shares borders with and so whereas I can't comment on the specifics of the defense relationship I obviously it's something we look to expand or all Secretary wouldn't have been there. I also know he picked up a pretty nifty horse when he was there as a gift so. Can I jump in and ask you a question? This may be take beyond what you're able to say with the efforts in regard to rebalancing plus the new concerns with regard to Europe. Do you see in terms of American force structure any stresses intentions number one and two any potential impact upon the defense budget? Yeah great question because the the Ukraine crisis was erupting right at the moment that our Quadrant Internal Defense Review was released so many of the questions I and my colleagues were subjected to on the hill and and forums like this was well now don't we have to totally rewrite the QDR because of what's happening in Ukraine and the answer is no because many of what many of the initiatives and the policy vectors that were outlined in the QDR are very relevant to how we're handling the Ukraine crisis in terms of our force deployment rotational deployments building up unique capabilities and working very closely with our alliance partners. Our force structure has has changed dramatically in Europe for the last 20 years it's it's down around 57,000 or so troops that are permanently based in Europe and I don't see that changing dramatically that said we are rethinking some of our posture in Europe and the examples I outlined earlier of these these small but meaningful deployments through air navy ground assets particularly in Eastern Europe are we're looking to find ways to sustain those through rotational deployments I think that for us feels like the the the future where we it's less about permanent stationing it's it's rotational where forces can come in for several months do a lot of good work build up host country capacity and then come out and other different forces can come in so I think that that whereas a lot of this is under review and this Ukraine crisis is quite dynamic and we're waiting to see you know we'll still have several chapters of this story to go things will change but I don't expect dramatic change in terms of force posture on the defense budget defense budget challenges are what they are we feel like we have a very strong strategy that backs our the limited resources we have limited but still substantial but I don't see the defense budget dramatically changing as a result of this thank you one more and let's go to this gentleman in back in the gray shirt he's a former research assistant so he better hey Park Nicholson from the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies good to see you there had a question about the reports conclusions that moved in the direction of perhaps more globalized NATO and if you had any thoughts or foresee any future particularly in the context of potential Russian Chinese joint military exercises or joint naval exercises in the Pacific so great question global NATO has been something that that has kicked around now and then every few years an article gets written and it kind of comes back to the fore I don't see that being something that that is coming back you know in terms of getting traction as an argument anytime soon the partnership agenda which is it's not global NATO because it's not membership but the way that we as the NATO Alliance works closely with those capable partners who in Afghanistan are stepping up for example in an incredibly meaningful way in some cases far more meaningful than many of our NATO allies are stepping up in terms of the amount of force they're putting in the theater the willingness to take risks and the casualties they're suffering so I think one of the ideas we're playing with as we lead up to the whale summit is how we can structure our partnership agenda so NATO's NATO's closest partners how we can structure that agenda where they can we can work continue to work closely with them even if it's short of membership but I don't I don't see there's that there's much appetite for bringing either on either side either a country that's very capable like on Australia that's a terrific partner wanting to be a NATO nor the NATO Alliance coming around to wanting full membership for Australia okay with that I want to thank everybody for your time sorry it was short but good luck for the rest of the day thanks well thank you thank you mr secretary for taking your time and giving us some insights that we're not going to be able to get anywhere else thank you very much and good luck now over to Heather all right after that quick switch uh onto our second panel discussion understanding the transatlantic dimensions of a trans pacific century again uh for those who may have joined us a bit late my name is Heather Conley i direct the europe program here at csis i have to say i was so struck by the first panel and particularly victor cha's comment about uh looking at the institutional development of asia and i'm struck because as i look at europe and asia two things uh they have in common unfortunately a rise of nationalism and uh historical grievances that are yet to be fully addressed and certainly president putin represents a very significant historical grievance but the institutions where the uh were what tried to temper both of those uh the european colon steel community which evolved into the eu the economic dimension the osce dimension which of course also has the economic and the security but the third dimension the human rights the rule of law and then of course nato is the security ability it's striking that over the last 25 years the conflicts that have struck europe and the balkans georgia and now ukraine have happened outside that institutional structure so those institutions are so so pivotal we have a phenomenal panel discussion uh to talk about understanding both both dimensions uh the european approach to asia and the asian views uh about europe and so joining us first is ambassador michael schaefer who is now currently chairman of the board of the bmw uh foundation uh but uh career diplomat diplomat uh a fantastic colleague to many of us in washington from his time as german ambassador to beijing but also as a german political director and then we have our colleague remkortwegg senior research fellow at the center for european reform uh and again and uh both ambassador schaefer and rem are contributing authors to the book and then following that we'll have tim borzma fellow of the energy security initiative at the brookings institute to help us understand the energy dimension resources in asia and then we'll finally turn to dan hamilton who will be he'll take us from the opposite view the asia asia's pivot to the atlantic so with that and being very mindful that we have a lot to cover in an hour uh i'll uh i'll stop and turn to ambassador schaefer thank you so much thank you very much uh heather maybe before i go into a few more specific uh points that i would like to make um let me make some general remarks i think i'm grateful to hans benendijk that he has reminded us that this is not only about transatlantic pivot to asia but it is about building something new and that is a trilateral understanding which would include and has to include asia and i think our discussion has been a bit short in the asian perception of what both the u.s and and europe are doing secondly i think we all agree despite um what's going on in ukraine and and russia what we will see is a continued uh engagement not only of the u.s but also of the european union in asia no matter if we call it the pivot or rebalancing uh or whatever we will do both and we will do it uh in a very engaged way and that means that um we have to be careful that this does not get into a zero-sum equation all of our speakers this morning have taken it for granted that this is not a zero-sum game but i think and to put a little bit water into the wine this is not a foregone conclusion um we have seen a relatively high level of trust between decision makers in washington in brussels in germany in most of the european countries but what we also see is a dramatic shift in trust a diminishing trust in europe as far as the u.s is concerned and if we talk transatlantic uh so to say cohesion we must not lose sight that this is a trend which i think is worrying i've been 45 years in the transatlantic business i'm extremely concerned about these more popular uh uh developments and i think if we talk cohesion in our policies towards asia i think we need to understand what this is all about as far as our transatlantic starting points are concerned i was in the uh trilateral commission meeting uh from thursday to sunday and it was really interesting to see that everyone is taking it for granted that we are an alliance of values well first of all i think personally we are secondly we have lost sight of many of the layers of this uh alliance of values and that is something if we go to asia and i will comment on that a little bit more specific later um this is something we cannot take for granted it started with iraq but guantanamo abu greib the nsa conflict which we do have show that we look at certain value issues differently and we need not you know overplay this these differences in our transatlantic relationship i think this is extremely important if we want so to say to have cohesion uh between us i would also say we are not only an alliance of values basically i i agree with this assessment we are also an alliance of at least partial interests and i think if we look towards engagement in in asia we need to understand where our interests do not converge and where we have convergent interests i mean commercially we are all competitors but that's true for the european union as well our companies are competitors we do have different interests but i think it is important to identify where we have converging interests as we go into the asian continent and i would like to try to highlight very few parameters which go beyond what other colleagues are discussing the economy the security issues i think we largely agree on these issues i would like more to look into the soft power of it and because that is one area which i think is is key if we want to build what we call trilateral partnerships trilateral partnerships will mean that we do not just bring in the us and the eu interest into the region we need to take into consideration legitimate interests and legitimate so to say perceptions coming from the asians themselves and that is the starting point for me our acceptance that asia must define its own way of development based on interest in the first way not based on western interest that may be difficult to accept for some of us but i think having lived in asia for many years during these last years this is a key point for we we must accept that they define their own legitimate interest second it is true as mary and fundon hovel said earlier asia is not china that's true and that's a true is almost but asia but china is the most important single actor and it is of key importance that the european union and and the us try to reach an understanding as to china's development this is a very important thing of course we can at a very superficial level agree that it's not exclusion but the inclusion of china into the developments of the all of all of asia but what does it really mean we need to appreciate not only the opportunities which the chinese market is offering to us but we also need to come to an understanding what the risks are we need to have a threat perception which is to large extent congruent i think this is lacking very often in practical politics seen we are not talking about the differences in our threat perception but that may be key the third comes from there and the objective and our colleagues have talked about it in the first panel the objective obviously is to integrate china and the other asian players into an international system which already exists but it's not static it is dynamic it will develop tpp has been discussed many other legal developments will follow from this now it is quite important to understand that while we expect that all of the asian countries including china start from the existing legal system we must also accept that in building new elements to this legal system they will have their legitimate input at i level that's a level playing field which we need to accept it's not an octrois that the us and the e you are going to do in asia because they are not going to accept it not only china the other asians won't won't either if we ask ourselves and that is my fourth point which is the most important converging interest that we have i would say it's stability in asia that may sound like truism but it's a very complex and and difficult statement it consists apart from what already has been discussed of three major element first we need to see that stable domestic developments are taking place in the various asian countries secondly the building of a fair framework for the integration of the asian economies that has been already discussed thirdly and i will only touch shortly on it it's the aspect of reconciliation because i think it is key for solving any of the territorial conflicts or many of the other larger conflicts between in particular the east asian countries let me share just a few elements with you on the first point domestic stability and i take china as as an example i know it best but it is very true to many of the other asian societies as well china in many ways is a positive and negative role model for the neighboring asian countries it has had an unprecedented positive development i think unprecedented in recent human history but it's now at a crucial turning point urbanization has been too fast it has been uncoordinated it is not sustainable the gap between rich and poor between a rising middle class and of 350 million in the same number of people at the poverty line is is going to be of a big conflictual potential in in china the cost of environmental destruction is enormous the corruption is endemic i just list a few of these points which are extremely an important challenge for the chinese government in the next years to come they are confronted with a frustration level which rises from day to day there is protests in the streets most people don't know about it more than 190 000 demonstrations with more than 500 people every year that is not reported in our media at all the social media have become what i would call a post democratic form of participation putting enormous pressure on uh municipal on provincial on the central government and the two key challenges which this government is facing clearly is making the growth which has been enormous but making it sustainable that has been discussed already in the first panel i'm not going to dwell on it but the second is social justice to me building social justice is the litmus test for stability in china and that of course is at the core building rule of law now we always take it as if any society would automatically develop rule of law nothing could could be wronger than this statement because most east asian societies don't have a tradition confucianism and the the resulting order of not only china but most of the east asian countries has not known the rule of law that we have developed after the era of enlightenment in europe and then eventually in in in the us we take it for granted that rule of law of course means good laws educated lawyers independence of justice and the trust of the people in the law none of these four things is existing they're building now good laws because we help them to do so there are only a hundred twenty thousand educated lawyers in china how many do you have in in russian 80 000 probably and that's and that's for 1.4 billion people they don't have people who understand the law in administrations in courts nowhere it will take 20 to 25 years to have an adequate number of people you know who understand what they're talking about and then obviously the independence of the courts means loss of power by the communist party now this is again a very key element will or will not they give up at least parts of of their power if they don't they may lose all of their power so they have to calibrate this development and this is a process which is extremely tedious will be very long it will probably go for more than a generation or so and this is something our societies are not ready to take we want to criticize these countries rightly so for human rights violations but we have don't have the patience in in trying to accompany these processes in building rule of law that is something which which we need to reflect about because it is it is one of the essential processes which probably we will have to to accompany what is true for china is true for most asian societies there is very very widespread lack of respect for human rights irrespective of their political system because in most countries either you have no rule of law or you have no effective rule of law autocratic china and democratic india let me put it really bluntly are struggling with social justice because there is no functioning law although the formal framework for law exists in india let's not so to say overlook these these elements because then we don't get it right in in building a trilateral a partnership with the asian countries if we want stability in asia we need to support the building of the rule of law without double standards we have to to to understand that a spate is a spate no matter if if human rights violations if corruption if if other so to say obstacles to the legal implementation happen in in autocratic systems or in democratic systems if we don't respect this principle we are not going to have the so to say the authority to really ask these societies to to to develop in the same way something which is very often overlooked and i think needs to be reflected good governance is key not ideological victories if we want stability in these countries now my last remark is we we need to to understand that with the the development of rule of law this of course is not only true to the society's proper but also dealing with the the conflicts and problems these neighbors have with each other again unlike europe unlike the transatlantic relationship the host of of legal instruments is rather thin there is not the understanding that i have the same kind of so to say set off of instruments which help me to overcome issues take the territorial issues between japan and and china japan and korea china and and the south china see philippines issue and i'm concerned about the potential of the of the conflicts not because i think these countries will engage in aggressive policies i'm much more concerned about the unintended escalations which lie in in these conflicts this is true in particular to the senkaku deal conflicts where i think both sides understand that it would be a disaster for both societies to engage in a in an open conflict but the potential for conflict is enormous now if you we have heard discussions on how to deal with it be it from the u.s be it from the european side now i don't think this is a question of formal arbitration structures yes we all would like to see that this goes without a threat of violence that this goes in a diplomatic way but we need to understand and this has been discussed shortly in the morning we have to understand the underlying problems now there is so to say history conflicts between china and and and japan which will not go away why won't it go away nun jing and nun jing has been mentioned is a form in the flesh of every chinese person you go to any place in china and people no matter where they come from how much they're educated they're very very much so to say concerned about this this historic element which now goes back 80 80 years in the 1930s now nationalism in china and in japan will not easily go away if these underlying historic problems are not solved so i think it is correct i don't know who said it in in the morning but it is extremely important that somehow we try to reflect how to assist these these societies to go about their reconciliation the problem which i see is germany and and france after the war started on a new footing germany was so to say completely destroyed but also our system had changed completely there was no nazi regime anymore and the goal offered offered his hand to germany as a strong partner to to allow for reconciliation or that does not happen in in asia the the asian leadership the japanese leadership structurally functionally is still the same the the house of the emperor is still there there's continuity which makes it much more complicated to so to say go into these issues of reconciliation and that's why that's my last word i would say it is important that we engage not governments but science civil society young people in order to try to bring about this kind of of readiness for reconciliation which over 20 years have helped us with france and poland to do what was necessary to do and which was the key for building the european union thanks thank you best of them thank you very much um i'd like to talk a little bit about europe's approaches to asia and particularly the ability of europe to develop a common or coordinated strategic approach to asia and particularly the asia pacific and i would like to frame my comments with in the context of what's happening with ukraine um there's good news and there's bad news when it comes to the development of a coordinated strategic approach by europe to asia first the good news i would say that 2012 was a high water mark when it comes to europe's pivot to asia we saw an increased amount of visits by european senior officials to the region participation in the shangri la dialogue by hrvp kathryn ashton um senior european leaders visiting the region and building diplomatic ties we also know in 2012 the at the asian regional forum secretary clinton and hrvp ashton signed a common declaration in which they decided to pursue greater strategic cooperation in asia and um a guideline document was adopted by the european union on guidelines for its foreign and security policy towards east asia um that's the good news the bad news is that in the past two years not that much has happened the e u is still very much divided in its approach to asia it's primarily economic and primarily bilateral very little on security and very little to know real strategic engagement with uh with asia in spite of the fact that europe has so called for so-called strategic partnerships with asian countries um and i think that first uh if you'd ask me this question uh six months ago i'd point to the euro crisis as being one of the main factors why europe can't get its act together now i'd point to what's happening in ukraine ukraine is really focusing europe's attention away from the region and on its immediate neighborhood and i think the long term strategic consequences of that are worth bearing in mind now i think at the same time along with all of my other colleagues today it would be a strategic error if europe does not keep uh uh its eye on the ball to use another basketball expression um and doesn't continue to pursue uh not only a security focus but in general a strategic focus on on the asia pacific um and why is that and and i forgive me if i say some things that have already been mentioned today um but i think it's worth recalling the enormous economic interest that europe has in in in the asia pacific 27 percent of e u's global trade is with uh with east asia which is more than the trade with north america um it means that europe has a fundamental security interest in continued stability as ambassador shaffer said freedom of navigation maritime security is is pivotal to continued economic growth in in in the world but especially also in keeping europe's ailing economy on track um developments in the dpr k in north korea uh are are of interest to europe not only because of its uh its interest in non-proliferation but also the impact that that would have on global global trade flows coming from asia towards uh towards europe just a statistic every year 5.6 million containers are transited through uh the port of roderdam and 30 percent of that passes through either the south or east china seas i mean it's it's a very clear uh relevance that uh that or very clear interest that europe has in in continued stability um secondly i would point to the transatlantic relationship a lot has been mentioned today about that so i won't dwell on it too long but the relevance of the transatlantic relationship requires europe to to to pivot together at least talk to and try to coordinate with the united states about asia policy and it touches upon a broader issue about what kind of actor europe wants to be does europe want to be only a security consumer or does it also want to be a security producer in 2003 uh the eu security strategy said that europe wants to be a global actor if it wants to be a global actor it needs to participate on uh on on uh sort of developing the uh uh the asia pacific security architecture um furthermore and i think this is worth bearing in mind asia's rise will lead to overlapping interests with europe in places elsewhere than the asia pacific so we see increasing engagement of asian partners in north africa uh in the middle east the projections of the amount of oil that's going to flow to china from the middle east um is is going to require europe to to continue to engage with uh with uh with china on on energy security um relations in the arctic involve uh both europe as well as asian partners so there's a real necessity to have a strategic dialogue with um with asia from a european perspective finally uh more in the short term with respect to some of the territorial and maritime disputes my sentiment is that asian allies are also growing and growing increasingly impatient with european stalling or ambivalence or neutrality when it comes to its position on some of the the issues that that have emerged there there's been a lot of um sort of grumbling in in japan about weak responses to the declaration of the aid is at the same time in beijing people weren't very happy that kathryn ashton didn't speak out very firmly against the visit to the yasakuni shrine there is a potential that europe really becomes divided as it as it doesn't create a a a coherent coordinated approach to what's happening in asia because of the fact that these asian countries see a real vital security interest in what's happening there and they look at the europeans and they say well it's all a little bit wishy washy it's it's neither here nor there it's very neutral it's impartial how long can that be sustainable um and uh finally uh there are a number of global problems that require asian solutions we've talked about climate change or we will talk a little bit more about climate change also resource security energy security really have a very strong asian dimension not to mention um non-proliferation so what what can europe then then plausibly do um and i think as a bottom line we need to appreciate that europe has an interest and a capability to contribute to shaping the context for a peaceful rise of asia and um that means strengthening multilateral governance trying to contribute to building a cooperative security architecture i mean this is basically diplomatic speak for saying let's focus on asian and see how we can really beef up that that organization and this is where the eu has a lot of of tools and a lot of lessons learned that i can share with asian trade trade has been talked about before in the previous panel just to mention it's not only about tpp and t-tip although i think it would be very useful if in europe we have greater understanding of the geopolitical importance of both of these agreements too often in europe i hear people say well tpp is sort of a a a free trade agreement 1.0 what's really the big game in town is t-tip so as as europeans try to compete for mike froman's attention they also try to make that zero-sum case of let's focus on t-tip first and then perhaps tpp because tpp is very difficult isn't it and we need to get beyond that um at the same time europe is also pursuing a lot of bilateral free trade agreements that i think we need to we need to uh be aware of because it creates this possibility of a really a triangle a triangle of free trade agreements with asia not only tpp t-tip but also a potential eu asian free trade agreement and it it is a real tool of influence to pursue what the uh what is a west or transatlantic common interest in setting the the terms of global trade um it's been mentioned by ambassador schaefer before but just to reiterate europe has a lessons to share and expertise to share on how to deal with historical reconciliation it's not necessarily governments it's mostly academics universities people to people exchanges but it's something that governments can definitely encourage um and then the elephant in the room what can europe do militarily and indeed not a whole lot but there are a couple of things um maritime security if it is so important to europe and i believe it is um we should do what the brits have done last year uh the uk sent a a frigate to southeast asia to make port visits to participate in exercises in the region and to basically show that they cared so to build military to military relations now i would venture why um don't we have a continuous european frigate in the region to build relations to have exercises to show that europe is also concerned about maritime security whether it's from a counter piracy perspective or whether it's from a um a a uh a simple military military to military building trust perspective um at the same time security sector reform conflict prevention sort of the the things that we know that the EU can do or nato in terms of missile defense is all very much worth worth pursuing um how can europe do this and uh in conferences like this we often despair that europe can't speak with one voice and um i'm going to jump on that bandwagon and say yes you know europe should speak with one voice but it's not realistic where it's not going to happen the reason is that bilateral relations between european countries and asian countries are too important it would be like saying that the uk france and germany defer to the EU in all the relations with the united states it's it's simply not going to happen but what we can do is to coordinate much more strongly and leverage the different channels that individual european countries and the EU have vis a vis asia just to give a couple of examples germany has arguably the best relations with china among european member states why don't we use that the uk and france have the only security or slash military presence in the region rather than asking the the the the germans in the french and the uk to defer to the european union why can't we ask the external action surface to try to coordinate what is in the broader common european interests and ask these individual countries to push that agenda in their individual relations and they're in that way the EU can act as a force multiplier let me end with just a couple of concerns i have with respect to ukraine ukraine i think will be a watershed moment for european strategic thinking europe may start to take hard security much more serious because of what's happening on its eastern border but at the same time it will continue to focus europe only on its neighborhood and that's a real problem the ukraine crisis is also absorbing european attention away from asia pacific issues creating another opportunity for the EU to be divided by for instance the increasing diplomatic tensions between japan and china and it's something that we have to be really aware of and finally the european inability or unwillingness to avoid the dismemberment of one of its neighboring countries is not sending the right signal in terms of credibility building vis-a-vis the asia pacific and engaging with them in a very credible fashion so i i perhaps i'm ending on a somewhat pessimistic note but i really think that we need to have that discussion how ukraine and and the asia pacific uh match or don't match thank you very much thanks renton thanks heather uh good morning to you all thanks thank you all for being here uh first of all i want to say special thanks also on behalf of my co-author prince uh haim and the boob on par to uh johns hopkins center for transatlantic relations of course and the and the dutch foreign ministry for making this book project possible i for one have learned a lot from the conference we had earlier in the haig and uh my new colleagues and of course the discussions we had on these various topics um i will give a very short overview and it's really going to brief going to be a brief overview of of our chapter which deals with the natural resource competition and the environment um haim and i have looked specifically at the cases of energy and mineral resources uh both in the united states in europe and uh and we've asked ourselves whether current trends suggest that the transatlantic alliance may at some point come under pressure as a global demand for uh for resources is predicted to dramatically increase in the coming decades and with the vast majority of that increase occurring outside the transatlantic space in in non-oacd countries uh so we observe the following due to reasons that i think are known to most of you to some degree the united states has become an important global producer of both oil and natural gas and and in the coming years we will see uh to what extent that country may even turn into a net exporter of those of energy resources um europe on the other hand is increasingly dependent on energy resources and outside suppliers struggles to a great extent to integrate its full market uh internal market and effectively create an attractive environment for for alternative suppliers to compete with traditionally dominant suppliers such as russia uh due to a range of incidents uh you and russia have been have been drifting apart and they started far before far before the ukraine crisis occurred of course um even though i do think that in my view there's not really realistic scenario in which russia is not an important supplier of energy resources to the european union uh as the situation in ukraine further escalates it seems only a matter of time the way i see it before russia turns east and south where we'll find significant alternative demand in in those earlier mentioned non-oacd countries um in terms of mineral resources the the united states was always one of the larger uh producers in the world of minerals including several rare earth materials uh due to high labor costs and strict environmental regulations most of the processing capacity for those minerals had moved to china throughout the years and mines in the u.s had closed uh following a series of supply disruptions and subsequent concerns within both do d and do e uh both the u.s and the european union which is also largely dependent on external suppliers uh have started initiative to promote renewed domestic mining uh to to more diversity of of supplies substitution and increased recycling uh as it will take roughly 15 years to reinstall the entire mineral supply chain for the time being the united states and europe seem to be in the same boat on this front uh haim and i then look at the rise of asia in terms of resource consumption and production uh and focus of course particularly on china uh we know that there are a number of misperceptions about chinese investments abroad and that the the role of its companies in the global market sphere is not always well interpreted moreover we think and the ambassador alluded to this earlier that the deterioration of chinese air and water quality and the increased domestic protests suggests that there may be limits to china's research for a and consumption domestically uh we describe this in more detail and of course i would encourage you to read the chapter and the book for that matter if you're interested to read more uh we end the chapter then by identifying uh areas of cooperation not just between the united states and europe um but also including china india and other important countries in the asian sphere some examples are sharing best practices to stimulate responsible extraction of unconventional energy resources which we have not even started with or hardly started with uh collectively investing in developing renewable energy technology to enhance energy efficiency uh and carbon capture and sequestration technology which we will really need if we for a minute consider that coal is going to rival oil as the dominant fuel source in uh in about uh 2017 2018 uh china and india by the time being the the dominant consumers of that coal around the world um most importantly i think however we should collaborate to reduce resource consumption and i don't think we've even started to really work on that including this part of the world um in terms of mineral resources we've we have to move beyond the scaremondering of of chinese investments abroad uh in addition transatlantic partners we think can further stimulate private sector initiatives uh to develop alternative so critical minerals and enhance recycling uh in the run up to the to the next climate conference in paris in 2015 we think that the eu and the us should minimally embrace the binding 40 carbon emissions reduction target for 2030 as was recently proposed by the european commission finally and most urgently however and this is and this is not in our chapter i think that transatlantic partners may reconsider including countries like china india and others in an effort to de-escalate the crisis in ukraine the often suggested isolation of russia is in fact not happening and the sanctions lack teeth most importantly because they would equally hurt europe and to a less extent the united states something that's been alluded to before it is time to acknowledge this and collectively work on an alternative thank you tim thank you so much dan we have a couple of minutes and i'd love to get a couple of questions and okay we'll wrap it up okay uh that's a great introduction thank you uh dan you understand what i'm doing you do it all the time yeah exactly well my you know uh my chapter is is the counterintuitive chapter intentionally because it seems that if we if the atlantic powers are considering how and why and whether we should pivot to asia it's important to consider that and understand that asia is pivoting to the atlantic and uh so it's not just about how we together engage in the asia pacific region but how we together should understand the broader dynamics of asia's rise and that includes uh here uh and in the broader uh what i would call the atlantic hemisphere uh kishore mabubani wrote a book a few years ago about the what he called the asian hemisphere uh and that's the rise that's going to be you know the new century well just by definition if there's an asian hemisphere then there's an atlantic hemisphere uh and by definition then what my definition of that hemisphere would be the four continents of the atlantic so includes not only the north atlantic but also latin america cribian and africa and so what this chapter does i'm not going to bore you with the details i tried to map to the extent possible asia's rise and it's now it's presence in the atlantic hemisphere in all sorts of different ways north america europe latin america and africa so if you're interested in that i encourage you just to read the chapter because he gets into some details which i'm not going to get into i think the basic point is that there are some real trends here that are uh bear looking at and they have some implications uh back to united states in europe one is that you know the uh they're very diverse motivations of asian countries engaging in in the atlantic uh and and each country has its own uh there are important underlying trends that we need to keep in mind and bear on our own relations each of ours with latin america and africa and if you could sort of summarize some of these if you look at the details you see the primary driver of asian interest is still economic uh it's though somewhat different in the south atlantic it tends to be more an interest in resources energy agricultural commodities in the north atlantic it tends to be access to consumer markets uh innovation uh technical knowhow uh in the form uh that each country takes japan's presence obviously is very different than china's uh korea is increasing its presence everywhere uh and it's just a very interesting diversified picture so it means that the influence of the asian economies is really still economic there's political influence that comes from that but it's very uneven and not quite as significant the second i think the thing you see is there's no real coherent strategy to this uh each country is has its own approach uh with more little real attention to uh all this part of the world uh and that asian countries tend to be as much competitors in their atlantic uh engagement as they are at all cooperative and you see that in fact they're in many cases they are exporting their intra-regional competition to the rest of the world uh and i think that has implications uh also for us uh and they also take different approaches of course to issues of human rights rule of law the things michael is talking about as they engage in other countries elsewhere including in the atlantic i think what you see though if you look at that it's not only that asian countries don't have a coherent strategy the u.s and europe don't have a coherent strategy either to what i would call the atlantic hemisphere or certainly the south atlantic and by taking the prism of asian engagement you see issues that are been neglected by the u.s and europe you see areas in which we've withdrawn our engagement and you also see some future challenges um the other element that you see is that it's not just what i the continents i talked about but the arctic because asian engagement now in the arctic is actually uh growing we have to think about that also the Antarctic in a different way but there's another sea ocean if you will developing in which there's a new regime developing that includes asian influence um their impact in atlantic is also important in a global sense in terms of worldwide norms and standards how we want to advance those standards it's not only about how we engage in asia but how we work together uh in the atlantic and i think it also it helps us with some perspective because sort of this breathless talk of asia's rise it's global rise you get some caveats if you look at what's really happening it's not it's very uneven there are some thick links now but they're very thin links still it depends on the countries uh that you want to talk about and in almost all areas in the atlantic asian presence still lags significantly behind uh u.s and european presence despite anecdotes you might hear so the conclusions you know my my piece is we shouldn't just turn to the pacific we should harness the atlantic and we think about our own connections and those of our other atlantic partners because they each of us are being influenced by asia's rise and we need to keep that in mind as we look at that so um and and that the more we are uh we get our act together at home uh and have our own vibrant economies the things we work together the more confident we're going to be in terms of strategic outreach to asia i think rem even mentioned that it if you're absorbed by your own problems you simply have less space to engage with your partners on other things the other is to understand what's happening that globalization is not just about the pacific all the connections between continents that are happening in the pacific asia pacific are happening also in the atlantic and do other ways and and one needs to really keep that in mind we have a whole project called the atlantic basin initiative this is my short plug with the paper that kind of goes through those trends we have 60 maps that now map the new atlantic and i think it's important to keep in mind that those trends are also happening it's not just one part of the world that's the new dynamic um so the one that's critical and shows this atlantic pacific is energy we talk in the united states as if the energy revolution is just happening here it's happening everywhere in the atlantic hemisphere if you go all through down south not only canada but down through gulf of mexico mexico south america it's transformative you go to africa it's a transformative energy revolution that's happening and it's not just fracking unconventional fossil fuels energy innovation is also very much an atlantic phenomenon that's where europe is playing a huge role if you take biofuels my colleague paul is here so i'm parroting his his material uh you know 85 90 percent of the biofuels are traded and consumed in the atlantic so if we're going to go to a second generation biofuels regime it's an atlantic conversation but i have huge impact all of this on the pacific because the pacific will be the consumers but the energy is going to be the energy reservoir the atlantic is going to be the energy reservoir of the world over the next decades and they have huge implications back into the pacific uh so i think in terms of just the technology the diplomacy's you have differentiated dialogues it's not only about building in uh conversations the us u dialogues about china it's building into the us china dialogue a conversation about africa or latin america and that's i think is michael's point we need to talk about this together in a much bigger sense and not these sort of narrow uh senses so and i think if you look at asian uh architecture and approaches one last point i would just say is i think it's actually useful to be open to good practice that comes from the asia pacific region when we think about how to engage in the atlantic and one very clear example is an apek infrastructure partnership regime that exists so through through apek there's a i think a fairly creative way private sector public sector work on infrastructure that's exactly right now the issue facing africa latin america and it's exactly the area where the us in europe could actually add some value if we had a framework and actually asia pacific provides a kind of framework like that so there are ideas that we can transfer this way we don't always have to think we're taking our ideas the other way thank you dan you punched a lot into eight minutes thank you so much for that this is we need to have further discussions okay i've come out of this conversation volume two is the arctic and how to unpack the environment the economic the institutional dynamics of the arctic council i raised my hand for that book uh the third volume i think uh and ram you raised this is really about how the crisis in ukraine and this new dynamic how it impacts all trilaterally i have to say i have probably spoken more to asian diplomats chinese diplomats in particular about what this crisis means to the international system i've heard some voices in europe suggesting that if we push russia too hard this will force russia and china into a condominium against the west we have to watch how all these dynamics so i've got projects lined up for everybody for a very long time uh we have literally two minutes so we're going to have a lightning round uh are there any very focused specific questions to any of the speakers that you'd like to throw out now i'm going to just take the woman in the back because she hasn't had a chance to do a q&a and ma'am if you could identify yourself and keep it so short thank you a question for uh ambassador schaefer on china um you made a reference to uh the confusion tradition and the absence of a rule of law in china's history and even china's labor's history etc as a sort of someone who considers herself a descendant of that confusion tradition i have to say that totally absent laws and the rule of law the middle kingdom would not have lasted more than 2000 years i mean to the degree the degree to which laws and the rule of law in particular are observed under the current government is debatable so uh my question is uh you mentioned each nation you know they should go down they will inevitably define their own path i mean based on uh the interest their own interests i mean full credit to that but in terms of uh uh if we look at the picture of asia and with china in particular um the the term they is very complex plural so how do you address the friction say between the street and the government thank you and and if that's your shape if i can say that i know this is a conversation that you would be delighted to do after lunch in a longer perspective you can give us the 30 second response thank you but it is complex i i didn't want to say that there has not been any kind of laws in in in the society but i wanted to say it's our uh so to say uh system of rule of law as we have developed in the western world is is not what we uh or what most asian societies have experienced my my hope is that as in taiwan as in korea as in some of the democratic societies who of law has started to develop there is so to say a chance of building on these experiences and some of the stones the stepping stones will be the traditional legal experiences also existing in china but what i wanted to say is what we call rule of law with a system of a legal system which is a judicial system uh which has so to say developed in europe in the last 250 years is inexistent and has never existed in china beautiful now stay right where you are we're going to invite ambassador chris hill to do a keynote the dance going to introduce i'm going to excuse the panel and you're going to thank them for a fantastic presentation thank you uh so uh i'm really delighted to introduce chris hill so chris is one of our authors he and michael schaefer actually coauthored our piece on really what do you what do we need to do so i really recommend that chapter because it's very focused to very experienced practitioners collaborating each of whom have had a tremendous experience in both atlantic and and pacific realms you have chris's bio but i you know it's really quite amazing besides now being the dean of the corbell school in denver so also affiliated with our broader association of of schools of international affairs i mean chris was assistant secretary he had danie russell's job that you've heard from him uh you know ambassador to iraq korea poland macedonia i remember visiting him when he was in macedonia you know going over the hills trying to you know it was quite a time chris was at the white house he as everyone knows totally involved really an architect of the date and peace agreements we work together in the state department but my my really my personal story is we got together because our wives were linguistic students and that we knew each other and a completely different we were sort of the tag along spouses with a norwegian friend of ours and they were the wives that sort of shuttles off in the kitchen and they need to talk about their stuff and we started to have our own debates about all sorts of crazy things many many years ago and then when chris was a officer in poland and i was living in west berlin at the time the certain walls up at the time and they were going to give birth and the next u.s. medical facility was in west berlin so they had to come to west berlin to have the baby delivered and they stayed with us during that time so that that was a fun time i think papa was a little nervous but it was great it was a different world i tell you but it's it's really fun and just wonderful that chris you could join us and be with us and participate in this project chris hill thank you very much dan and it's a it's a really a pleasure to be here back in washington dc it's not quite denver colorado i guess when the uh you know when we have a sunset it's behind the rocky mountains when you have a sunset it's behind rosalind virginia i guess it's uh this is a bit of a difficult appearance for me because i i'm the last speaker or i'm the speaker standing between you and lunch and i'm also sort of proof of the aphorism that everything has been said today but not by everybody so here i am it is really though i i think a great pleasure a great honor to participate in this project is very honored to work with michael schaefer on our on our chapter on the on the diplomacy i cannot think of a more timely really moment to to discuss this issue of the euro american pivot to to asia now i must say that too gives me some mixed emotions because it sort of implies that the united states have not discovered asia in the in the past and i do remember making a few trips there a few years ago i think victor chah will bear me out on that so it's not so much a rediscovery of asia but it is i think an understanding that we are in really a new a new period i mean it was only 25 years ago exactly 25 years ago that we were in something that was dubbed the of the new world order if you can remember that expression and now thanks to this crisis in in ukraine really a sort of retro crisis if you will i mean some of the elements of things you have we haven't seen in a long time i can i think we're in a new kind of period now and i think we need to define what that period is you know one of the things we're looking at at the corbell school is whether the term international studies really is what we're talking about we're really talking about something that's more global than international involves not just governments but also ngos it involves a lot of of different sort of networks and so i think when you're looking at something like the relationship with asia you can see that there have been some networks that have been you know heavily involved with asia in a way to to some extent where governments are merely catching up with those with those networks so i think it is an important time it's a very important time in our mutual security endowment of nato of our the transatlantic relationship to be really looking more globally and i think to some extent we both have had to kind of retool a little for an understanding of what of what this asia means for us now i think with any new initiative of this kind i think the obama administration was quite correct to kind of focus on this or make this a major focus but i think with any with any new initiative it has come with some unintended consequences and i think we are dealing with some of those unintended consequences together and perhaps in dealing with those we can further our joint project really of a pivot and one of them of course is what this what this volume intends to deal with which is the notion that the pivot to asia did not mean a diminution of our transatlantic relations i think to some extent mr putin has helped us really rekindle those those ties and to be thinking about what we need to do together because it is not so much a ukrainian crisis it is a russia crisis that is the big issue for the next for the next quarter century it is not about you know ukraine god bless them they will go on with their political crises as they have in their first 23 years the real question will be how we manage this this new russia will it be a russia that somehow is in the deep freeze uh in in the future will it be a russia that somehow reemerges in a kind of asian context as well so i think the question of how we manage russia will will i think in a funny way kind of back into how we how we are managing issues in east asia so i think the so dealing with this unintended consequence of of european of the transatlantic ties i think we have really begun to address that um but i think a second unintended consequence of course has been in the middle east now to some extent it was an intended consequence because i think the obama administration really wanted to show we're out of the bombing of mud huts era and we're into an era where we look really at our long-term interests but i think to a great extent we may have failed to understand the broader issues that are going on across the middle east i think heller connelly talked about nationalism in fact several of speakers have talked about nationalism in the middle east it's called sectarianism and this sectarianism has really inflamed the entire region it's a sectarianism between suni and shia but it's also a sectarianism among or within the suni community between secularists and islamists this is a very serious matter in the past in the middle east you had certain adults who've stepped forward like egypt and egypt would say you know i've got to calm us down and egypt would kind of figure out the egyptian diplomats would kind of figure out how to work with uh other you know money interests in the middle east and they'd kind of calm it down well there aren't egyptian diplomats running around anymore uh on this issue turkey took a stab at kind of taking the leadership role in the middle east but uh you know you don't have to be a student of the ottoman empire to know that not every arab is thrilled with having a recreation of the ottoman empire so i think the turks had certain limits in what they could do and so then it becomes a question of who else is stepping up uh those people who believe that somehow china would be the kind of emerged superpower surpassing the u.s after all this week china's gdp may have surpassed the united states i submit to you and we'll get to that in a second that china has problems the likes of which uh we have no idea when uh when shijin ping looks at his at his inbox in the morning it is not an inbox that anyone else would want to look at and then try to have breakfast uh it is replete with issues i don't think china is really quite ready for global responsibility or addressing the the problems in the middle east so i come again back to the issue of could the u.s and europe maybe do a little more and yet you get the impression that we've been completely distracted from the middle east and i raise in particular the issue of syria now there are those and i remember this very well from bosnia there are those who say well those syrians are just going to have to work it out themselves there's nothing we can do to help them well i submit to you we've got to be engaged on that because that is a problem that has metastasized there are those who want to say well you know rocks problems are all caused by this grumpy uh uh prime minister in a new real maliki and maybe he'll be voted out office well maybe he won't and moreover i would suggest to you as difficult as as maliki may be as a prime minister in iraq and as uh unpleasant as he may be from time to time i often say that if he ever had charisma it cleared up a long time ago but uh we need to understand that what is happening in iraq is a broader issue coming out of syria and it reflects this whole sectarianism and so the notion that somehow the u.s was going to pivot to asia and get away from the middle east we can't be getting away from the middle east any more than we can be getting away from europe or frankly any other uh part of the part of the world i think we'd need to be engaged in these problems but i'm hopeful that really this pivot that we talk about more as a reattention to asia can also be a reattention to the transatlantic relationship because i think the transatlantic relationship is the key for dealing with these uh kinds of uh kinds of issues in places like the middle east i'm of the view that um as um similar in some people's minds as the syrian crisis may be to the bosnian crisis it differs in one very important respect in the bosnian crisis we had something called a contact group plan we had broad broad participation of the europeans not just britain and france but much broader participation and we had an america america there russia was there united nations was there and we worked out what the future political arrangements should be of um of bosnia should it be a should it retain its uh existing borders should it be a kind of federal estate what sort of structures should exist in bosnia this sounds a little paternalistic but on the other hand when you've had a war in your country and you have killed upwards of 200 000 people you have no right to be telling people don't be paternalistic you need to submit yourself to some uh to some effort and so i think the uh the us and the europeans and the russians for that matter did a pretty good job of kind of laying out what the future of uh future of bosnia is going to be i fear that with respect to syria we've had a sort of notion that Assad must go but even if Assad is hit by a bus uh today you are still going to have a question of what those future political arrangements should be and i think the us and the europeans especially need to be more engaged in that project and in a kind of funny way i hope the enhanced engagement that we will get from this pivot will actually allow us to be enhanced in other parts of the world that have allegedly been kind of left behind by this pivot but i think the third the third misconception or unintended consequence i should say and i'd like to pick up on on my co-authors points about this is what has really happened to our perception of china in this pivot for example i think the administration and by the way it is so uh how to put it uh refreshing not to be an administration spokesman anymore and to actually tell you what i really think uh but i do believe that this administration had almost as many problems with the pivot rollout or the rebalance they couldn't even agree on the name at the time all many almost as many problems rolling out the pivot as they did rolling out health care uh for those of you aren't from the u.s and didn't follow that don't start now but the first thing they did of course is we had the secretary of state go to go to the philippines and she was on a warship in manila bay we haven't done that since admiral doey and announced a new sort of re-engagement of the specific of the philippine u.s security agreement perfectly good news for the philippines but i can tell you it didn't look so good over on the other on the other side of the of the water that is in china so then secondly we had our president announced that we're going to send some marines to do some training exercises in australia makes a lot of sense has nothing to do with china just look at a map you can see it's a long way from china nonetheless that was perceived as some sort of additional effort vis-a-vis to me one of the most bizarre but at the same time one of the most welcome developments was when the president said we're going to send our secretary of state to berma and start kind of getting uh figure out how we can have a positive relationship with berma very positive stuff in my view but it was couched in the u.s media as being still a third element of what really became from a chinese perspective as some kind of encirclement of china and but a lot did i must say in china zero-sum thinking unfortunately very much prevails especially in security circles we have a little of that here in washington as well so i think for many chinese they looked at this kind of effort in in the in the south china sea they looked at the australia they looked at uh berma in fact frankly they've looked at the whole roc rochement with uh with india as being some kind of encirclement of of china and so i think the overall the gist the gist of the pivot and i think which is something that michael and i tried to argue away from the gist of the pivot has been that somehow it's a china containment policy and uh i don't think that's going to help anybody and i think that has to be corrected this is not to say that china has not uh uh created a lot of problems on its own i was in um during the during the uh second bush administration i had to endure the constant opinion pieces and the newspapers about how china was actually far better had far better diplomats than america did after all the chinese would go to places like indonesia and their head of state would stay there for a couple of days whereas we're lucky if we can get our head of state to stay 45 minutes in a particular country before he has to go on to another country this notion that the chinese had their diplomacy together while the americans couldn't really figure it out uh in fact i think in the fullness of china china has had a lot of problems in managing its relationships in asia a lot of problems of its own making i think the south china c is a problem that uh china didn't have to have and yet china i think very much stumbled into that for a lot of different uh different reasons but again having to do with this scourge of nationalism which is not just in china it's everywhere so i think in china's efforts to declare the south china c a sort of southern chinese lake uh in this effort to the so-called nine dash line i think they created a lot of problems uh in southeast asia i was in the philippines recently and to hear the philippinos uh refer to china as a bully to me is a kind of warning sign to the chinese that somehow they better fix these relationships but getting back to shijin pings uh inbox when he looks at that inbox uh and the mountains of problems he has fixing his relationship with the philippines is probably not on the top of that inbox right now and so i think we have to understand that china like many big countries is beset by its internal problems and sometimes those internal problems become external problems so i think it's for us really uh europe and america to be engaged here but i think we need to be engaged in a way that it is not perceived as somehow a containment strategy against china uh i think one of the very positive aspects of the pivot was the effort to uh work much more closely with southeast asian nations uh i think there was a sense from some of them that we were not uh we were not paying enough attention i think our efforts to pay more attention has been very have been very positive but i think we need to be careful not to allow our politicians to turn attention into east asia east uh southeast asia as an effort to contain china i think for many americans when they look at these international issues we look at them too much in terms of a kind of um um thinking and in particular this notion that somehow china is out there to displace uh uh the united states in particular i think there is this uh kind of a notion in fact you hear a lot of americans today who cannot spell peloponnesian nonetheless talking about the peloponnesian wars and the idea that somehow this is about uh uh the established power and the rising power i submit to you these people don't know a lot about ancient athens or ancient sparta but they need know even less about china and contemporary united states so i think we need to be very careful that in our greater attention to asia we do not bring with it this kind of negative energy china to be sure is going to have to uh figure out its future its relations with these neighbors but i think we should cut the chinese a little slack in the understanding that china's history with neighbors is not a history uh a sort of history in a west fawley and tradition it's a history with a tributary states these are difficult habits to break i have no doubt that china will be able to break them break these habits but i also have no doubt that it is a difficult process for china to be managing these relations finally i would like to say though about china and this goes up into the northeastern part of uh uh of of asia and that is uh it is one thing to have um to have problems maritime problems with with neighbors uh just about everybody has time problems maybe with the exception of switzerland and hungry and a few other landlocked countries but uh so it's one thing to have maritime problems and to be sure there needs to be some effort to deal with these problems in the form of some sort of greater institutionalization greater multilateralization of of asia more places to park these problems until uh tempers can can be reduced more efforts to try to deal with you know create economic structures that can begin to deal with these problems in a 21st century way rather than in a 19th century mercantilist way i mean there are there are ways that i think can be can be employed to deal with these issues the code of conduct for example the asian countries have have uh proposed china needs to understand that the asian country is a very proud of the structure that they've uh they've formed together and therefore are are interested in talking to china individually and i think the chinese need to be a little more clever about that when someone when something's important to someone you shouldn't just ignore it and say you have to deal with them in a different way so all of those maritime issues and especially some of these code of conduct things and these issues of keeping ships from bumping into each other i think are i put in the doable category and the explainable category because as i said there are many maritime issues around the world what i think is something china really is its continued relationship with north korea as somehow an element of the future equation in asia because north korea as it is presently constituted is not a country that any country should really want to be closely associated with i think china has tried to do things but i think china is very much held up by this zero-sum thinking this notion that if north korea collapses uh that somehow this will be a victory for the united states of china i think they need to get over this kind of zero-sum thinking and maybe think more in terms of the win-win of that i think it was very positive for china to have this uh to host uh parkland hay uh last uh just a year ago uh last june i think that was very positive ironically many chinese think that somehow this is putting a finger in our eye that somehow if china has a closer relationship with south korea this will bother us on the kind of pattern of cooperation we're looking for in the region and i think the the more the chinese and the republic of korea can work together uh the better that relationship will be and the better our relationships will be with those with those countries so i think china really needs to rethink that relationship in north korea they're clearly rethinking it but they clearly haven't formed a consensus to move ahead on that and i think that too is something that are are european and u.s effort finally i have victor cha spoke very eloquently about the issue of the the history in the region the fact that this history really bedevils the u.s and the uh i'm sorry bedevils these uh ro k and japan relationships i do hope that those can be improved i do hope the u.s has a role but i certainly believe that europe has a role and it is not to say that we should be lecturing the asians on the institutions and thinking that we've achieved in on the european side and the european and the atlantic relationship but i do believe that some of these uh some of these successes in europe are truly applicable to asia people always talk about well asia is complicated you have enormous countries and small countries europe actually has a little of that too if you look at the size of germany and the size of luxembourg so i think uh some of these things uh some of these problems can be addressed with some of the solutions that the europeans have found over uh what um what is uh now some 70 years of post war post war history i'm very optimistic about uh this transatlantic relationship i think uh this uh this idea that we need to pay more attention to asia we need to somehow rebalance our efforts toward asia i think is a real opportunity for enhanced dialogue in in the atlantic the european security role in asia what should be a kind of um broader economic uh uh approach in asia with the united states i think all of these things argues for a little better future than we've uh than this immediate past and so um as we contemplate the problems ahead certainly the problem of of what russia is intending to become will russia try to become an asian country will russia try to enhance it now that it's uh been pretty much ostracized and for good reason from the uh self ostracized i should say from these euro atlantic structures where will russia be so i think it is a very important time uh in this uh in this year to be talking about this pivot to asia and what it means for our broader security and broader economic interests so thank you very much we're all standing between ourselves and lunch so but i do want to give a chance for some questions but i'd like to just again bunch them so we can chris can just take them together yes right here please say who you are so chris i'm steve winter's local researcher you mentioned that china's tradition of tributary relations and then you also uh contrasted that with the west failing system but you often see the comment that we're really moving the whole steps like r2p right to protect and the bosnia situation don't fit in with this uh west failing system in the meantime china you know has suggested uh come out with various slogans or whatever new pattern of great power relations uh since the whole thing is in flux is there anybody who's listening to seriously to any of these chinese suggestions for uh the way the global order would develop because i don't see any sign of that yeah let me just take a couple to see chris so you can right here yes right here uh from china's perspective it was it is because of america's military president and other president in south asia china feels like okay you are here you are messing up with our with my neighborhood that's why we couldn't do better and from american perspective it's because china cannot do better that america is there so there's a difference you know perspective perceptions there and how do you think you know both sides have this kind of a little zero-sum game thoughts and um how thank you ambassador my name is chinning with good voice of vietnamese americans i thank you for mentioning uh southeast asian and asian into the big pictures and so i come back to the main focus that we talk about the global norms and global rules of law and the 21st century standard in many different aspects trade military and everything else so would you suggest that this pivot from the transatlantic pivot of norms in many different aspects yeah thank you okay on this first issue of the uh the sort of chinese notion that you know the great powers ought to get together and sort these things out uh i think as your question implies this has nothing to do with what we're talking about in terms of 21st century uh interestingly remember the g2 idea which was kind of an american olive branch to the chinese hey we're gonna you know really was perceived all that well and i think we have to kind of think about those things uh before we talk about those things thinking before talking is a very old fashion concept but i think it ought to be tried now and again um i think one of the problems one of the persistent problems is that china believes that many of these sort of global ideas uh these sort of um global values are desiderate its own um national desiderate globalize them in international structures um i don't think that's true uh but i think it does reflect the fact that we live in a networked uh world now and i think china should be able to understand that which is that when our ngo's suggest something or when our uh you know someone from our civil society wants to do that that something in its editorial page it is not reflecting the u.s government and i think that has proved to be at times an elusive concept for the chinese to understand even though they've got a some of it going on in their own country so i think we need to um uh be a little careful about those uh kinds of things the the second point was about the southeast asia um two of us there and uh i can remember uh as we were looking at uh uh european union membership in in central europe there was all this talk is this going to mean more uh you know that the u.s will be crowded out of central europe and somehow we'll lose our relationships with countries like poland i was ambassador at the time and so i kind of tracked those issues and uh europe didn't mean less of the united states and uh to me it can be worked out very well and i think the chinese for those chinese who see it in those kinds of zero sum terms that somehow we're more uh uh visible in southeast asia and therefore uh this is a threat to chinese interests that is kind of old to think and uh i think the chinese need to have some fresh to me to hear chinese say well if uh north korea were to collapse somehow this will we'd have us troops up on the yalu river and we'd have cia listening posts on the yalu river you know that is the last thing that will probably happen we will have far more difficult time convincing our congress to keep any us troops on the korean peninsula after north korea says goodbye to the rest of us so uh yet there are many people in china who believe that this is all about a us effort to somehow encircle china and i know we have americans who say things like that i mean but we also have americans who believe the moon is made of green cheese it doesn't really mean anything uh what really means something is what is our overall policy how do we regard china uh one of the nice things about living outside of the beltway and to live in a place like colorado is the amount of positive feeling people have toward toward china generally as a as a civilization as a as a place that everyone wants to go visit it is not seen as this sort of throbbing security issue that i think many people here and consider it so i think it's really something where china needs to calm down and maybe we need to calm down a little but i think china certainly needs to understand that we need good relations with vietnam we need good relations with the philippines we need good relations with all these countries and they need not come at the expense of their their relationships with china however should they choose for those china relations to be and then the third question then was sort of a global i wasn't about asian i mean i think asian is the kind of multilateral structure that we need to see more of in asia i feel that sometimes the asian way has been a little too self-limiting and i think asia asian countries could do more for example we talked about having a i remember the singaporeans had a tabletop exercise on some sort of maritime security maritime security turned into a cosmic theological discussion of who is sovereign between these 10 000 uh indonesian islands very complicated stuff and it never this tabletop exercise never took place i tried to have a an exercise because i saw this in the partnership for peace in europe where one time i was in poland up in the baltik sea and i was looking at us marines in a in a russian landing craft arriving in poland setting up some hospitals for some natural calamity so i thought why can't we do that in asia because after all their natural calamities happening every other week in asia but the amount of bureaucratic impediment to that within asian in short asian was so self-limiting and uh so unnecessarily limiting by the way we eventually did the exercise but it was more a search and rescue exercise where we took one helicopter in manila bay and dropped some hapless uh uh filipino marine into the water and then some other helicopter went and picked them up i mean okay it was a start but uh we could do we could do a lot more and i think asian is absolutely the place to start and there are plenty of others asian plus three there's the east asia summit you wouldn't have believed the problems we had convincing people in this city about the need for membership in the east asian summit i mean i had to deal with issues like well if we join the east asian summit we'll never be able to criticize the bermes junta again i said yes we will you want me to prove that i can get up and denounce them the day that the uh east that we exceed to the east asia summit we have our own little problems with uh with these multilateral structures but asian really needs to step it up and uh not unlike uh in the life of an individual uh they they really need to understand that uh you know they can do better i take you