 Empty chairs and broken tables. All right, welcome everyone. This is our 14th annual symposium and we are Serge Tufts Sina US International Relations Group. And we focus on covering the relationship between China and US and it covers all facets, ranging from security, environmental policy, economics and culture. And yeah, so we've spent the past eight months preparing for this symposium. And even though we regret not being able to host you on Tufts beautiful Medford campus, we're sort of having a hybrid model where our speakers will be virtual while our attendees could come in either in person or attend virtually. So again, thank you for everyone who has made this symposium possible, including the students, professors and members of the Tufts administration. And without further ado, here is our keynote speaker, Brian Wong. Thank you very much, Anthony. Just double checking two things. Firstly, is the audio all right? Yep, it's good on my end. Great. And secondly, is there any introduction or can I just delve straight into it? Unless Hytong wants to weigh in here. Hytong, do you have any intro or whatever you'd like to give? If not, I think you can just, yep. You're unfortunately muted Hytong, which means that I can't hear your lovely voice. I am, I am, I am unfortunately muted. I am terribly sorry. So first of all, a very important point of clarification, Brian Wong and Anthony Wong are not related. And I'm going to pull it out right here. So, jeez, I'm terribly sorry. My phone is very much... And Hytong, while you do that, we can give, like I can give a quick overview of like who I am and then who Hytong is. Please go ahead. So yeah, so I'm Anthony Wong, not related to Brian Wong. I'm the president of SURGE and I'm an applied math major, junior at Tufts University. And overall, it's really interested in learning more about sort of the macroeconomic implications of the China and US relationship. And Hytong. And Brian is a lovely friend of mine. We were, when I was studying abroad at Oxford last year, I had heard of Brian's name and Brian is the founding editor in chief of the Oxford Political Review, a publication that aspires to bridge the theory and practice gap. And also a founding partner to the Oxford Political Advisory Group as a columnist for the Hong Kong Economic Journal and Time and the editor at large for Thrive Global. They write regularly for publications such as foreign policy, Aeon Financial Times, the Diplomat Fortune, SEMP, Mikhail Asia, Sub-China, US-China Perception Monitor, Nathan, the Hindu, and having also presented and written on issues for public philosophy for the Journal of Practical Ethics, the American Philosophical Association and the Royal Institute of Philosophy. Brian's comments have been featured on The Atlantic and Politico's China Watch. They have also served as the Asia lead for Polamax. And without further ado, Brian, please. Thank you very much Hytong and thank you Anthony and Tufts at large for having me. It's a real pleasure. I'd like to just essentially, I've been invited to address the current state of sign American relations and obviously these are rather peculiar times we live in. So I'd like to start with the understanding and the figuring that what diplomacy is and what diplomacy isn't. Because fundamentally, when we look at the bilateral relationship, we often delve into a lot of nitty gritty. We talk about geopolitical realities, we talk about leadership structures, a turnover of cabinets and changes and leaderships and also transformations to partisan politics, factionist politics and what have you. But undergirding not just, what we're talking about today, but also the association and the incredible work that you're doing, all of us are doing, is the central concept called diplomacy. And at risk of sounding a tad grandiose, I'd like to think diplomacy is not just an art or craft or an occupation. Wonderful things that we see diplomats opting into, representing and standing for the countries at multilateral associations, organizations, engaging in very heated dialogue and conversations, some more heated than others. But diplomacy is also an ethos. It's an attitude that we espouse when we speak with folks that we would categorize, superficially as belonging to the other country or belonging to another country per se. It is a practice that we associate with essentially deepening our understanding at times when international relations is very much fraught. But ultimately it is tolerance and compassion that makes for the art of diplomacy and makes it tenable and sustainable. And an age where peace, the decade long peace that we've had over the past few decades really, especially since the aftermath of the Cold War may well be coming to an end. Diplomacy is important. It is important not just as an antidote to fragmentation, to war, to hatred and grievance politics, but also as a means of supporting a modus of envy between competing, clashing and conflicting cultures and ideals. So that's essentially the overarching hook and thesis I want to employ as I delve into my topic concerning tractive diplomacy and a role citizens, activists, political thinkers and intellectuals and academics can think and play when it comes to mediating between America and China in a bilateral relationship. There are five components to my broad speech today. The first concerns some structural realities on the ground as we see unfolding before our eyes. The second concerns the existing manifestations, the core principles and tenets as well as the shortcomings of state-to-state diplomacy, i.e. the backdrop against which much of the critique I'm going to be delving into would indeed take place against. The third part then revolves around tract two diplomacy. So this is what I would just oppose in contrast to tract one diplomacy and hopefully highlight the prospects for our understanding of more in-depth citizen-to-citizen or citizen-to-government modes of diplomacy that often overlooked in existing discussions concerning international statecraft with some concrete examples, of course, as how China and America really can build better relations via tract two diplomacy. The fourth part of this lecture seeks to put theory into practice then, where instead of just discussing this in an abstract level and on very abstract terms, we get to grips with the nitty-gritty of tract two diplomacy. How can we as students, as scholars, as writers participate in and conduct tract two diplomacy ourselves? And then finally, I want to close on a more personal note with some forewarning, caveats and reflections at large on how this journey, I guess, has affected me and shaped me as a person, but also why I think this is a journey that ultimately many of us can undertake in our own forms and tread. And what exactly is this journey may ask? Well, that goes back to the crux of today's discussion, e.g. mediating as individuals, as agents, agents not of influence, but agents of change between two governments that seemingly are helming, both the world's largest two national economies, as well as increasingly two counterparts in this quasi-polarized relationship that don't necessarily see eye to eye on many issues, if not most issues. So with a roadmap laid out, let us start with this question of what exactly are the structural realities on the ground here? And I'd like to encapsulate this using broad lay four main points of contention. The first is the economic and financial interdependence that we see underpinning Washington and Beijing's interactions. The second revolves around the mutual mistrust and grievances over geopolitical and domestic political affairs, controversially labeled or contested the extent to which these affairs are indeed domestic, if at all. The third is the rise of external proxy conflicts and tensions, and there we're going to touch upon inevitably some of the crowd's favorites, including the ongoing atrocities carried out by Russia and its invasion of Ukraine. And then fourthly, and finally, an observation concerning political incentives and also why exactly we might find this indeed an epochal moment to paraphrase the parlance and lingua of the CPC, per se. So these are the four main tenets I want to just highlight in my presentation. Firstly, then, on economic and financial interdependence. For all the talk of a new Cold War of tensions, mistrust, and antagonism brewing between Washington and Beijing, for all of that talk, right, very vociferous and sells well and makes for nice headlines, the reality is that there exists fundamental disinelogizability, okay? And then congruence between the Sino-American relations that we see today and the USSR-USA relationship that characterizes or constitutes at the bulk of the latter half of the 20th century. And the difference here predominantly revolves around how interconnected really both sides are. And such interconnectivity doesn't just occur in a form of trade, export imports, you name it, right? Where both countries, despite the best attempts of Donald Trump and his, I don't like, China approach to global diplomacy. Despite his best attempts, the bilateral trade between China and US is still going strong. Sure, it is not the case that China and US are now each other's largest trading partners. That role has since been supplanted by neighboring countries and also more prolific economies in the case of the US and the EU when it comes to China. But still, both countries value each other as a source of trade, not just on a first order level in terms of employment, jobs and all the revenue and taxes that you accrue through tariffs, but also the second order level in terms of balancing the trade books and balancing the currency accounts, right? Looking here, of course, at a recent and excellent work to publish such as trade wars and class wars and also James Fox book in offering concerning Sino-US financial Cold War. And you said to which that's indeed the case. I think both books make incredibly salient observations as to why China needs the US and trade with the US as to comprise a bulk of its exports, which in turn belies or undergirds an investment and also export driven growth strategy in lieu of consumption that despite the best attempts that the Chinese government has switched and pivot towards purely domestic consumption and inward facing, inward circulation centered investment just ain't gonna cut it as of now. And similarly, I think the US also benefits from greater connections with China, not just in terms of the market of consumers that exists in China, but also with respect to the capital liquidity, the prospect of indeed, right? Setting up shop within China, drawing together and consolidating mixed joint ventures and the loosening of restrictions and regulations concerning joint ventures over recent years attest to the fact that Beijing is open to a certain limited extent to more economic collaboration and synergy with the US. These are all trends that we're seeing despite the vitriolic restrict that constitutes the media and popular narratives about Beijing and Washington. And yes, there have been concerns raised with respect to financial security, to the transparency and accountability, especially of Chinese ADR stocks, right? Offshore stocks that we see, and hence the recent delistings and threats of further investigations by the US regulatory authorities. But at the end of the day, the interconnectivity between both parties, both sides is unlikely to go away under either Republican or Democratic establishment in the US, nor is it going to transpire at the very least under the current leadership trajectory in China. So I think the base rock and the cornerstone really of this relationship cannot be, you know, fundamentally neglected, right? And overstated with respect to the outsized importance. But of course, how much of this can spill over into non-economic and non-financial spheres? That's one question. How tenable and sustainable will such arrangements be, especially in light of the arising of alternative export markets for China, or what China may see as alternative export markets to America? Yes, these are all contingent variables that render the story more complicated, more complex and straightforward narrative I was portraying just then. But at the end of the day, we must start from the recognition that the ties and reliance between two parties is going strong. It is not as strong as it was perhaps eight to 10 years ago, but it remains fundamentally integral to the economies of both sides of the Pacific, that this is indeed what we see right now as a broadly tenable arrangement. Okay, with that said, it's not all rose and picking. That's for sure. And that ties me on to the second observation. Side American relations are also increasingly characterized by mistrust and grievances, I would say bare three core characteristics. The first is the ideological and totalistic undertones or overtones now that permeate throughout the accusations, the allegations, the attacks and arguments lodged by Beijing and Washington and the political solutions on both sides of the heads. We see that not just in the form of this traditional to the tax centered around China's domestic governance model, human rights record, and a way China has dealt with a public health crisis. So these are all criticism coming from Washington and more broadly speaking, the American side of things. And I'm not going to cast any moral dispersions or normative judgments as of yet. I just want to state this as a fact. And yet similarly, this is reciprocated through very trenchant assertion of structural confidence or institutional confidence, right? 制度自信 in Chinese as well as the belief that the global dynamics at large is moving in a direction that favors the rise of the East and declining the West. In Chinese, it's called 多生其家. The claims therefore that we see emanating from both parties are not just ones that seek to for perhaps again, in a way that's remission of the dynamics that we saw during the Cold War now between Soviet Union and the USA, this sort of totalistic negation and rebuking of the other side's governance model. It's also infused with this historicist confidence that maybe, just maybe, the model of governance epitomized by one end of the spectrum is going to prevail. In Chinese, especially the diplomats and the foreign facing bureaucrats as we see these days emphasize the fact that the Western model in their eyes doesn't quite work. And similarly, Washington, even on a more bipartisan level, we're seeing this framing of the Sino-American Contest as one sin to the round autocracy versus democracy. So I think the first observation I'll make under this point is that these grievances, these accusations are increasingly couched in all or nothing binary terms. And the reasoning for that in turn stems from the political philosophical roots and origins of the criticisms and of the vitriol that's directed. And is it harness, is it manufactured? Sure, but much of this is also, I'd say, organically felt both in America and in China. It's organically felt insofar as more and more generations of politically alert and involved American citizens are questioning the extent to which engagement and contact-centred approaches to China had worked. The rising sense or the incipient sense here is that maybe engagement hasn't worked out and isn't changing China for the bitter in accordance with the eyes from Washington. And similarly, coming from China, we see genuinely rooted deeply embedded nationalistic sentiments that say we're fed up with the lecturing and the pedantry we're hearing from the West. It's time to do away with the West once and for all. These are discourses that aren't particularly useful when it comes to bridging the gap with the differences. And yet, of course, we see them. And they are also bolstered and reinforced in turn by social media, by state media and conventional media. The second observation, by the way, on this is interpersonal mistrust, right? So whilst interpersonal ties and relations under, I guess, the Carter administration and the Bush administration, which corresponded roughly on to sort of the early to mid, sort of mid to later periods of the reform and opening up era in China, interpersonal relations between diplomats, bureaucrats, academics, businesses had blossomed during those administrations during that era, which then paved the way for genuine, okay? Academic, common institutional exchanges and visits and deepening of partnerships in the late 90s and the early 2000s subsequently era that talks about just then. But we're seeing a rollback to that. We're seeing this heightening skepticism towards foreign individuals and persons. Whether it be an America to China initiative, thankfully recently wrapped up, yet nevertheless, from my humble point of view, controversially enshrouded by to some extent a degree of cynicism and repudiation of Chinese individuals, ethnic Chinese individuals that I find quite alarming. And similarly in China, right? The lockdown or the repulsion and the expulsion of foreign journalists of academic steam to be involved in allegedly seditious activities. These are signs that interpersonal trust between citizens, journalists, intellectuals, business persons, those were most likely a troubled green, China and America. This trust is rapidly dwindling and arguably it's dwindling at a rate that's outpacing, okay, the broader geopolitical decoupling and the ideological disalignment that we're seeing and I'm about to get onto in just a second. This is alarming in turn for two reasons. Firstly, the absence of communication and genuine bilateral exchanges means that it's harder and harder for both political statements to get a good grip on what exactly the other side is thinking. And yet secondly, on a more humane level and a more microcosmic level, it also makes lives like us, people who are quite literally trying to straddle the divide to make, you know, to facilitate better empathy and mutual understanding and make lives for us very difficult because we're not trusted, we're seen as outcast by both sides, right? And yet to quote one of my favorite China watches and a very good friend of mine, right? If both sides think that we are fundamentally alien and hostile chances are we are doing something right in order to bridge that goal and also to make the impossible possible. Anyhow, I digress. The third point of structural reality then concerns proxy conflicts and tensions. And what's indisputable here is that whether it be the Korean Peninsula, the Sino-Indian conflicts of the Golwen Valley, the concerns to do with China's Belt and Road Initiative or Biden's Build Back Bitter Attempts to Re-Consolidate or Re-establish American Presence Abroad or indeed the Elephant in the Room, the Ukraine War, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, these are all conflicts that may not directly involve, sure China and America clashing with one another and yet have certainly deepened, have certainly bolstered and amplified, right? The negativity, the repudiation and appropriate that had previously been swept under the carpet and brushed away as China and America sought to deepen trade ties, economic relations, Kumbaya and all of that. But now the skeleton in the closet comes running out. Some might say this has happened because of the shifts in the political establishment's attitudes, the elites changing and souring in the diagnosis and judgements of China, which in turn stems from, again, ideological pivot and turn under the second point I discussed just then. Whereas others would say, you know, well, what's missing still here is an acknowledgement of genuinely how perceptions and attitudes of ordinary citizens do matter. And I'm more inclined to believe in a mixed picture that there's both an elite-driven element and also mass-driven component to these actual shifts and conflicts over these proxy battle themes. So take Ukraine as an example. From the Chinese point of view and perspective, they believe that they've made the position very clear. It stands for neutrality. They stand for not intervening in the Ukraine crisis neither backing Ukraine nor Russia and using the crisis as a means of basically criticizing what they see as the inflammatory and instigatory gestures of NATO. Whereas in Washington's point of view, right, much of the restrict of Beijing seem to be deflectionary as opposed to genuinely engaging with, you know, the fullest extent to which China could play a role and arguably has played a role in terms of respectively mediating, resolving or addressing the crisis. So from Washington's point of view and also the rhetoric that's spurred and provided by many a prominent media outlet in the West, China is framed as an accomplice, as an abetter. Whereas from the point of view and perspective of Beijing, much of this stems in turn from the reluctance to distance themselves away, to pull themselves apart away from a partner that only a few months back, the leader of China, the president of China had dubbed to be an incredibly integral partner in this new multipolar order. So there is this tension and there's also this reluctance on the part of China to take sides where under pressure from both EU and America like, and these are separate entities, by the way, to a very large extent, have insisted that China ought to take a side and take a stand. Again, the irreconcilability of this is not necessarily necessary. It's not something that can't be resolved or overcome. I remain convinced that if there were more pragmatic diplomacy at work here, if there was more massaging and also, I guess, paving over the cracks in a fundamental reorientation, which may take some time, but nevertheless is very important, in a mindset some mentalities of both sides, there could well be a cognizance of the limits of what China genuinely can't do and can do. And similarly, what America should do and what America could do and what America will inevitably do out of geopolitical constraints and considerations. But that level of understanding caused for empathy, caused for meta-empathy that's just lacking in the status quo discourse. Whether it be because of how polarizing discussions about China and the West's policy towards China has become, how polarizing that is now or indeed with respect to the emotively, sentimental and very strong and vigorous spirits concerning the Ukraine crisis. One thing is clear. It is very hard for Chinese and American diplomats alike to genuinely rebuild that sense of trust and rebuild that sense that commonality and common ground can be forged in the eyes of the public and the audiences in respect to the America and China. So I hope I've highlighted so far just the realities that most accurately ideally reflect what's going on today as we speak in April 2022. And a final point I'll note is political incentives. As we all know, this is a very important year of paramount significance for the Chinese authorities. We've got a national Congress coming up. We've got essentially a potential, well, not potential but it's almost certain that President Xi would see a third term in office. And yet in America, the midterms are coming up next year and then down the line we see the upcoming presidential election. So time is running out with respect to the stability or the fragile stability that characterizes the status quo. And increasingly, there will be political incentives on both sides to make a very strong and firm statement on Sino-American relations. So question is what would this statement look like and what is it likely to be? And to be frank with everyone, I'm not particularly optimistic at this juncture from the perspective of the Chinese government with respect to consolidating domestic control as well as answering to the pleas and heightening nationalistic sentiments of the younger generations. A recent survey conducted, I believe, by the RIWI and jointly with the Carter Center reveal the confidence and also the assertiveness with which many amongst the younger generations in China view China's image abroad and also its global standing. All of that suggests that there's little wiggle room at least officially for the government in Beijing, for Dongnanhai and beyond to say, we're gonna take us off to stand on America because this doesn't conform with the overarching story that America is weak and America is vulnerable and America is a system that's falling apart and that China is uniquely the superior model of governance. These incentives to appear strong but also to appear defiantly trenchant of reciprocity and mirrored by what's going on as we see in Washington where there's an increasing bipartisan consensus no less accelerated by the difficulty of doing on the ground research in China and the reliance of China watches upon a select few sources for information as to what's happening in China right now. These are sort of compounding variables and factors but ultimately what we're seeing here is a bipartisan consensus that's forming. That says, you know, whilst previously China had been viewed as a cooperative partner as some entity with which they could be joint global governance G2 and what have you, increasingly the view is one that China is a threat is something that needed to be contained and addressed and the Republican Democrats diverge here not in terms of the verdicts and conception of a China but in my humble opinion, it diverged merely on issues of means. So whilst Democrats are very keen on employing multilateral international institutions and working with allies, reviving NATO, the Quad, a new entity, the partnership between EU and America in containing China, Republicans on the other hand are more content with employing a going at it alone sort of isolationist or neo-Gaulian approach to essentially how America ought to lead or take up the banner of democracy once again. So there's no disagreement over how China is viewed or should be viewed at the very least amongst those in active political office, right? In their 30s, their 40s and 50s and beyond but secondly, the divergence is predominantly over what needs to be done. And I suspect therefore, that when it comes to the electoral debates and also the discussions in a run-up to the presidential race, a vast majority of the chat and talk wouldn't be so much around or centered around how bad China is and all that. It would instead be a carefully and delicately trotted out debate, that's artificially constructed and reinforced over how China ought to be engaged with. But the presumptuous underpinning that is that China is indeed somewhat at the very least of structural ideological level incompatible with America. Whilst I previously thought that this consensus could go away and is not necessarily likely to last, I must confess, I'm increasingly less optimistic and it falls upon me to lay bare the facts as I see it and put it to you. That does not mean, though, that we give up. Nor does it suggest that all the precursory preliminaries I outlined just then concerning diplomacy and the vitality of diplomacy and how it instrumentally brings us together amidst these predicaments. It doesn't mean that any of those things I said is either untrue or unimportant. If anything, it makes it all the more important that we practice and engage in genuine diplomacy. And before I delve into this sort of jocks of position and comparison between tracks two and track one diplomacy, I'd just like to make one broad comment here. We can accept that China and America govern internally and domestically and do things differently on the ground. We can accept that. We can also grant that there's certain spheres in which the neviness is eye, e.g. over Korean Peninsula, over arguably Afghanistan, to lesser extent Myanmar and to a very large extent, although certainly not from point of view of Beijing who believes that it's, in fact, more proximate to the EU position than the EU sees it to be, but that developed from the eyes of Washington or Ukraine. So given these perceived or actual issues of divergence, what exactly should diplomacy be centered around? Is it to continually prop up differences, to cast aspersions on the other side, to castigate them, to ostracize using inflammatory nationalistic rhetoric that we're hearing from certain actors and speakers? I personally don't think that's the advisable move. If not for the fact that this is not what diplomacy at its core is about, then for the fact that this is not gonna serve the interests of either party. This is not going to advance the economic and occupational interests of middle-class and working-class citizens, including those that Donald Trump promised would benefit from his trade war on China or indeed the consumers that burgeoning middle-class in China that very much would get in from the country's autotune, opening up, reforming further and deepening its ties with the world at large, nor indeed to these changes benefits the bureaucrats, the those who govern, those who seek stability in China and those who seek democratic accountability in America. These changes or the reduction and depletion of diplomacy exclusively, in my opinion, only advantage to groups of people. Firstly, those who have a stake in a skin in the game in relation to escalating tensions, military tensions, geopolitical rivalry and also fraught economic relations with respect to potential partners that can now come into the fray to substitute for respectively America and China in each other's economic calculus. And the second group of folks are those who ultimately want to see, okay? And would indeed seek a weakening of the political economic establishments of middle-class, of wealthy folks that have historically benefited of this bilateral relationship and yet for which comeuppance, I guess, and also the replications of the inequality that has been precipitated is now in a pipeline. So these are the two groups of folks without signing reductionists, I think, would almost certainly have to gain. And then finally, of course, there's the half group, I suppose, of those who are, whose causes and interests are inevitably intertwined with isolationism. So when it comes to China, these look like folks who are cultural entrepreneurs or what I call nationalism entrepreneurs that manufacture outrage and anger and antagonism for the sake of driving up clicks and views of the videos on social media or the content they produce. And when it comes to America, those who would quite literally benefit from narrow protectionist measures that have been introduced as America seeks to cut itself off from not just China, because you could have yourself from China but not from other countries you're going to see of returning the jobs into the hands of American workers, but quite literally from the rest of the world and other supply chains as well. So these are the folks, I think, have every stake to see a continued worsening of bilateral relations, whereas for many others living in a society as consumers, as workers, as investors, as students, as entrepreneurs, ideally this relationship ought to be produced. Sure, so that's the aspiration on the side of things covered. How can we do it though? How can we put this into practice, you know? The reality is the track one diplomacy side of things doesn't look so good. So my track one diplomacy I'll just lay out a few definitions got. It's diplomacy that's ultimately state-to-state oriented around government, around official representatives at the UN in multilateral institutions, World Bank, either what have you, characterized and constituted by conversations, summits, exchanges between state leaders, political figures, bureaucrats that are on the show. It is also interestingly probably the increasingly, the mode of diplomacy that is more public and internal public oriented than it used to be in the past, where historically diplomacy, say centuries ago or at least up until half a century ago, had occurred primarily through closed room talks, ping pong diplomacy, the secret conversation, the line between Moscow and Washington during the Cold War. These are all secretive talks. They are then to be followed by the communiques, communiques, sorry, the agreements, the public disclosures and declarations, sure, but the seed and the bulk of diplomacy would previously happen behind closed doors. Now you might say surely that's still the case with Alaska, with Ankara, with the meeting between Xi and Biden and a telephone readout. Surely the readout is cursory and supplementary. It is the talking that matters. Yes and no, it is still true that there remains some degree of confidentiality and privacy to these conversations, but increasingly track one diplomacy is publicly oriented in that it is conducted and carried out with the respect of domestic publics in mind. And it is my submission that when both sides of the Pacific are talking these days, at least as government to government exchanges, not only must they cater to the concerns and the interests of the other side of the talking table, but also those who would be viewing the readout, viewing the summaries of events, viewing the reporting and commentary and analysis and ultimately select footages of the dialogue back at home. And that is also why track one diplomacy is increasingly performative. There's the expectation that diplomats, formal representatives as the official designates of their respective countries must perform, must perform a sign of strength, of determination, of resoluteness and ultimately panda to the crowd per se. This is not to say that the diplomats engaging in closed room conversations and this free dialogue aren't doing important work, they still are. And many of these conversations are still happening. But at the top end, when it comes to the Sino-American relations with the railies, I'd submit that there's a heightening sense of performativity and theatrics and addressing one's own populace in lieu of seeking common ground and fermenting a viable and tenable set of agreements, partial agreements, concessions, what have you on areas and domains of mutual interest. And this ties me on to the final comment on the present stage of track one diplomacy, that particular demographics and audiences are served, but these demographics and audiences may not necessarily reflect the economic majorities or indeed the demographic majorities at large. When we look at the nature of Chinese diplomacy over the past few years, some have dubbed this nascent newfound sense of zeal and confidence wolf warrior diplomacy. Others have labeled it essentially China's pandemic policy and there loads of very interesting pieces and books and articles on this. I think Peter Martin, for instance, wrote a book that I'd recommend and there's also the Chatham House coverage and reporting on the shifts in China's diplomacy. And finally, for a Chinese source, the excellent work by the Center for China in Globalization also explains, in part, what's been going on in terms of rationale of Chinese diplomacy. And so as Wangji's recent dialogue at the CSIS and the only American side of things, right? Where I feel, you know, existing discussions often don't necessarily delve into a more critical examination of, we also see a symmetric escalation, okay? In retrospect, perhaps not to the same degree, not to the same extent of anger and raid and also performed rage, but it's there. Whereas previously China had been framed as a potential collaborator on issues like climate change, public health crises, a potential pillar of co-governance under Obama's imagination of that relationship. Much of that talk has now been as tuned and ditched in favor of discussions of China's models of governance, models of diplomacy and also its track records on particular points of ignominy, okay? Or ignominy in the eyes of those and a way to engage in the conversations here where it's always the labor rights and human rights and also how China has dealt with the pandemic that's brought up predominantly at the forefront of conversations. This is all to say, by the way, that these issues are unimportant. I'm just noting that as a tactic, they've been amplified, they've been blown up and that areas of potential convergence like climate change, like to some extent, education and academic exchanges have been sidelined. Not trying to cast blame or to frame either of the parties involved here as responsible, but this is empirically, right? A noticeable trend where increasingly diplomacy at least between governments, it's just not amicable. Between Beijing and Washington, it's gotten to a point where you would expect, okay, as a basis, this confrontation, this verbal sparring between not just the diplomats themselves but the commentators, the official rundowns and characterizations and readouts, et cetera, and the subsequent press briefs, right? You would expect antagonism to be in all, to be the default. This doesn't necessarily have to be the case. And I can point out that here are a few possible scenarios where we could see an amelioration and a softening of the rhetoric. The first is if America views China as a sturdy and reliable partner in combating crises of even more existential proportions than arguably a threat that feels that it's governing its logic. So EG would respect to climate change to the pandemic or indeed to what America does, a rising Russian threat. That's one possibility that would indeed motivate a softening at least in language, if not in substance of how America deals with China. Or alternatively, that could be this brokering of begrudging respect and acceptance of areas of necessary disagreements, okay? And they parked aside through compartmentalization by both Beijing and Washington where they choose to only focus on areas where concrete improvements and action points can be delivered. EG, financial regulation and harmonization of these regulations. And we are seeing that, right? We saw that with the recent new turn and also announcement from Beijing that it's willing to accept any and all scrutiny, right? Over the overseas stocks that are being listed in Wall Street, as well as the willingness to compromise and to bargain on more generally speaking, labor rights and trade rights regulations. And we've seen that to a lesser extent with Sino-European relations as well. These are all possible scenarios, okay? And I'm not saying that I'm not reading them out entirely and they could both contribute towards an improvement in G2G relations, government to government exchanges between Beijing and Washington. And yet they remain unlikely in my view in a short to medium term for two other reasons. The first being that ultimately domestic politics in both America and China render this sort of conferral and consensus driven and I guess more pragmatic push towards active collaboration, hard to sell and hard to pitch to domestic audiences and also the political supporters and selectors of those in power. Secondly, it's unlikely because of the ongoing crisis in Ukraine where we're only going to see as I would suggest increasing escalation in force deployed by Russia and even greater resolve on a part of the EU, NATO and America and of course the most important actor at all, the Ukraine to not capitulate and to not give in. So until these two roadblocks these two elephants in the room are dealt with track one diplomacy, G2G diplomacy interesting in principle, necessary in practice but ultimately it's not going to yield the kind of constructive pro-dialog pro-consensus formation ideal that we're looking for here. So what gives? What do we do if that's in the case? Do we just sit tight and look pretty? Do we just say, oh, that's diplomacy out of the window. Let's go to war. Let's fight, let's just see. Let's flip it in gung-ho, dismiss all the progress we've made over the past years when it comes to greater interconnectivity and ignore all that and say, we're going to go for decoupling. I mean, it's easy to see it up it's tempting to believe and to slave to that. But from my point of view, I'd like to think we deserve better for all the reasons outlined above but I'm also going to outline a few more before taking a brief pause as we reach the halfway mark. The first reason is when it comes to handling global crisis, climate change, pandemics, dangers of big tech as evidenced by, of course, best epitomized perhaps by the recent takeover or attempts to take over Twitter. And fourthly, mechanization of labor and the challenges in form of social economic inequalities and unrest, these are all the crises where China and America would benefit from more tech knowledge and ultimately political cooperation in multinational organizations and institutions. I'm not saying that both governments must engage in heart to heart dialogue and treat each other as allies. That's nonsense. Nor am I advancing that China and the US can't compete or shouldn't compete. Of course they must, right? They must compete in areas where consensus cannot be formed because the interests involved here are necessarily an innate zero sum. What I'm merely suggesting as a humble hypothesis is not all of these areas are necessarily zero sum or negative sum. They can't be positive sum where one plus one is larger than two. The second reason though is on the most humanistic level. Students, journalists, citizens, individuals that are straddling have historically straddled and benefited all the exchanges. The extensive tourism, collaboration, exploration of joint ventures, human-to-human interactions, knowledge transfers, willing knowledge transfers, okay, organic ones, not illegal ones. These are all the folks who have found themselves increasingly sidelined and would only be further sidelined if indeed both economies were heading towards decoupling. Why? Because individuals are the most fragile, individuals are the most vulnerable and they're the easiest to pick upon stakeholder group when it comes to great power politics. And that's also a tragedy of great power politics is most likely to merge. So these reasons coupled with everything I've said just then suggest to me that we need to fix the problem. Existing solutions of government to government diplomacy really can't survive. And the entire situation is looking rather dire and discrimination is only likely to continue if not worse, okay? So what gives? What gives? That's a very good question. I can only be answered in full if we are to think of track two diplomacy slash track 1.5 diplomacy slash what I would like to term as a neologism citizen driven diplomacy. What's isn't driven diplomacy here really? It's a good question, right? Because usually we'd expect diplomacy to be just anchored around polished, privileged, powerful appointees of the state that stand to speak in favor of the government that are here to official lines to take. Surely those are the diplomats. I'm not a diplomat, you're not. Okay, maybe some of you have become diplomats but it's unlikely that I would ever become a diplomat at least as of now in relation to my country in relation to China for all sorts of restrictions and contingencies that bar the participation of Hong Kongers in the officials of diplomatic foreign affairs ministry of China. I'm not complaining about this I'm just saying this is an empirical fact but it's not likely that in my lifetime I would become an official diplomat, okay? But the reality here is we don't have to be pushed. We don't have to be officially in charge and given a profile and a brief and a suitcase and all that in order to act as diplomats. And I'd like to suggest that a citizen-centered diplomacy would have broadly four main characteristics, okay? The first is it is far more modally flexible than the formal diplomacy that we see occurring in the hallways of power. Citizen diplomacy can occur by in-person meeting, summits, gatherings, workshops, seminars, lectures or online conversations and dialogue like the ones we're hosting right now. Salon, study group, reading session. Indeed, citizen diplomacy doesn't even have to be interactive. It could also just be a series of back and forth op-eds and exchanges, a Twitter thread here, a Facebook commentary war on the other but of course, you know, on a more formal basis liaison and conversations and exchanges between non-profit organizations and groups and collectors. It's modally flexible and I need not take place modally via the most rigorous and carefully defined and stipulated of means. Secondly though, citizen diplomacy often treats diplomacy for the sake of diplomacy as a side-objector in a sense that they're arguably more important primary goals and orientations that's around which, right? The activities we're talking about here are centered. So for instance, if we're looking at climate change NGO initiated and undertaken diplomacy but it's really, you know the employment of diplomacy as a tool and as an instrument of achieving concrete gains in mutual agreements over how we ought to tackle climate change. Or if we're talking about cultural diplomacy then through hosting and convening of forums and associative gatherings where we try to talk about and talk through you know, the cultural differences and seek to understand each other's cultures more beyond the stereotypes and the essentialist tropes we say in popular media portrayals these conversations have cultural understanding and deepening ties between people as the primary pre-operative and diplomacy is a side-benefit. It is an incidental upside. We don't engage in diplomacy here because we're diplomats and because it's a job. Indeed, it comes as a side-benefit a positive externality of the citizen-to-citizen organization-to-organization society society exchanges and collaboration at large. Thirdly, citizen-centered diplomacy respects a citizen. It puts at the forefront the voices of the public the voices of the people the voices of those whose interests are most pertinently and directly affected by great power contests and yet really, you know really do we see people in democracies and non-democracies authoritarian states or non-authoritarian states having a direct say in what the diplomats say. Sure, there might be that feedback-making as my flake do you see in concerning the popular pressures okay, acting as an indirect chicken villains but ultimately we don't see civilians and ordinary citizens participating in G-to-G diplomacy. They might be trotted out as witnesses or testimonial givers but in not ultimately those who proactively undertake such forms of diplomacy. And fourthly and finally and this is also a response to the unique circumstances of the Sino-American relations and how freight they are right now. In order for there to be constructive dialogue and genuine understanding there must be an emphasis upon good faith and trust and a presumption of trust and good faith on the other side. What does that transpire as, right? How does that transpire? Well, that transpires as, you know if you're engaging with citizens representatives of China, academics from China you don't view them automatically as assets of the state because that's a very trivializing and dehumanizing narrative. The argument that any and all academics that may not agree with the consensus in America right now must therefore be part of this co-optionite front. That's a reductionist thinking you might think is absurd but I'm hearing increasingly prolifically and proliferating in a most vociferous and vociferous manner, I'm hearing these threats. I'm hearing these claims, it's outrageous. And similarly, we're engaging with in China folks coming from America, it shouldn't be the case that we always receive that they're funded to stay at conflict, right? I look at the extremist narratives that claim or portray all foreigners and then coming visitors as brainwashed spies coming from America. And I look at this sort of level of anger and resentment embodied in these characterizations and I would say this is just not true. I know many an American China watcher when American academic, professional, eye banker or whatever, media professional, look, I might have disagreements with it. I might disagree over lockdowns, public health policies, what's going on in respect of cities domestically in China. I might fundamentally not see eye to eye with it but I wouldn't see them as automatically and by default a spy. What I hope to see here is that when it comes to citizen diplomacy, more of this entente, more of this appreciation that maybe the other side is indeed engaging in good faith. And even if you don't think they are, you're not convinced based on your presumptions and priorities, you give them that chance. You offer them that benefit of the doubt because that sort of initial trust is essential in order for real conversations that met up to then take place. If you always walk into the room with a presumption that the other side hears to trick you, to trick you, then how could you ever possibly manage to see the other side as a human being, as an ordinary citizen, as a fellow with their own interests but not necessarily a state-centered agenda? Now, a cynic would say, ah, okay, maybe Brian, your approach applies very nicely on American citizens, right? But what about China, where everything in order is an extension of the state? Well, this is again a misconception that I just like to push back against. Yes, the Chinese state exerts compared with the American government. There's certainly more influence over the civil society in China. But I've written about this elsewhere in many a time. I don't think China is a modernist entity. The Chinese civil society has many different voices, demographic groups, interest groups, the educators, the intelligentsia, the middle class in China do not always think alike and nor are they brainwashed to characterize them, operating under an environment of certainly restricted or regulated information as thereby brainwashed and agency-less actors is misinformed at best and dangerous at worst because that means that we always presume from the outside that there's no point in trying to engage and talk to people on the inside of China whatsoever. That strikes me as a deeply, deeply fallacious thought, right? You're looking at 1.4 billion people here. Do they all think the same? Can they all think the same? I'd like to think not. And if the whole point of engaging with China is to try and figure out a sustainable model of compatible coexistence with China and the Chinese government as it is, then presumably a necessary first step in doing so is to talk, is to hear, is to say, look, I see where you're coming from here, you know, which is your focus in China, but I disagree with you on X, Y and Z and see if we can strike a conversation there because you're alternative to that and that's what I'm also seeing increasingly ubiquitously is one where we go in and say, you're all brainwashed. We know better. You're exposed to censorship, okay? Censorship is bad. Well, we don't have a sense of media. We're free. That kind of holier than our allergy is not just off-putting and patronizing. It also does not bone well, okay? For attempts to win the hearts and minds of people on the ground. So as much as I'm critical of the ultra-nationalism I'm seeing right now, right? The sort of presumption that all Lao-Wai, all foreigners, I must therefore be bad people, right? I must equally repudiate and push back against the world Chinese are brainwashed, pomposity and preposterous language and stories that we're hearing from certain segments of the media. Sure, they're difficulties in accessing information. Yes, there is censorship. Yes, there's regulation, but let's engage each other on a human footing. We may not see eye to eye, but at least if your eyes and my eyes lock into each other, the prospects of us seeking and reaching an agreement are slightly higher than they're not doing so. And by the way, I'm not encouraging that we break or contribute any laws in carrying out citizen diplomacy. What I am suggesting here though is that citizen diplomacy operates as a supplementary force, as a supplement tool, mainstream G2G diplomacy. And if I could add three observations here, these observations are then purported to show why ultimately I think citizen diplomacy is going to become the primary mode of software, and the mode of interaction between countries, including China and America over the upcoming decades. The first is the fragmentation and individualization of communicative media from social media platforms to, I guess, non-social media, but communicative technologies between personnel and telegram, WhatsApp, what have you, to the shortening or compression of distances, right? This collapse of geographical gets to paraphrase David Harvey, right? These are all seismic transformations that render, especially once things start reopening in the aftermath of the pandemic that renders human-to-human contact and exposure incredibly easy. It's a low cost and potentially high reward activity to speak with, to see, to meet, to travel, and whatnot. And the caveat, of course, is that we don't see massive, inward-looking restrictions upon travel and human movement and capital flow, right? In the aftermath of the pandemic, I'm not ruling that out entirely. There's a possibility of that, nevertheless, and that indeed leads me on to the second point. But the first point here is that mobility is going to be heightened, and the easiness of human-to-human contact cannot be understated or cannot be overstated, sorry. The second one I would note is even if partial decoupling in political and also institutional senses is indeed occurring, this makes non-GTG contact all the more important. To say we grant, right, that the worst-case scenario for multilateralists and internationalists is unfolding, we're seeing this decoupling and the segueing of the world into segmented spheres. Even then, there needs to be some source, some jail that holds as a coagulant together of these fragmented and isolated spheres. And what goes on there? It is not the governments or leaders of governments that would have the incentive or indeed the day-to-day capacity to then interact, right? Because if all the government or all countries are equally inward-looking, or at least increasingly inward-looking, and it's not likely that outward-facing diplomacy is going to be the mainstay, that's where citizens come in. That's where non-profit and non-governmental organizations must come in and swoop in to the rescue, to engage and to pick up on the conversations that have been left out and neglected by governments on both sides of the equation. And a final comment here is this. I've a lot of faith and hope in a Gen Z, in the next generation. So even if indeed in the present, we see, you know, antagonism, skepticism and negativity between those and positions of power and also those who are most likely to influence and hold the greatest sway over politics and respectably America and China, I remain convinced that at the very least, when we look at the Chicago Council surveys of the American public, millennials and younger generations are more forthcoming and sanguine about the prospect of working with China. And similarly in China, whilst I have indeed also noted my concerns about the ultra-nationalism that we see amongst and segments of the youth, there remains the possibility that the quality of ties and discussions and empathy seeking and centered communication that we see right now in institutions like yours would be able to drive forward, would be able to push forward the kind of entente and agreement that's needed in order to advance and further interpersonal exchanges. All of this is just a roundabout way of saying, I do not think my proposal is untenable. I think it is at the very least in theoretical and also to a certain extent pragmatic terms as something that we could indeed put into practice. And on that note then, it behoves me to talk about how we can indeed put theory into practice. And here I would like to cite some hypothetical, some actual examples and then some. There are at least four primary means through which we can put theory into practice with concrete deliverables and outcomes in the medium to long term. The first is to produce and engage in genuine activism and research in challenging and taking on cross-country, international challenges, not just climate change, not just public health, but also automation, AI, the dangers of privacy violations, right? And I know the cynics in the room would say, ah, you know, what can we talk about in terms of privacy? This is not something like the Chinese go out allegedly, but that statement itself overlooks the fact that China has as much incentive as a government, as a society to regulate surveillance capitalism as America does, because surveillance capitalism does not transform or translate the dividends and doesn't, you know, transfer the dividends at all that they don't speculate through to the people. And this is something that's a political no go, therefore, with China and USA life. So I think groups and non-profits that are centered around empowering individual citizens, digital literacy, bio-scientific literacy, understanding of climate change and environmental issues, they must and should comprise the bulk of society or civil society-centered exchanges. And another challenge here, of course, is the difficulties of registering foreign NGOs in both America and China, especially in China, with the recent passage of the INGR laws, I think in 2017. That's a valid concern, but that's also why the upshot of this is I think governments need to make space for non-governmental exchanges, as opposed to just framing and centering the collaborative space and room around exclusively official parties. That's something that I think both Beijing and Washington would benefit from noting. Secondly, open debates and dialogues and exchanges and discussions to be held on campuses, be held in forums, in civil society groups, in salons and whatnot. And this applies to both Beijing and Washington, where increasingly for political ideological reasons we're seeing this tightening of the space for discussions and deliberation on both sides of the civic. The chilling effect we see in here, in America, alternatively in China, of course, official redlining and baselines in some of what you can and can't discuss. It is on my humble opinion that a healthy, confident and rising country should be more open to constructive criticisms and debates over important issues that matter not just to the world at large, but also to the people in said country. Now, I'm not advancing at all the concept that we must support activities that pose a danger or threat to national stability or security. That, of course, is some of that, is a political culture, relative and specific judgment that only the relevant authorities can make, I can't make. What I am saying, though, is the more room there is for rational and well-informed debates to take place within academic spaces where there's fact-checking, where there's rigorous counterbalancing and scrutiny of use, the likelihood is that misinformation and stereotypes and missed portrayals of people of actors of political incentives and structures, the less likely it is that they will take hold. And that holds as a rule of thumb across both sides of the Pacific. But that also means, by the way, to cross-specific dialogues through festivals of ideas, through summits where politically-divergent fuels are platformed. It's all the more important that these events occur and, in turn, act as a springboard, as an incubator for projects of mutual alignment and also convergence. So that's what I would say in terms of what we can do. Post more conversations like these, like Serge, engage with more professionals with academics that can speak, not trot out orthodoxy and just the consensus that we're seeing and hearing in the media echo chambers, but actually folks who know what they're talking about, you know, with Professor Selickson being someone who alternatively, many other academics at large that have written on a debt-track diplomacy and are dangers of pigeon-holing and characterizing certain forms of international diplomacy and aid as debt-track full-stop. Or on the other hand, academics that say, maybe within China, right, people who say we shouldn't see East rising and West declining as inevitable, these are the views and voices that I think should be better and more frequently platform because they push back against the evolving and increasingly trenchant dogma that we hear and that we see and that I am personally quite alarmed by on both sides of the House here and the spectrum for a second. The third mechanism then is to build and build into, I guess, the interaction between citizens and governments better communicative devices and platforms and channels through which citizens can relay information to their own governments. To be very clear, this is not, okay, at all intelligence gathering. I'm instead advancing the view that we need clear, unfettered communication of uncoversive exchanges of information where in lieu of the half-informed and ill-informed judgments concerning the other side's intentions, we get a more robust picture from simply folks who have overseas experience, who have engaged with governments abroad and who can confidently speak to and attest to their own experiences as scholars and academics and students and individuals living in America in relation to China and China in relation to America to speak to the lived realities and empirics on the ground because I'm sure many in America do not view China with skepticism and suspicion because they are racist. That's not the case. It's because they do not necessarily hear what's happening on the ground in full in China and maybe they're elements or what's unfolding in China that are horrifying and maybe the elements are not but at the very least I think the audience in America deserves a fair say and a balanced understanding likewise in China, right? When I speak with many of my friends who are highly educated and credibly informed as to what's happening in the West, in Britain, in EU, in America that there's this overwhelming consensus that it's not looking good. Yes, it isn't looking good but it might also be pockets of hope and pockets of positivity that we should cherish and value in America, in Europe and the UK. And all we are induced to think and believe about the other side is that we're winning they're losing. That's not going to confidently offer us a voracious picture which in turn undermines our ability to make rational and beneficial geopolitical decisions even from a pure self-interest point of view. So we need better communicative devices and exchange mechanisms. We need a more inclusive, okay? And also expansionary net of information that's unfiltered, that's uncensored and that gets into the hands of those who are calling the shots because I genuinely think that many of the grievances and conflicts in international relations stems not, okay? From this fundamental reconcilability but from misunderstanding but from this undue amping up and highlighting or discarding of tenets or facts of empirics that ultimately will not do anyone any justice or good because it leads to lose, lose situations. Say the ill information or the erroneous assumptions concerning the incentives of certain government leads to the other government presuming that a war over this region is imminent. We all know what we're talking about here or what we could be talking about here in the context of Sino-American relations. That is a dangerous scenario. Yet that is also a scenario that is rendered or more likely if all we see in Washington in Beijing and Beijing in Washington is signs of escalation, signs of impunity, signs of unwillingness to indeed take stock of geopolitical constraints. If both sides leaders think that the other side is going to fight it would make very little sense, of course from a game theoretical point of view for one to back down. And I'm not worried about actual escalation and spirals of that. I'm worried about perceived willingness and resolved to escalate and lack of knowledge and certainty and clarity over how far the escalation goes. And of course, citizens may not be privy to all of the information, yeah? Educated academics and journalists are not privy and that's why a lot of misinformation is spewed as such. But at very least what folks who speak the parlance and understand the only synchrosities on both sides can do, the least they could do is explain very clearly to deliver as comprehensively and unwrapped when snared by propagandistic and ideological elements a truthful rendition of the other side's intentions and motives and also capacity. That is an obligation that I think ought to bind all of us really. And that ties me on to the final point. Well, you might think that you're a student. You might think, yeah, you might think you're powerless. You might think we might think, okay? That we're nobodies. And maybe we are indeed nobodies. Maybe we are indeed folks that don't have the money, don't have the capital. And as a senior once reminded me, I don't even have any political official or officially political or formal capital whatsoever to influence institutional decision-making. I don't, there's no, these are all channels as of today and also available to us, okay? We don't have wherewithal or resources. But if there's one thing I know we have uniquely, it's the ability to undertake conversations, to talk, to hear, to listen, to engage, to sympathize and empathize and develop, okay? The space that we need for discussions that matter, so don't underestimate your prowess. Don't say, I'm a student. I'm young. I don't know what to do. I probably should just go with the flow. I'm gonna get a job. I'm gonna repeat and trot out the orthodoxy in a mainstream consensus. I'm gonna rise and climb the hierarchy by pumping out very much ideologically skewed and partisan hackery, but I know that gets me jobs, I'm gonna do it. Don't do that because you could be doing so much more than that, right? The fact that we're here, the fact that we're alive is a miracle to quote Hamilton, one of my favorite musicals. And the fact that this conversation is flowing, hopefully not just in a new directional manner, but I also want to take some questions, of course. Yeah, it's a miracle, but it also tested the depth and breadth of human-to-human exchanges and ties that truly matter and that ought to matter only with increasing volume and magnitude in the years to come. And here I'm gonna close with, as promised, a forewarning and a word of personal reflection. The warning here is simple, you know, respect and understand and adhere to the laws of the land. There are certain boundaries, the formal, there are certain boundaries that, whether it be in terms of information sharing, confidentiality, tech transfers, that I firmly believe that the jurisdiction rests with the courts and the country that's engaging in the determination of the content and the substances of the law, the lets of the law must be followed. And it applies, you know, both ways. And yet much of that constraint, that hard constraint that we're operating by should not deter us from engaging with what's possible with their nose constraints, to push, to strive, to drive forward mutual agreement and respect and dignity. And this is where I wanna say this. It's tough. You and I, we can't go out of the load to transform the way populations view each other, especially these two huge economies populations is a gang to end tasks. And there will be traps, there will be naysayers, there'll be those that accuse you of being, you know, too sympathetic towards the other side or alternatively a representative, a sneaky suspicious extension, okay, or a shill for one side or the other. And that's all right, because peace is not something that we win or secure through garden parties. You don't throw a garden party, you know, grab a pint with your mates and say, ah, I wanna get peace, green peace, whatever peace, that's not peace. Noise piece, something that comes in vain where, ah, we've achieved peace, let's boast about it, let's forget about it. Peace is hard thought over, it's something that our ancestors gave the lives to secure during the two world wars. It is something that millions took to the street to fight for as the Cold War ended, they demanded, okay, they demanded dignity and peace in how they were treated by their own government to have a say and a stick and a game. Peace, the secret formula, or not so secret, that propelled China's astronomical rise as an economic superpower. Peace, a moral metric and regulatory standard by which the actions of countries like China and America and beyond ought to be judged. Peace, something that's falling apart before our eyes in Eastern Europe as a war in Ukraine rages on and drags on. Peace, something that you and I deserve and we can and must defend at all costs, at any cost, if necessary, to death, if necessary, alone. Thank you very much. Thank you, thank you very much, Brian. I just want to jump in. I have a question that's been burning. I'm just, sorry, I'm just checking my flow here. You have mentioned that, look around, look around. How lucky we are to be alive right now as someone who literally has a Billy and Hamilton merch and posters in my room. The next phrase, Eliza says, just stay alive, that will be enough. And the question is, as so many Chinese students in America or alternatively American students in China have gone into just self-preservation mode. We have gone to a mode that in a attempt of not getting canceled by various activists, the groups, for example, we have refrained from even talking about track to diplomacy because such attempts, for example, in the United States could be potentially framed as being a communist party mouthpiece. Attempts of promoting Sino-U.S. relations have been seen by many actors, including but does not limit it to the two actors that you have talked about, the military industrial complex and the people who write nationalistic fearmongering propaganda have been viewed as even an endorsement of, for example, various policies that a Chinese communist party have been pushing out that are somewhat morally questionable. And in China, likewise, people who want to promote even American culture, American songs, Taylor Swift, French, these at the most basic level are being framed as the so-called half a million, the so-called people that have allegedly received half a million dollars from National Endowment of Democracy. My question for you is, how do we even overcome the most fundamental fear of getting canceled, getting visas canceled, getting being even more culturally marginalized than we already are? Thank you for that. That's a very poignant and also relevant question. I'm gonna repeat what I said in my presentation just then, respect the law of the land, okay? So I don't think any, I genuinely think, okay, if it were to talk about unlawful and illicit activity that contravenes boundaries as established by the law, then it's a very clear no-go. But fortunately, I genuinely think that 90% of the diplomatic efforts and conversations, including hopefully the one we're having right now, do not violate any laws, okay? Because I'm not, you're not, none of us, we're not operating as extensive agents of, I don't know, the American government or the Chinese government. That's not what we're doing right now. We're talking about literally human-to-human interactions in a frank and forthcoming manner. So if I could use a Chinese phrase, the qi, we deserve the qi, which is, it's hard to translate, but I would call it this self-accentuated confidence, self-confidence, okay, if you will, that the qi, that if we're doing nothing wrong, then there's nothing to fear, right? You know, this is a saying in Cantonese, okay? That basically translates to if you've done nothing wrong, there's nothing to hide. I think, I think it might really be something like, if you do nothing wrong during the day, that is the Cantonese Mandarin disparity, right? I said as someone whose native tongue is Cantonese, okay? Woo, Cantonese. But yeah, that's the first thing I would note. The second thing I would note, the third thing I would note is this, you know, legal structures are not static. Political structures are dynamic and discursive structures are fluid. And it falls upon individuals too, even if indeed the political environment looks hostile, within the confinement of legal constraints, we can and should always seek mutual interest and overlap in what works best for us, right? I don't think it's fair to say that, you know, or it is indeed fair to perhaps say that tragically, the activities you talked about on both sides in both countries are increasingly viewed with suspicion. But honestly, if we wanna challenge stereotypes and challenge suspicions, the first step is to do it ourselves, is to say, I'm Chinese, but I listen to Taylor Swift, I listen to Hamilton. And I don't think America is structurally and always evil. Or I'm American, but I wanna just say, you know, why don't we just try and understand China in a more multidimensional as opposed to monolithic manner? We lead by example. We lead by embodying that resistance towards that mind-numbing ignorance, okay? That has come to field the inane mainstream discussions that we see in both countries. So it's hard and there's no easy answer. The road ahead is treacherous, but if it's not treacherous, then it's not a cause worth fighting for, right? So that's what I would say. Thank you so much. And even with what's going on between Russia and Ukraine right now, what we're seeing is that Russia affiliated scholars are ties with Russian institutions have been cut to a degree. So even when track one diplomacy fails such catastrophically, do you think there are still hopes for track two diplomacy to proceed? Or is it still even worth fighting for? If, for example, with regards to Sino-U.S. relations, the sovereignty of some territories are being challenged and had gone into or escalated into a degree of war and armed conflict. To what extent can even track two diplomacy facilitate? Let's say Russo-American relations when the U.S. has been trying to inflict the maximum pressure upon the Russian population and when universities cannot sanction Putin's families, they decide to sanction Russian citizens that are on campus. That's a great question. I must just say, I'm not an expert in American-Russia relations. So I can't possibly comment to the main bulk of my talk today is about Sino-American ties. I certainly hope that with the despite the current Russian invasion of Ukraine, we must be fair and judicious in a way that we engage with citizens of Russia, as well as scholars and intellectuals and writers from Russia. If they're not actively and overtly in favor of the government, if they indeed have spoken out against the government's position on the war, I genuinely don't think it's fair to say because you're Russian citizen, we must therefore alienate and ostracize you. But that's just my two cents of worth as a political theorist. I'm putting on my political theorist at less of an IR person, for a second. But go back to the question. If I were to transpose your logic concerning the difficulties and the dwindling room for track two diplomacy that allegedly arises from tightening track two, track one engagement or the dwindling room there. Look, this certainly is going to be an element of mirroring. Which is why I also said track two diplomacy is it's not all roses and picnic. It's not going to be as direct and straightforward as it were during peacetime between the two governments. But what I will note is that firstly, both governments benefit from having some degree of track two and honest conversations, right? Even just as an epistemic tool of keeping their own insights in check and also ensuring that the insiders are making decisions can actually have an accurate pulse on the ground and feel for the other side, so to speak. And secondly, on areas like climate change and public health, I don't see any reason as to why track one diplomats will want to just squench, okay, quench, sorry, and destroy the room for prospective collaboration and convergence. And the reasoning for that is just what they care about is geopolitical security, is national security. That does not, however, prevent, okay? It doesn't prevent the prospects and a possibility of to an extent, right? The agreement and the entente in non-politically touchy or non-tier one red alert issues or baseline issues, so to speak. So I remain relatively optimistic, genuinely, even though it's hard and even though there is indeed gonna be some degree of pessimism and skepticism, so to speak there. Great, thank you so much, Brian. We really hope that we've been able to kept you here for longer, but we have a Econ panel that is coming in pretty soon. And oh, I'm sorry, a cultural panel that's coming in pretty soon, my apologies. And for cultural panel, I think we're gonna talk about Chinese digital media. Anthony, if you have the link for the cultural panel, feel free to drop it into the chat. And thank you again, Brian, for joining us today. We really, really enjoy your talk. And we look forward to, well, in our case, I look forward to seeing you in person at some point soon. And yeah, and for anyone who's interested in the cultural panel, the link will be dropped pretty soon, and Anthony. It's my absolute pleasure and thank you for having me. Thank you, thank you very much. Yep, thank you, Brian. Thank you, Brian.