 All right Dave so what were some of your main takeaways of the day and I should mention that Jennifer of course it was Invited and more than welcome again. Her voice still it has not returned. So she will not be joining us for a wrap up I don't have to talk twice as long. No, no, no, all right. Good. I think people would appreciate that. Yeah, I think you know these conferences are always enlightening and and It's hard to roll up, but you know all these panels because there's so much rich discussion and and and of course so many more questions I like to collect quotes and and Soundbites and and some that really stuck out with me You know I've heard some some really really important important words, and I think One of the key points though for me is just how complex both China is domestically and then of course our relationship But one of our speakers mentioned that we really need to be humble in our analysis, and I think that's a very important You know, we don't know everything that's happening We don't know a lot of things that are happening. So I think we have to be humble as as we Analyze the situation. I think it's fascinating to hear the discussion about the bureaucracy and the passive resistance you know we think or I tend to think of a He a country like China with the Chinese Communist Party being you know omnipresent and and in total control, but the amount of You know feet dragging and implementation of policy. I think is really You know something that is is important to understand the Chinese economy the most difficult to read and and to understand what's going to happen with the economy I mean, of course our economy is challenging enough But I think to try to understand the Chinese economy really takes a lot of a lot of work And of course the size of the Chinese economy obviously has global impact I thought it was interesting and even in the last panel talking about anti-corruption and the The quote that is stuck with me the anti-corruption campaign is leaving scars or is going to leave scars for years I think that's that's an important consideration as we as we think ahead. I really like the the quote though that US politics are are totally under over reported and Chinese politics is totally under reported and I think that's a that's quite a comparison between Between both and you know and speaking of scars I think that the point was was well made that China is a wounded society or a wounded culture and the scars of the cultural revolution still persist today and Is is she really strong? I think the comments about the false veneer And hard on the outside soft on the inside. I think that that is Important to know especially as we You know as it was noted It's a very Hobbesian situation with very few rules inside there So although again it was said that she is breaking the system Just as Mao broke the system and I wonder about the implications of that for the future Lastly has a former military person there The comment about joining the army will cost you that really resonates and I just can't imagine having to pay for promotion So those are some of the key things that the size with the beers that you usually have to buy Well, yes, that happens in the I just like to say that you know for our students that are here and You know the importance of these events one is exposure to some of the leading scholars in this area and You know seeing the people that really you need to follow to know these issues So the networking the critical ideas and then most importantly topics for research and writing and I could think of many many ideas for for future research that has come from today, so I would I would Recommend you you know you look at your notes, especially when you have papers do and research projects so I think that that really is the some of the takeaways that I have and To do that and then I guess You know educators think alike because one of the things that really stood out to me is a certain lack of Consensus among our panelists about a number of extremely important issues I was inspired to bring together experts on this topic because I wanted to know fundamentally whether Domestic dynamics we're gonna be a positive influence or a negative influence on Chinese external policies But in the end our panelists gave us a number of arguments for why in some cases it's positive Why in some cases it's negative in some cases it's neutral, so we have some examples When Melanie Hart spoke about climate change and how the people demanded That things get cleaned up at home and this has led to opening of cooperative efforts with the United States The Chinese people have also demanded a voice when it comes to the protection of Chinese nationals overseas and how that has Potentially opened up a space for cooperation with the United States in other countries for engaging in Military operations other than war humanitarian aid and assistance, then there's also a lot of negatives of how potentially these factors could lead to more emotional or destabilizing responses that the party's hands somehow could be tied and in our panel on elite politics We talked much more about how it could be negative not for the world, but that certain policies might be corroding the system itself and then How that's gonna impact Chinese behaviors up in the air Then we had a final position which was kind of neutral that China is on a path in terms of its foreign policy And when we look at all these internal factors, they're not gonna fundamentally change Chinese foreign policy interests and how they pursue those which led to a big question for me Which was what factors are actually causal? We spoke a lot about different domestic factors about nationalism about Demographics about the PLA and then we also speak about foreign policy But where the opacity really impacts our analysis is to be able to connect Clearly what's happened on the domestic level to the international level in many cases to me It seems equally plausible that these two dimensions are changing and varying sort of separately, but the level Of interaction isn't there and this is important. I think to understand for US policymakers Why don't we do more work on the domestic dimensions of Chinese foreign policy? I think one These are factors that we fundamentally cannot shape And for policymakers you want to understand factors that you can influence and some of the domestic political aspects of Chinese policy are things that either we cannot influence or things that we would not want to influence given the political sensitivity of those issues and high risks associated with trying to influence China domestically Especially with this enhanced complexity Which leads to my next point about how complicated this landscape is now when I first started studying China Myself now about 15 years ago There used to be you know There's an expert who knew about the party and maybe an expert who knew about the military And maybe you know a comparativist who those two experts ever talked to who knew something about what was going on internally And now as you can see from our panelists to understand what motivates and drives the Chinese You need to understand its main leaders including Xi Jinping you need to understand she's Relationship with the party you need to understand his relationship with the masses the people's expectations of the party and in all this Context how the strategic setting that China is operating in is changing drastically and how that's that setting itself is expanding China doesn't only think about itself Domestically or in the region, but now China is trying to think about itself in the world as a whole So there seems to me to be a lot of very good research Topics here a lot of good things to pursue it seems because now China such a popular topic There are many people who work on it, but at least in my view the field is not even close to being saturated So I would strongly encourage any of our students who are interested in these topics to continue to pursue them And with that, I'll turn over for final concluding. All right First I'd like to thank everybody for for joining us today. I think that you know, we're here because of Everybody's desire to understand the complexity of of our relations here And so we appreciate everybody coming here because we put this on for you I'd like to thank all of our speakers today, and I think everyone will agree that all of our scholar practitioners you know brought keen insights and an important information to To help us to better understand what is what is happening I'd like to thank our great partners the US Institute of peace the Asia division particularly Jennifer stats who fortunately is ill but I Have to say that she and Oriana together Have really chose the right speakers The right they were all complimentary You know, but with diverse views that that really made things Extremely interesting for us. I'd like to thank my colleagues at Georgetown security studies Andrea Claiborff For and all of our students who volunteer to be here to to help make this make this work And lastly, I'd like to thank our benefactors who make this possible who are so supportive of our students and education the Philip and Patricia building fund for the study of Asian security and they generously resource these events so that we can all learn and And understand the key Asian security issues and I would just you know close with thinking about the way ahead you know, it seems to me there's there's three the three C's and Is it cooperation? competition or conflict and I think those are you know, which one of those is it going to be for the future and I think that the panels today really illustrated That we don't know the way ahead, but we certainly need to work and and hopefully Hopefully it will be cooperation. I think it will likely be competition and I hope that it won't be conflict So that will be the topic of next year's panel on that next year's conference So and that note. Thank you for coming and we hope to see you next year