 Good evening and welcome to the National Security College here at the Australian National University. My name is Rory Medcalf, the head of the college. I recognise many familiar faces in the room, but it's always good to see some new friends and supporters and people who are interested in the academic and policy debates that we encourage here. I want to begin by acknowledging and celebrating the first Australians on whose traditional lands we meet and paying respects to the elders of the vulnerable people past and present. Before we get into proceedings, I might also ask you to please put your phones on silent. You don't need to turn them off, especially if you're planning to tweet because this event is on the public record, but please put your phones on silent. It's a real pleasure to convene this evening's discussion because the issues that we're going to be looking at, particularly the challenges, the prospects for America's strategic presence and role in Asia, in the Indo-Pacific, and also questions about regional order, including how to counter coercion, including dealing with China's maritime coercion, but also wider strategic issues, the Korean Peninsula looms large. All of these issues are really absolutely core to the work we do here at the National Security College, looking at Australia's national security interests and how we advance and protect them in an uncertain world. It's also very timely, of course, because not long from now, Prime Minister Turnbull will, of course, be meeting President Trump in the United States or indeed, I think, on a ship in New York Harbour, but having a conversation that really will have a lot of significance for the shape of the alliance, the way the alliance works under these, I guess, interesting conditions of regional and global uncertainty. The college has done some work recently on what the alliance looks like and what the alliance might look like, including in the context of the Trump Administration. Our paper, as some of you will recall, was titled Australia's National Security and the Trump Administration Don't Panic, Don't Relax, and that in many ways, I think, has captured the mood for the way Australia is engaging, not only with the questions around the Trump Administration's engagement with Asia, but also the changing regional power dynamics in the way that others, whether it's China, whether it's North Korea, whether it's others, are really trying to either take initiative or respond to these new circumstances. We've got two speakers here this evening visiting from the United States who have very distinct insights on these issues, very distinct and very distinguished practitioner insights, but also deep analytical perspectives. And so I'll say a few words to introduce our two speakers who we'll each speak for about 10 to 15 minutes to begin with, but then who are very happy to join us in a discussion, a question and answer session on these issues. The first of our speakers this evening is Ambassador David Shear. Now Ambassador Shear is a very eminent and distinguished policy maker and practitioner in America's engagement with Asia, with the Indo-Pacific, but particularly, I think, with North Asia and also with Vietnam in Southeast Asia. David Shear's most recent positions have included as Assistant Secretary of Defence for Asia-Pacific Security Affairs between 2014 and 2016 in the Obama Administration and also Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defence for Policy for an overlapping period of time. Now his previous career highlights have included as Ambassador to Vietnam, where he played a key role in the really strengthened engagement, the strategic engagement between the United States and Vietnam, perhaps we don't hear enough about in this country when we take often quite a China-centric view of the changing regional order, but also senior roles in the State Department following a long career of engagement with the region. I'll shortly introduce our second speaker, but first it's a real pleasure to hear some perspectives from Ambassador Shear. Thank you very much, Rory, and thanks to ANU and the U.S. Study Centre for inviting me to join you tonight, and it's great to be back in Australia with my alliance friends. I spent 32 years as a professional diplomat in the State Department and ended my career in the State Department after I finished in Vietnam in 2014. When I joined the Defense Department, I joined as an Obama Administration political appointee, so I turned into a pumpkin at noon on January 20 on Inauguration Day, and I'd like to share with you some of the questions I've been asking myself since Inauguration Day about the Trump Administration approach to East Asia, as well as some of the answers that I've come to as I've thought through these questions. And I think the first thing to say is, the first thing to say about American interests and American behavior in the region, in the Trump Administration, as well as in previous administrations, is that the United States has enduring strong deep interests in this region that aren't going to change, no matter who is president. And over time, the behavior of our presidents is going to hew to those interests because they really are strong and enduring interests, and that goes for our interests in maintaining strong alliances throughout the region, including with Australia. But some of the questions I've been asking myself are, will we maintain continuity with our bilateral relationships throughout the region? Will we continue to pay the kind of strong interest in Southeast Asia that the Obama Administration paid to the region? And third, will the Trump Administration pursue not just bilateral hub and spokes style policies towards our allies, our partners, and other countries in the region? Or will it adopt and pursue a regional strategy as President Obama did in the so-called rebalance strategy toward the region, which was really a signature policy of the Obama Administration? Let's look at our bilateral relationships first. And I think President Trump caused some concern during the transition and during the early days of the administration in some of his tweets and phone calls, particularly his statements with regard to Taiwan, particularly his early phone call early in his administration with Prime Minister Turnbull. But since that time, I think we've seen the emergence of fairly strong continuity in our bilateral relationships throughout the region. And that was demonstrated earliest by Secretary of Defense Mattis' visit to Japan and the ROK. It was demonstrated by Secretary Tillerson's visits to Tokyo, Seoul, and Beijing. As well as by President Trump's embrace of the One China policy and his successful meeting, bilateral meeting at Mar-a-Lago with Prime Minister Xi. And I think the meeting with Prime Minister Xi in particular demonstrated that President Trump understands the importance of a stable relationship between the United States and China. And of course Vice President Pence in his recent trip to Northeast Asia, to Australia, and to Indonesia. Again, demonstrated strong continuity in our approaches to our Australian friends and to Indonesia as well. That leaves the question of Southeast Asia. Will the administration pay as much attention to Southeast Asia as the Obama administration did? President Obama had a strong personal interest in the region. Of course, he spent time growing up in Indonesia. He spoke some Bahasa and he used it while he was there. But it went beyond President Obama's personal attachment to the region, to the growing importance the United States places on Southeast Asia and to Oceania as well. And I think Vice President Pence's visit to Indonesia was a good start. He visited while he was in Jakarta, the ASEAN secretariat, and there announced that President Trump will be participating in the APEC and East Asia summits in the fall. President Trump will host a U.S.-ASEAN summit meeting while he's in the region. And since that time, we've also done a number of things that I think demonstrate strong trend towards continuity towards Southeast Asia, including visits to Washington by the Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnamese foreign ministers. President Trump recently invited to Washington the Thai, Singaporean, and Philippine counterparts. And you may not have agreed with the way in which President Trump announced his invitation to Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, in which the President praised Duterte's approach to Philippine drug problems, but Philippines is an important ally. And it's our hope that not only will the President have a good visit to Manila for the East Asia summit, but that we can exchange our views not only on security and economic issues, but on human rights as well during President Duterte's visit to Washington. I expect that Secretary of Defense Mattis will attend the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore coming up early next month, I believe. I hope he will deliver a speech on the region. And it will be important for him to do so, I think, because one thing, despite the apparent emerging continuity in Trump administration policy toward the region, one thing it appears to lack so far is a strong regional strategy. We need to bring together all of the strands of our activities, all of the strands given to us by our bilateral alliances into a strong regional policy focused on China's rise and focused on the economic opportunities that China and the rest of the region present as well. And I think both Secretary of Defense Mattis' trip to Singapore, which hasn't been announced but I hope he'll take, as well as the President's presence at the APEC and East Asia summits will give the administration an opportunity to articulate a strong regional policy. It's difficult for me in concluding to give you a lot of optimism about the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The Trans-Pacific Partnership was a fundamentally important initiative and it was important not just because it offered its participants strong economic opportunities, strong economic benefits, it was strategic as well because it gave our TPP partners the opportunity to strongly diversify their trading relationships in a region in which the Chinese economy is more and more dominant. It also gave the United States and our TPP partners the opportunity to have the strongest possible hand in shaping the rules by which the regional trading system would operate in the 21st century. And this is part of what we mean when we talk about preserving and growing the rules-based order. It's about the United States and its allies and like-minded partners joining together to define how the region is going to operate in the future. And we can do that with the Chinese as well. This rules-based regional order is not going to be monopolized by the United States and its allies in the future. What emerges over the next couple of decades is going to be something that we all work on with China and that's where our alliances come in. Our alliances give us the strongest possible leverage in what will be a diplomatic approach to shaping this region. So I think it's critically important that the United States continue to strengthen its alliance. I think it's critically important that President Trump and Prime Minister Turnbull have a good meeting tonight. And it's critically important that we all work together to generate the maximum leverage we need to define the rules-based order that will govern this international system in this region in the remaining years of the 21st century. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks for those words, Ambassador Shear. And I think that's really opened the conversation, a lot of angles that I think we can and should pursue a little bit later in the evening. I think the emphasis on the alliance and on the need for the alliance to adapt and adjust to new circumstances, the fact that the challenges in the region, if you like, haven't changed from one administration to the next but that Australia and the United States and others, because we have to remember that there is, I think, in my view an emerging multi-polarity in the region are all looking to position themselves and define as much continuity as they can to manage those challenges. You've brought all of those out and we'll discuss those in a moment. I would, in introducing our second speaker, note that I think one of the things we try to do here at the college is to really build that bridge between policy and research, that that real practice that I think is so necessary in Australia's national security community. And Dr Zak Cooper is really someone who does that. Zak Cooper, who I'll invite up in a moment, despite his apparent youth, has really made a very significant contribution to the shaping of policy, the understanding of Asia in the U.S. strategic and security community. Now, Dr Cooper at the moment is Senior Fellow for Asian Security at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., one of the leading think tanks in the United States, but has also worked in policy in the Pentagon, also in the White House, and as well as his own research has been closely associated with the Asian Maritime Transparency Initiative. You'll know what this is when you think about those photographs you see quite frequently now of Chinese island building and the militarization of those islands in the South China Sea. That initiative that Zak has associated with has been responsible really for the transparency and the publication of those pictures. So I'll invite Zak up in a moment, but before I do I might note that of course working here with the U.S. Study Centre, which I should have acknowledged at the beginning, the National Security College is seeking to continue to develop a community of practice on these issues in Australia. But Zak Cooper, the floor is yours. Lori, thank you so much for having me in the U.S. Study Centre as well. It's a real treat as an American to be able to go somewhere and talk about an alliance and get so many interested folks. One of the challenges in working in Washington on the U.S.-Australia alliance is that often I think our community is smaller in Washington than it should be. So there's so much debate happening here on the alliance, but not enough happening in Washington, and so it's wonderful to be able to get here and talk about the alliance in detail. I wanted to talk about what I think is maybe the core challenge for the alliance in the next 10 or 20 years, which is the rules-based global order. This is the term that Australia has put forward repeatedly and done, I think, some important work to define. But the key element of the rules-based global order that I think we've had an incredible amount of problems enforcing is the rules regarding the activities that China has pursued in the South China Sea and to some extent the East China Sea over the last seven years. CSIS has been leading a large project the last year, which we will roll out in the next few weeks on countering coercion in maritime Asia, which is looking at how the United States and its allies and partners in the region could do more to counter Chinese coercion especially. And I want to briefly walk you through the project and why I think it's important and what more we could do to counter Chinese coercion. And the core reason that we need to pay more attention to this is that as many of you know, the Chinese have been pursuing what the Japanese call gray zone coercion, right? So this is coercion that doesn't cross the threshold to conventional conflict, but goes just below it at a level that's more difficult to push back against. And I think the conventional wisdom in the United States at least and to some extent in the region has been that we have very few options for pushing back against this kind of coercion and that therefore the rules-based global order which we've all learned to rely so heavily upon is going to be under threat. It will degrade over time and this leads to real questions not only about the order itself but about the virtues and value of the U.S.-Australia alliance. And the argument I want to make is that it's not as bleak a picture as some folks make it out to be. And so let me begin by arguing that in fact when people talk about coercive activities in the South China Sea, things like the building of seven islands in the South China Sea by China, which did not previously exist, three of which now have 3,000-meter airfields on them with 24 fighter hangars on each, these kinds of activities have certainly undermined the order. But there are a whole set of activities that the Chinese have attempted to pursue over the last seven years which have actually failed. And so it's important for us to realize that it is possible in fact for us to push back against these efforts to change that order and to uphold the rules-based global order and the regional order in fact in ways that can deter conflict and simultaneously avoid a war I think down the line over these kinds of issues. So let me just briefly walk through the kinds of cases that we looked at. We looked at nine, as I said, from 2009 to today. And they covered the gamut, everything from maritime disputes such as an incident in 2009 over the U.S.-NS Impeccable in which some Chinese ships attempted to stop that surveillance ship operating near the Chinese coast to aircraft flying off the Chinese coast again conducting operations in international airspace freely as they should be able to but were again challenged by the PLA to things like the Scarborough Shoal standoff in 2012 in which China and the Philippines engaged in a standoff. It was in some ways mediated by the United States and the outcome was that China gained more control over Scarborough Shoal. It's an important incident in which I think the rules-based global order was undermined. And then a couple of others, things like the Vietnam-China oil rig standoff in which China put an oil rig into waters that are disputed by Vietnam and in fact was forced to pull out the oil rig earlier than it had planned. So we looked at nine of these cases and as I said the conventional wisdom is that the U.S., Australia and others have very few options to push back against these kinds of coercive efforts. And what we found was in fact that in only two of the nine cases had the Chinese coercion been entirely effective. So in seven of these nine cases that we look at actually the Chinese either failed or you had a mixed outcome. And so as a scholar I like that because it tells us that there's some variation here there's something for us to study and it means that we can be successful in some of these cases. So I want to suggest a couple of ways to think about where the Chinese are pushing and how we can push back and uphold that rules-based global order and then end with some thoughts about how the alliance can do better in that area. So in my view the Chinese have been trying to change two different things. One is physical control of features and territory and the other is the rules and norms that undermine our existing order. And when they do so they can do so in one of two ways. They can either try to contest that physical control or they can try and contest the rules and norms or on the other hand they can try and exploit control they already have or exploit rules and norms that already exist. And one thing we found in our study was that these are entirely different categories. So let me give you one example. When the Chinese try to contest rules and norms they tend to just do a limited probe. So this is an effort basically to see if they can change a rule and norm and if there's going to be any response and if there's a response they back down very quickly. So one example is challenges to surveillance operations off the Chinese coast which the United States, Australia and most other countries in the world believe are very much in accordance with international law in the Chinese dispute and sometimes the Chinese will challenge those types of operations. Well if other countries come back and demonstrate that they're willing to accept a little bit of risk to uphold the rules based order turns out the Chinese almost always back down and they do so quickly. And so this is an easy deterrence case. There are other cases that are much more difficult. For example, when the Chinese already have physical control and they're trying to exploit it in say the Spratly Islands, it's almost impossible to stop the Chinese from militarizing say the Spratly Islands once they already have control of those features. One would have to accept a tremendous amount of risk to do so. And so we find that that is going to be a hard deterrence case. And then there are other cases like contestation of physical control and here what the Chinese are typically doing is ratcheting up pressure. So this is very different than what I talked about just a second ago, the limited probe where the Chinese will test and back down if they get a hard response from their adversary. Here in the controlled pressure strategy they will ratchet up the pressure and if the other side ratchets up also they just wait a little bit and go higher. They don't back down again. And so what we see in these cases is very different approaches by the Chinese that require very different strategies. And that is I think something that has often been ignored in the public is that when you think about changes to the rules based order there are very different kinds of changes and some of them we can respond very effectively against and others will be far more difficult. And so I think the challenge for policymakers and for the Trump administration going forward is to identify those types of activities that they want to deter and send clear messages to China about which activities they will deter and what risk the United States and other countries in the region are willing to accept to do so. So let me just leave you with five thoughts about some principles that I think are important not just for the United States but for Australia in doing so. The first, as I said, is that it's important to tailor deterred strategies to the different kinds of incidents that are occurring. The second is that it is often valuable to very actively signal a specific commitment in those cases where the United States intends to deter an action. So let me give you one example which is the Senkaku-Diayu dispute. So the Japanese and the Chinese and the Taiwan also they dispute these island features and the US takes no position on the dispute itself other than the desire to have it resolved peacefully and without coercion but Article 5 of the US-Japan Security Treaty does apply to that dispute and the United States has made that quite clear and so we've seen a relatively stable situation since the US made that clear. Whereas in the South China Sea where commitments are more ambiguous it's been much more difficult for the US to demonstrate its deterrent commitment and convince China that it is serious in those kinds of cases. A third principle is that if the US is going to demonstrate this kind of deterrent commitment it has to hug its allies close and this is I think particularly important when you're talking about accepting more risk. So if the US is going to push back hard on Chinese coercion there's some who would say well you don't want to let an ally get too far out in front of you you should distance yourself from that ally if you're worried about their actions but in fact what we found in our research is you want to hug your ally tighter when you're worried about the activities they might conduct and that way you have more control over their actions. A fourth principle is a pretty basic one but is that deterrence requires some acceptance of risk. Thomas Schelling who's the Dean of Deterrence Theory said that deterrence is basically requires the commitment to leave things up to chance right and if you are not willing to accept any risk you're not willing to take any chances then you cannot deter. So deterrence requires some risk acceptance but it requires that that risk acceptance be quite calculated. And then finally the last principle I would say is I think all of these things can be done but they must be done in a context in which the United States and Australia and other states reach out to our Chinese friends and explain to them what the US strategy is what the Australian strategy is and have a very direct dialogue about what we think is permissible and impermissible to uphold that rules-based order and that's a dialogue that I think has happened to some degree but certainly could be stronger and I think some clear messaging will be absolutely critical. So with that let me get off the stage but just make one plea that I think often the US-Australia alliance doesn't discuss these tough issues as directly as we should. You know there's clearly a debate here in Australia about the Australia-China relationship and there's one happening simultaneously in the United States but we don't talk together as much about this type of issue as I think we should so it's one reason that I'm happy that the Australian National University and the US Study Center have been kind enough to have us down here and be part of this discussion here both in Canberra and in Sydney. So with that thank you very much. Thanks very much Zach Cooper and we've got some time now for some questions for our visitors. I might take advantage of the privilege of being convener here to perhaps begin with one or two questions for our guests who among other things have had a conversation with some of our master's students here this afternoon at the college so really trying to put practitioner voices in front of the students and one of the issues I think that came up in that conversation which I think you've touched on there Zach but I'd be interested to hear more from both of you about is this question about the character of the Alliance, the Australia-US Alliance but also the other alliances in the region because I think that you've seen some of the lively debate in the country at the moment about how we respond to strategic change and really how we define the Alliance and perhaps need a greater explanation of the evolution of the Alliance here and that conversation includes elements like the history of the Alliance the fact that there's been a very strong if you like almost sentimental edge to looking at the Alliance and we'll see a bit of that reflected I think in the meeting overnight in New York but also the fact that countries' behaviour and strategic balancing and building stability are based on interests and are based on defining their interests so I wonder if either or both if you would like to maybe begin by commenting a bit more about how you see the Alliance being defined in a way that is truly politically sustainable Well I think one of the virtues of the US-Australia Alliance is that in some ways for the United States it is an easy Alliance it is an Alliance where we don't have great concern as my colleague Ashley Townsend was saying earlier about being drawn into a conflict so we can have great confidence that there's safety in the US-Australia Alliance from the American perspective but also great confidence that Australia will go fight abroad with us when needed and this is often the line that you hear said at every event it's almost like a requirement right that the United States and Australia have fought together in every major conflict since World War I and in some ways this makes it almost easy for us not to think in the United States in a serious way about the needing to invest in the Alliance because the message to some Americans is Australia has always been there and Australia will always be there and it's easy therefore to take the Alliance for granted and I think this is a bit of a danger and the danger is that any Alliance is basically just a relationship and in any relationship you have to talk about the hard issues and if you don't talk about the hard issues they eventually become more problematic and very difficult to overcome and I think at times the US and Australia haven't really talked about some of the hard issues and I think China and its rise and its impact is one of those issues where we have some different opinions we have very similar interests and very similar values but some different opinions and I think the important thing for us as an Alliance is to talk directly to each other about those views I think that's healthy and actually will strengthen the Alliance and so I think it's a debate that we should welcome and engage in directly I've been working with allies in East Asia for a long time including Japan and Australia and I've always found that particularly in times of uncertainty particularly now given the rise of China that the single most important thing that we can do is ensure that both sides know what the other side's interests are both sides know where we might, not only where we agree but where we might diverge so transparency is extremely important in forging a stronger, more durable Alliance and that's not just true with Australia it's true with our other alliances as well and we will be going through some of the same conversations with our other allies that we will be going through with Australia as we move forward I graduated from the National Security College last year work for KPMG so Dr Cooper thanks for your contribution I think there's a lot to reflect on there I think it's pretty clear that Trump offends domestic sensibilities in Australia but you're asking us as a state to take on more risk in the South China Sea polling suggests that the Trump administration is having impacts in the Australian body politic that might make taking on more risk in areas like the South China Sea more difficult to prosecute in a domestic political sense do you think that's well understood in Washington and how can we have that voice heard more in America so that we can work towards sort of aligning our interests better in that sort of vein you know frankly I don't think it's particularly well understood in Washington we would benefit from a Australia study center you know when you go to talk about the alliance in Washington it's hard to find a large audience that focuses on the alliance that's not true of a lot of US alliances you know if you look at the Japan community it's been larger or Korea right and so in some ways I think that's one of the challenges is that we almost take for granted our relationship and it's not because we don't care about Australia it's because the ties have been so good for so long that we under appreciate how important they are we almost build it into our model of East Asia it's an assumption that we can rely on a very close alliance and so I think it's something we need to reinvest in what I would say briefly is you know there are other alliances that have been through challenging times and one that I spent some time on is Japan and if you think about what's going on in the US Japan alliance in the 1990s it was I think far more difficult to chart a future in the US Japan alliance in the 90s than it would be today for the US and Australia and essentially what happened is experts on both sides of the Pacific got together and tried to think forward about what the alliance should be and I think that's what needs to happen now is we need to start developing a consensus not within the elites but also within the public about the issues that we agree on and where we disagree and I think as I said you know address these very directly and there may be areas where we disagree and where one country goes forward and the other waits and that's fine, that is important in alliances we don't always need to be having the same policies the strength in sometimes is actually in having different policies but pursuing them in a coordinated fashion Thank you and thanks so much for coming and speaking to us so my question, my name is Primrose I'm a reporter at the Australian I have a question about the my first question was about One Belt One Road which is the Chinese infrastructure program what do you think is Washington's attitude to that in Australia we've had our opposition party urge the government to sign up to it and obviously New Zealand just signed an MOU about it and so how do you think Australia should respond to that my second question, sorry to do two was about the recent New York Times report about freedom of navigation exercises in South China Sea and uncertainty in Asia as well with ASEAN, questions about ASEAN's independence being undermined how should Australia respond and do you think we should sort of conduct our own pivot towards Asia? With regard to One Belt One Road of course Chinese investment in the region presents huge economic opportunities to the countries neighboring China as well as to the region as a whole and I think in considering whether or not to participate in One Belt One Road and how much Australia should consider what its economic interests are and you've been very good at that so far and I expect you'll do very well at it in relation to the opportunities that China presents One Belt One Road presents opportunities to the United States firms as well we've been a little less enthusiastic about pursuing some of the official opportunities that One Belt One Road presents we are not participating in the Asia Infrastructure Development Bank I personally think that was a mistake I think over time you'll see the US participating more enthusiastically in One Belt One Road I think as we do that however we'll need to consider what our strategic and security interests are as well because Chinese economic opportunities are rarely divorced from strategic opportunities in the Chinese mind so we're going to have to from the US perspective at least I think we're going to have to balance our economic interests with our security interests as we watch how the Chinese develop the One Belt One Road initiative I think freedom of navigation assertions are very important in demonstrating for the United States our commitment to freedom of navigation and we've always welcomed other allies and partners to do freedom of navigation operations I do however think that the issue of freedom of navigation operations it tends to be exaggerated in the press they're important but they're not an essential they're not the main element of our strategy in the South China Sea so we're going to do freedom of navigation operations I'm sure when the opportunity presents itself but when you pull back and you look at what the US Navy and the US Air Force are doing in the South China Sea and you look at the extent of Chinese claims every time a US ship operates anywhere in the South China Sea we're challenging the Chinese 9-claim so in the broadest sense we're conducting a freedom of navigation operation every time we send an aircraft carrier a destroyer or an aircraft into the area delimited by the Chinese 9-claim which we know is not consistent with international law so and just as a point of clarity I think on One Belt One Road I think what's interesting is that in a sense many countries in the region including Australia are certainly participating in particular projects under that rubric I think the question becomes one about whether in fact you automatically sign up to everything that's captured under that rubric including the security elements or whether you can in fact pick and choose so I think that's quite a live issue in the Australian policy debate and in the wider region we'll take another couple of questions I'll come back to sir at the front but I think I saw a hand raised towards the middle of the room over here this gentleman towards the back Greg Geroche National Security College alumni just a quick question with all the probing and testing of the rules-based order what aspects of that order is a particular thorn in the side of certain Asian nations that creates this environment for let's test, let's probe let's see where the weaknesses lie is it a lack of understanding is it more than that? you know my view is that what we're seeing from China is just very typical of any rising power right? China did not have a large hand in creating the order that currently exists and so it is in many senses natural for China to want to change that order you know the United States itself when we were rising we certainly wanted to change elements of the order and so I think we have to be careful not to assume that Chinese have that the Chinese government has malevolent intentions in what it's trying to do to alter the order but just that as China rises it will try to match its growing power with a growing say in the order that exists now that being said I think there are certain parts of the order that we should be willing to adapt so Ambassador Shear mentioned the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank I think that's as he said was a mistake by the US not to be more supportive of Chinese efforts to take a more leading role on some of these economic issues especially the infrastructure needs on the security side though I think that's a much much more difficult area and freedom of navigation and overflight for me at least are one of the absolutely critical areas which are non-negotiable not just for the United States but for other countries in the region I think our alliances are critically important as well and I don't think you'll see the US anytime soon seeking to dilute our alliances or reduce our forward military presence here at the request of the Chinese so I think our commitment to our alliances is going to remain strong and it's not just a straight hard power security issue for us as I suggested in my remarks our alliances give the United States and our alliance partners I think a great deal of leverage in the diplomatic process that is going to result in whatever changes in the rules based order there are so the more leverage we have as allies the better it's going to turn out for us I'll just pivot the conversation if I may a little bit because I think one issue that's on many minds here is North Korea and the Korean Peninsula what's happening there and I think when you talked about coercion earlier Zach in your piece Ambassador Shear when you talked about the alliance system in the region I think of course one of the little pressure points at the moment is what's happening on the Korean Peninsula now there's a few elements to this one of course, I mean a key one being of course what in fact the North Korean regime is trying to achieve through it's testing it's rhetoric and it's really quite belligerent behaviour but also the question about China's role interestingly when we look at coercion we look at what China's trying to do not only to influence North Korea putting pressure on it to stop hosting missile defences for example against North Korean missiles so I'm wondering if either or both of you could offer an assessment of how you see the Korean scenario unfolding and I guess what the net effect of the Trump administration's apparent policies on this is going to be there's a big one for either of you Sure the prospect of a North Korea that can deliver a nuclear weapon via an ICBM to the continental United States as well as having the capability to deliver a nuclear weapon to our allies Japan and the ROK changes the strategic calculus on the Korean Peninsula drastically it has affected South Korean Japanese confidence in our extended deterrent in the credibility of the nuclear umbrella it has led to the deployment of the US THAAD anti-ballistic missile system to the Korean Peninsula it has raised tensions on the Peninsula overall and on the positive side it has greatly improved relations between Japan and the ROK and the US has certainly taken advantage of that improvement by fostering a trilateral relationship among Japan the ROK and the US that I think is beneficial for all three partners as well as for the region as a whole but the prospect of Kim Jong-un having an ICBM with a deliverable nuclear weapon in his arsenal is a fundamental threat to the security of the American homeland and it's something that President Trump has taken extremely seriously since he was briefed on this subject by President Obama in the during the transition and I think the Trump Administration has gone about addressing this problem a lot like the Obama Administration was addressing it despite the fact that the new administration has denied that it's pursuing a policy of strategic patience the next step that had to be taken was increasing pressure on North Korea and to do that you have to more deeply engage the Chinese and get the Chinese to cooperate more closely so whatever option the administration were to pursue it would have to start by getting the Chinese to cooperate on putting more pressure on North Korea now the options are very difficult and Secretary Tillerson and the President and Secretary of Defense Mattis have all said that the military option is still on the table to get North Korea in attention and to continue deterring them as well they've said that North Korea will have to change its behavior in order for us to conduct negotiations with them and change its approach to denuclearization I'm not certain that North Korea will ever denuclearize it may be that we may have to settle for something like a freeze I don't know what the administration is willing to accept in that regard but whatever that option is it will start with increased pressure on North Korea so I think the administration is taking the right track on this My name is Nicola I work at the ANU I'd like to take a step back to the South China Sea question from Korea So in the space of essentially 10 months we've gone from the arbitration ruling in July last year where the US and the Philippines were essentially on the brink of organizing an international coalition demanding Chinese recourse so we've gone from that point to now where arguably she is more or less dictating the status quo in the prime region and the general situation so my question being considering how quickly that status quo is pivoted I guess what mistakes, or what are the prime mistakes you think China or China at large could make to essentially overstep or overreach and maybe I guess create a situation where that coordinated international I guess coalition of resistance would be sort of renewed to a point where China would really have to take a step back I would point out five concerns that I have so I'll list them the first is a direct challenge against ships or aircraft conducting surveillance operations in China's exclusive economic zone which China says is not permissible but which international law in my view is quite clear on that it is permissible so that's one a second one is any effort by China to announce a South China Sea air defense identification zone a third concern would be it's a bit technical but Chinese announcement of straight baselines around the Spratly Islands so this would essentially claim the Spratlys as internal waters a fourth concern that I have is a Chinese effort to push another claimant off of a disputed feature so the one that is probably the most concerning target would be Second Thomas Shoal where the Philippines has a ship beached and the last one is Scarborough Shoal where a year ago almost exactly were real concerns that the Chinese might reclaim land and so for me those are the five worries that I have now I actually don't think that the United States and Australia can deter all of those activities there's some of them that I think were unlikely to be able to deter but which we should make quite clear to the Chinese they will pay a cost for doing so something like announcing an air defense identification zone that's an ultimatum on their part we cannot follow the ultimatum and stop them from announcing it but I think that's going to be the real challenge for the new administration in Washington is to determine beforehand which ones of these kinds of activities they can stop and then to communicate that to China before they start the activity because if we let them take the activity and then try and respond it's going to be too late Hello David Goyne I guess I'm speaking for myself I guess my question to the ambassador to share I'm sort of wanting to draw on your experience working inside of bureaucracy here and administration I take your point about continuing US interests and I think that's they will be enduring I think there's been surprisingly good picks at the senior official levels who have said all the right things in their engagement in the region but doesn't the center in other words you know doesn't matter whose emperor in Rome whether it's Augustus or Tiberius or Nero make that what you will I think President Trump is neither Augustus Nero or Caligula I think he's President Trump and he is on a learning curve I think his administration is on a learning curve I think he has chosen good people for key jobs like secretaries Tillerson and Mattis and National Security advisor McMaster and I think over time you'll see that they will have strong voices in the way in which American policy is shaped so I would say watch what we do not what we tweet Hi Chris Farnham National Security College I just wanted to go back to your response on North Korea Ambassador Xi and you're talking about you would like to see more cooperation from China in bringing North Korea into line or making it less of a threat I'd like to know some real concrete actions that China might take and within mine that China is fearful of actually causing a breakdown of order in North Korea in terms of starvation or anything like that so economic sanctions are realistic lever for China to use to actually influence North Korea's behaviour In general my sense is that China has a strong interest in stability in North Korea and its interest in stability sometimes exceeds its interest in denuclearization on the peninsula and that has led China often to do the minimum when it comes to imposing sanctions on North Korea I do think there's a lot more that the Chinese can do there are very strong economic connections across the North Korean border with Northeast China I think there's more the Chinese can do to implement existing security council sanctions we've all seen some of the examples one is further tightening the import of North Korean coal one is reducing or stopping the flow of oil or various aviation fuels to North Korea one is for the Chinese to exert more discipline on their banking system particularly local banks in Northeast China and they've already taken some steps to do that I think they need to do more the other area where we can do more I think is ensuring that the rest of the international community faithfully implements existing security council resolutions and I think that's why Secretary Tillerson addressed the security council a week or ten days ago now we can be working much more closely with our allies and like-minded countries to ensure that all of the UN community does what they should be doing under existing security council resolutions and I think that as we move forward will be the US Congress will likely be looking at ways of tightening up our own ability to implement unilateral sanctions and that will be an important arrow in the American quiver an important way for the United States to leverage compliance from both the Chinese and other members of the international community who are less than disciplined in the way they implement the security council resolutions we'll have to leave it there thank you Ambassador it's been I think a very wide ranging and illuminating conversation this evening and I think the turnout in the room is just an indication of the really serious level of interest in these issues there is in this town and in this country to bring visitors of this calibre to Australia of course we're really grateful in this instance for the US studies centre at the University of Sydney so I want to thank the US studies centre Jackman James Brown and Ashley Townsend who's here this evening to put on an event like this of course I thank colleagues here at the college particularly Chris Farnham a policy and events officer and others in the policy engagement and events team here at the college but of course we really rely very much on your interest your support as a reflection of the contribution we make to policy debate in this country can you please join me in thanking our two speakers