 So it's a good opportunity to turn to Marcus Nelland, who is on Visio with us this morning. Marcus, the floor is yours. Well, thank you very much. I would like to join my plan assessors in thanking Thierry and the WP staff for again putting on a wonderful program. I recently had surgery, which prevents me from traveling, and I hope to be able to rejoin you in person in the future. The situation in the United States is concerning. We have mounted a mediocre pandemic response. The conduct of the Afghanistan withdrawal have much to be desired. We have a narrowly divided economy, engaged in financial breakevenship. It's a basic issue of credibility associated with the likelihood that the Democrats will lose one of those houses of Congress next year, creating paralysis, and in 2024, we face the possible return of Donald Trump and wholesale policy reversal. President Biden has a radically different public persona than former President Trump, and his trajectory on domestic policy is significantly different. However, in foreign policy, there has been more continuity than one might have expected. This in part reflects a tendency within the American political system to devalue efforts to sustain international institutions and cooperation into prioritized policy concerns. While the United States is deeply polarized politically across the political spectrum, American attitudes for China have been plagued at both the elite and mass level. That consensus appears to be largely attributable to the perception that the government of China is engaged in increasingly repressive behavior internally, as well as aggressive, external behavior. This shift is not uniquely American. A polling done by few researchers indicates that negative appraisals of China are widespread, including in China and Asia. In terms of U.S. policy, for example, with respect to Taiwan, the Biden administration has conducted high-level meetings with Taiwanese officials and has begun talks on a trade investment framework or T-POP agreement. It has kept most of the Trump administration's tariffs and export controls in place. It is grappling with how to address the issue of Chinese industrial subsidies and state-owned enterprises. The Biden administration has criticized China over its refusal to cooperate on a rigorous independent investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 virus, and has reaffirmed the Trump administration's characterization of the situation in Xinjiang as genocide, and, like the Trump administration, has enlarged China for its violation of the 100-year system in Hong Kong. With the revival of the Quad and the recent Al Qus submarine deal, the U.S. is trying to constitute a military alliance to balance China in the Indo-Pacific region. A problem with this strategy is that China is the leading trade partner for most countries in the region, and the U.S. moves are not being accompanied by a robust economic policy component. The result is that countries are feeling the centripetal pull of the Chinese economy are being put in the difficult position of choosing between political and military interests and their pocketbooks. In Australia's case, it has been the object of hardball Chinese actions in the economic sphere, which have contributed to a significant hardening of the Australian public's attitude towards China. Similar stories of Chinese economic pressure, followed by shifts in public attitudes, can be told for Japan and for South Korea. In this context, China's announcement that it wanted to join the comprehensive and progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership, CPTPP, has wrong-footed the U.S. For domestic political reasons, the Biden administration will have difficulty countering this move. Historically, Republicans in the U.S. have tended to be pro-trade while Democrats were the more skeptical of globalization. The Trump takeover of the Republican Party has flipped that identification. Now Republicans are more trade skeptical while a plurality of Democrat-affiliated voters are pro-trade. Biden and the Democratic Party are beholden to the unions, which are traditionally productionist, however. So today in Congress, a coalition of Republicans and the so-called progressive wing of the Democratic Party can block trade initiatives such as U.S. accession to CPTPP. If the Chinese application to join CPTPP moves forward and I believe it ultimately will, this could create a crisis moment for the WTO. The trade policy action will have shifted to CPTPP without the United States or EU involvement. One foreign policy area where the Biden administration policy differs markedly from the previous administration is with respect to climate change. And here China and the rest of Asia are central. China and India alone are projected to account for half of the increased global energy consumption to 2040. In terms of CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants and train, China accounts for 54%, Indonesia 11%, Indonesia 7%. So together these three Asian countries account for 71% of the projected increase from CO2 emissions to coal-fired power plants. So any solution to climate change has to include China. The outstanding issue is whether the U.S. and China can cooperate on issues such as climate change while continuing to work together on more problematic issues such as North Korea where their interests do not entirely align while disagreeing on other matters including sensitive domestic policy issues such as genocide and Xinjiang. The Biden administration wants to pursue this kind of multifaceted approach, but the evidence is thin as to whether such an approach can be successful. Thank you. Thank you very much, Marcus, for having reminded us the importance of the domestic factors within the U.S. system and also the continuity of its fine policy regarding Asia and China in particular.