 I'm Roger Bradbury, I'm the Director of Academic Research and Outreach I believe it's called at the college and I'm standing in for Professor Lestrange tonight. He had to go suddenly to Melbourne and was unavailable. So and I'd like to introduce Dr Nick Koo who's going to be speaking to us tonight. Nick is a China Foreign Affairs Specialist and we're really privileged to have him here. He's come to us from University of Otago and the work he's going to talk about tonight is part of a research project he's been doing with us for the last little while which will come out as an NSC working paper and eventually in a book, hopefully from Georgetown University Press. Nick's background is his undergraduate at University of California, then Johns Hopkins and Columbia you said as well and Columbia so impeccable pedigree and it's really our privilege to welcome him here tonight to talk about China in transition and its rise in international politics. Thank you. I'd like to thank A&U and National Security College for actually funding this piece of research. It allowed me to actually make a trip to Beijing to spend three weeks at Peking University and to engage with Chinese academics. So this research is informed by interviews I had with Chinese academics at various institutions in Beijing and they really provided some leverage and insight into some of this thing work that I found in respect to Chinese foreign policy and security policy recently and as you know if you've been following in the newspapers, I don't think you can understand the contemporary international scene without understanding or appreciating China's role in it. And what I'm going to try and do today is rather than give you the blow-by-blow account of events in respect to Sino-Japanese relations or China's relations with specific Southeast Asian states such as Vietnam, the Philippines, I'm trying to step back a little bit and look at something a little more deeper which is how we conceptualize China as an actor in the system. Now this may sound like okay here we go again another academic with this concept and so forth but I think the best research tries to integrate theory with empirical facts and hopefully I will succeed in doing this today. So you're the best judge for this. I'm going to present a number of standard views of how you understand China as an international actor and then we'll look at empirical developments in Chinese foreign policy and kind of bring them together nicely. So basically this research project has to deal with China's Asia policy and specifically since 2009 so it's quite recent. Prior to that there had been a view and I would say it's probably the conventional wisdom prior to 2009 that China had been remarkably successful in conducting its diplomacy from roughly the period from 1997 to 2008 start of the Olympics right. If we ever accepted that view it is now no longer the kind of standard view it's a much more complex picture we have of China and Chinese foreign policy in large part because of some of the events that we're going to talk about today and that deal specifically with China's Asia policy okay. I'm going to introduce a number of competing conceptualizations of how China is viewed in the academic arena among academics. Talk about why it matters. These are the particular perspectives that we will run through. China as a trading state very standard approach to understanding China in the kind of reform era right to view China as a state that's focused primarily on economics right. There's a more kind of subtle view that's advanced by some academics which is that we really need to look at China's identity right. How does China conceive of itself as an international actor in respect to the international arena. Another perspective a little more complex China as a social state talking about non-material aspects things that go on in between people's heads. China as a normative actor advancing kind of processes that we categorize as socialization processes right and that is an influential view in the literature and finally there's this view that China is a neo-realist state that is actually the perspective I tend to be more sympathetic to. We'll look at these cases if we have sufficient time I suspect we won't but during the Q and A session we can actually go into greater detail right then we'll wrap it up okay. So what are these conceptions of China. There is this standard view that China is best seen as a trading state right then of course the identity side of things a number of academics have advanced this view the social state and the neo-realist state right. Before we even go there why even bother with concepts believe it or not when you try to understand international politics by reading a newspaper you're actually filtering through that information with an understanding of a state in a certain specific context right. We do not have an a theoretical view of world politics every one of us has a certain understanding of the news that we read and that is the claim that academics will make and would insist therefore you need to send your kids to university because this actually makes a lot of sense it helps you to simplify and understand the world. So to the extent that we seek to understand the world we will look at it in theoretical terms whether we appreciate it or not that is my claim at least. China today in the view of some academics is a liberal state in the sense that emphasizes economics right positive some gains attention to comparative advantage it's a standard economic terms right out of Adam Smith gains from trade the emphasis on traditional military security concerns that is the kind of perspective advanced by the trading state view. People would be Richard Rose Kranz from he was at Cornell for a while then UCLA now he's at Harvard he's an emeritus professor there. We need to understand what kind of state China is because if you accept this view that China is a social state it is definitely not what is called a real estate right. Social state theorists use this concept of socialization in very different ways from neo realists who also use the concept so standard person who looks at it in social state terms would be Johnston and this would be against the Waltzian view right. This view that China is an identity state well it's definitely not the same thing as the liberal state view right so academics disagree I mean that's not news to us right they that's their job to disagree right. One thing that unites these various perspectives on China is that they're definitely not taking the neo real estate view now as a member of the public you might say well this is a fancy academic term what does neo real estate mean what it basically means is actually standard great power politics which we're all quite familiar with right this is the idea that strong states basically run the international system now there are obviously very clear exceptions to this but for the most part throughout history you see that over the long term great powers tend to be the big movers that set the agenda in terms of history they tend to dictate what happens to the smaller states in the international system now you can obviously get into more complex variations of this but that's basically the standard realist model right so all these theorists tend to take their cue from the neo realist perspective right so for example Elsa Johnston argues that balance power theory which is basically realist theory is not a useful explanation for Chinese security behavior right David Shambo an eminent expert on China from the states makes basically the same claim and he argues that realist theory or this perception that China is the realist state is not particularly helpful in explaining this dynamic environment which is Asia right and he argues very clearly in terms of policy advice against the United States adopting a quote-unquote realist view of the world and in in particular to respond to China's rise in very realist terms David Kang from the University of Southern California also a very eminent academic argues that China's experience over the past two decades has posed a challenge to realist theory right so all these eminent theorists would advance a view of China but one thing they do agree is that China is not a realist state that actually is a position that I will be taking right so let's kind of dig through these various interpretations of China and let's see whether they actually make a lot of sense or not right what is the core claim was trading state theory right basically that increased trade significantly reduces incentive for conflict right first gross grants argues that in a world of trading states the incentive to wage war is absent for war disrupts trade this is the basic standard argument Norman Agile argued prior to World War one right just a variation thereof right scholars more recently have argued that if this trading state view is true then what we will see moving ahead next two three decades is basically a capitalist piece so for example China quasi capitalist state that it is if it develops its capitalist practices and institutions can actually have an alignment of interest with other capitalist states in the international system including the United States the UK Australia New Zealand etc etc right so it's quite a promising view if it's true right at face value the case of viewing China as a trading state is rather impressive right 15 to 70% growth over the last 30 years and in fact the Chinese themselves have picked up the queue right a Chinese official in December of 2013 argued quote China is overtaking the United States to become the world's largest trading country in goods in 2013 for the first time so this is not a view that is totally plucked out of thin air there are hard facts right academics has also kind of picked up on this argue argument Shambo in a very kind of important article in international security argues that China is increasingly at the center of economic interdependence in Asia right and it's hard to deny that is true right if you look at the facts and figures if anything this case has actually become stronger over time 2003 trade between China and the entire Asian region was about 500 billion by 2010 Chinese trade with his top eight or top six Asian trading partners alone was worth nearly 900 billion right 2003 six of China's top trading partners from the Asia Pacific region by 2010 this number had increased to eight and this includes the United States as an Asian actor academics have gone further argued that quote in Eric Veed's conclusion from an international trade perspective all of East Asia has recently become a Chinese field of influence right problem is that there's a lack of evidence right what do I mean in this perspective what you should see with all this integration and rising trade is that increased trade and economic ties would lead to a decline in conflict what have we seen over the last couple of years actually the converse we've actually seen an increase in conflict that is accompanied China's rise in particular since 2009 so basically on empirical grounds you have high trade high conflict so something is missing in this perspective right so that kind of probes us to really look deeper right what's really going on if you look at China's relationships with certain states in the post-Core War era the US-China relationship 1995-96 you remember the Taiwan-Straight crisis right China and the United States are deeply locked in economic relationship yet that did not prevent that crisis from basically rocking the entire region right interestingly enough you know we shouldn't only focus on China in explaining regional developments in that particular crisis 1995-96 it arguably would not have happened without the catalytic role of Liedem Kuei as China's as Taiwan's leader he was the one who was probing and basically carving out space living space for Taiwan that was a key catalyst for that crisis right and ironically he representative of Taiwan is representing country that in this trading state literature is one of the kind of role models for trading states right so that's very interesting and what I'm suggesting actually that trading state theory is actually very apolitical right and therefore we need to kind of take its conclusions and its assertions with a huge grain of salt now let's look at China's relations with other states in the Asian region right because you could argue that the US-China relationship is quite atypical in the sense that it talks about two great powers right let's look at Japan South Korea Taiwan which actually we've really looked at in terms of Liedem Kuei but in terms of Japan and South Korea high levels of trade number one number two trading partners yet at the same time we've seen sharp friction over the last 10 years right cursory familiarity with a sign of Japanese relationship already kind of raises eyebrows right they are deeply engaged in economic trade yet at the same time we know purely from the history of the last five six years there's been intense conflict right so clearly the theory might capture something but it misses a lot right these are the kind of facts and figures China Japan's number one number two top trading partner yet the same time for both states they view each other as a key security concern right and also merely to mention the whole issue and topic of nationalism you get the point straight away right major focus of nationalism on both sides right and you might say well okay you know World War two we understand the sign of Japanese relationship has problems and deep ones at that but even the Sino-South Korean relationship over the last 10 years right you had a number of crises ranging from the Koguryo history issue to territorial disputes to even disagreements over how to handle the North Korean issue right and so this suggests that economic independence is trading state ideas a partial understanding of what's really going on right central point is that we need to move beyond economics and start talking politics international relations is not equivalent to international you know focus on purely economic issues you need to move beyond economics right international relations encompasses military issues in additional to economic issues as well as other issues such as nationalism etc etc another view very influential argues that China is an identity state right a focus on aspects of Chinese identity to explain how China acts as an international actor in the system David Kong's argument from United States University of Southern California argues that identity is the key to understand why Asian states have actually accommodated China's rise now this book came out in 2007 and since then obviously I'd argue his findings and claims need to be taken with some measure of salt really he has a predicted that there would be accommodation of China's rise right among regional states he argues that there's actually very low perceptions of threat of China's rise in the international system and Asia more generally this concept actually of identity sounds plausible but actually in terms of I think where academic analysis can help the more you unpack identity the tougher it becomes to be convinced of this right even if you look at yourself as Australians and myself as a Kiwi now what part of identity do you talk about is it the identity from the 19th century is it the present identity is it Australia's identity in the 21st century is a multicultural nation how has identity transformed over time these things are very complex right now I don't think that we've actually come to firm and hard conclusions right and the same goes for Chinese identity we really need to interrogate this concept rather than accept it definitively as an issue and in fact when you look at some of this analysis advanced by academics when you look at identity it's very hard to kind of piece it together quite coherently in terms of understanding Chinese form policy right so Kong to get a bit more kind of clear about it he talks about identity causing relatively benign view of China's rise to occur in the region and in fact we know actually empirically over the last four or five years that actually is not what's happening there are very kind of severe and high levels of threat right he cannot explain the high level of conflict that's actually going on in the region right so it just kind of indicates to us he was writing his book at a time when it seemed like China's rise was relatively peaceful he can explain that but he can't explain the corresponding conflict that has occurred in later years right so identity can't really do what's demanded of it basically there's weak evidence in effect which is key in terms of social science research right another view is that China is a social state that is amenable to kind of counter real-quality counter realist processes right in this respect Johnston talks about how Chinese participation in international institutions such as the East Asian forum the ASEAN regional forum has actually socialized China right Chinese diplomats by participating in these institutions get socialized to the kind of Asian way or trying to deal with conflict in a way that doesn't escalate conflict right so therefore the advice would be get China into institutions talk to them deal with them constructively and a more kind of peaceful rise will occur right there will be a convergence of preferences in this view right common beliefs will emerge he talks about microprocesses of mimicking social influence and persuasion that get activated among diplomats right in fact however that's relatively weak evidence for these claims what do I mean if you actually look at Chinese behavior at international institutions such as the Copenhagen climate change summit and you can ask Kevin Rudd about this he was infuriated with the Chinese behavior as you may have read in the newspapers at the time and this actually carries on into the East Asian summit China's conflict with the Japanese have played out in these summit meetings in full view of all the Asian states in the ASEAN meetings the same thing has happened too right just to get a little more specific about this at the 2012 ASEAN summit in June and November China basically practiced great power politics there's no two ways about it right this occurred very clearly all the states were quite a prize of what was going on and in the face of this what has happened is that ASEAN's consensus model has broken down right so we really have to ask ourselves if these other models don't explain what does and I would argue that actually what we're seeing now in the international system with China's rise in Asia and also with Russia in Europe is actually a return to a different era in some senses it's kind of going back to history right we're seeing the reemergence of great power politics real politics in the old fashion has come back right now this would be a great surprise a lot of academics who've actually thought that real politics needs to be thrown in dustbin of history but I would argue and I present with evidence that actually there's a lot to kind of go for this realist perspective on international politics what I'm basically advancing is neorealism as a theory of foreign policy it's a dominant perspective in the realist understanding of international politics Colin Elman is one of the kind of key academics in that respect so I'm arguing that if you use basic realist concepts you can understand what China is doing in Asia and more generally in the international system China like great powers before is seeking to maximize its security it has interest it has a sphere of influence in East Asia that has existed for hundreds of years and in fact for the last hundred and fifty years or so China has been relatively weak and therefore was not able to exercise its interest to the full degree that it has intended right so what we see as China has been rising over the last few years is that you get some degree of conflict and you get balancing dynamics occurring in the sense that regional states are reacting to China and you get the activation of what's called the security dilemma right as a concept that argues that states seek to advance the interest they seek to maximize their security other states also seek to do the same thing and then you get a kind of spiral effect occurring in the international system right that's exactly what's going on in Asia in the current period of time in terms of cooperation moving forward great power policies which suggests that great powers those with greater material capabilities and deep foreign policy interest in specific issues will seek to actually get their way right so with the recent developments in the South China Sea that's actually what's happening right the Vietnamese are trying their best to kind of maximize their position against a strong Chinese state that is equally intent on maximizing its security interest and no surprise who seems to be winning right at the same time some of you in the audience might say well this sounds like great theory but where's the history and as a China's foreign policy specialist I want to argue that yes we need error studies understanding and we need a deep understanding right theory doesn't explain everything you need to have error studies knowledge to understand the exceptions to theory because states do sometimes act in ways that are strange what do I mean the current era we live in is one of us dominance in academic terms is known as unipolarity right during the Cold War we had bipolarity the Soviets and the US if you use pure logic the Russians and the Chinese should be balancing against the United States but that actually doesn't seem to be occurring a big reason for this has to do with the Cold War where the Soviets and the Chinese had an alliance but they had a massive falling out right and as a result if you look from the historical lens you can begin to understand why it doesn't really make sense for the Russians and the Chinese to gang up again against the United States because they still have that legacy in fact I got a taste of this when I first went to China in 1995 because they looked at me and they said because I could speak Mandarin and they said okay you must be Russian I said no I'm from Singapore my dad's ethnic Chinese and I start talking to them in Mandarin and then they're your best friend right so you know a little bit of a human touch but I think we need to emphasize language studies if you want to connect with the Chinese if you want the 21st century not to be about doom and gloom we need to connect we need to engage with the Chinese it may be true that some degree of security conflict security maximization based conflict will occur that's quite inevitable it's understandable but at the same time there's a role for human agency and diplomacy in this that's why I'm not doom and gloom I understand that security concerns will occur but there's a role for diplomacy in mitigating that picture right okay since 2009 China has been largely reactive revisionist to varying degrees and not particularly skillful in its diplomacy right in if you look at these various issues South China Sea Japan's North Korea policy China has been relatively reactive and revisionist right now that's actually not much of a surprise but I would argue that if you really want to understand what's going on in international relations in Asia over the last four five years you also need to give agency to the other actors in the system and in Asia in particular the Vietnamese the Japanese the Philippines have their own interests which they are seeking to push the Vietnamese Chinese dispute in respect of South China Sea has kick started again in respect of the parasol islands because the Vietnamese disagree with what has happened in the history in respect to 1974 that's when the Chinese basically took over the parasol islands and therefore the Chinese feel that they are entitled to actually drill for oil Vietnamese take a different view and as a result we get conflict that's erupted over the last few weeks in particular with the oil rig issue right which you've heard about in the press right if the Vietnamese had chosen not to push this issue you'd have no conflict right very simple but the Vietnamese have chosen to stake out a stand on this issue and we get some degree of conflict erupting you get riots within Vietnam as you would have heard in the press right the Philippines has been trying its best to get the United States involved in the South China Sea disputes that it has with China right the Japan Japanese in each China Sea are also seeking to actually get the United States more involved right that's why a evolving and very interesting piece of research that really needs to be pushed moving forward it's actually not just China's rise and implications of that but also how the United States manages its alliance relationships in East Asia that is the other part of a very interesting picture as the kind of region moves forward and you can't just study Chinese form policy and say that's the end of Asian IR no you need to look at the other side which is how the United States as the key anchor in the region manages its alliance relationships the stability of Asia has got to do with more than just China's behavior it's going to also have to do or be an outcome of and a function of how the regional states respond to China's rise so it's really kind of a big jigsaw puzzle where multiple players will actually have a role to play in the stability of the international system in this respect my concern is also with the leadership or lack thereof exercise by the United States under Obama administration right US foreign policy in East Asia is too often being distracted by events in other parts of the world that are of understandably of immediate and drastic concern to it but at the same time it risks neglecting the region right so I would say as a result of some of these discussions I've had with regional academics that there is a perception that the United States is actually not really pulling its weight in respect to alliance management right what that means is United States actually needs exercise a leadership role in its alliance relationship with the Japanese that Japanese cannot always get what they want if they take a hard line against the Chinese and push the boundaries of the East China see disputes the United States has a role in mitigating kind of the aggressive stance adopted by the Japanese at times right so it's quite a tough job I have to say but a necessary one how we doing on time okay another five minutes okay part of my research looked at Sino-Japanese relations but at the same time I'd like to point out that equally important moving forward is actually looking at the Chinese relationship with ASEAN and also surprisingly enough also the Chinese relationship with North Korea right so this will all be explored in the working paper that is that's published by ANU National Security College but what I'm going to give you because of the kind of shortage of time it's just kind of run through the Sino-Japanese relationship right and if we can we'll talk about the other relationships in the Q&A okay Sino-Japanese relations China's played a prominent role in escalating conflict there's no doubt but one of the interesting things that emerges when you talk to Chinese academics is that they don't necessarily seem to see themselves as being very aggressive now what is the Chinese view then Chinese view is that they're responding to moves that have been taken by the Japanese right so for example the Senkaku disputes in 2012 if you look at it kind of coldly it was basically the nationalization of the Senkaku Islands that really was the catalyst that caused the Chinese to react right so it was an action on the Japanese side that really changed the status quo the Chinese are right on that right the Japanese altered the status quo now we may understand why they altered the status quo but that doesn't change the fact that it was the Japanese that altered the status quo right so as a result you had a process that was activated where you get intense conflict between the Chinese and the Japanese so that's why I say the Japanese have agency in this in this broad picture too and also another question that emerges is where is the United States in this picture because it's not sufficient to just look at the Chinese and the Japanese and lament the deterioration in regional stability we also have to look at the United States role because the United States has since 1945 if not before played a major role in the stability of the region right so whenever you have heightened instability one question to ask yourself is where's the United States in all of this right three episodes in in recent years for 2010 the Chinese fishing boat incident August to September 2012 the Senkaku Daoyutai Islands again in November 2012 you get the Xi Jinping regime coming in new leadership for a while it was suspected that perhaps we might get a stabilization but actually what we have is a converse right you get escalation of Sino-Japanese relations okay I'm actually going to go quickly to the Xi Jinping transition because that's actually dealing with more recent events right really kick starts in December 2012 right where you get Japanese fighters being scrambled intercept a Chinese maritime surveillance aircraft that was fine flying over the disputed Daoyutai Islands you get a kind of action reaction cycle that's been going on the Japanese Defense Minister claimed that a PLA naval vessel activated missile guidance system and painted a Japanese maritime force vessel basically targeting it right giving a clear signal that it could be shot down if if required right Japanese Defense Minister was quite explicit he considered that threat to use force which would have potentially escalated if it actually came about now one of the things that has intrigued researchers is the perception that perhaps the Chinese themselves are rather disorganized and perhaps less than a truly rational actor in a sense that they have multiple agencies that deal with these territorial disputes right and that is true if you look at the Chinese bureaucracy there are multiple region multiple agencies that deal with this regional dispute right now what's interesting with the Xi Jinping regime is that he came in after this apparent lack of organization to some extent so in a sense of the test case of him asserting control and yet the same time we see there's a clear escalation occurring in Sino-Japanese relations so the reason for the escalation in Sino-Japanese relations and conflict in that relationship cannot be necessarily due to this organization because one thing we know is that Xi Jinping has begun to consolidate his power in respect to the military right more recently you would have heard of the air defense identification zone issue right China has declared an ADIZ over the East China Sea as a 50% overlap between China's ADIZ and Japan's ADIZ this declaration came after Xi Jinping assumed the mantle of leadership it is a policy that he owns and therefore there's no doubt that the Chinese are now pressing the Japanese right the Japanese may have started this issue but the Chinese are now pressing this issue and it's very clear that they're sticking out a claim right so the United States has been dragged into this belatedly and responded to the ADIZ announcement by basically challenging the declaration and flying through two B-52 bombers Seoul and Tokyo followed suit with their sorties now moving forward this is probably a watershed moment in regional IR and if there's going to be conflict this would be an issue to kind of pay close attention to because this is one of the events that if you kind of trace it back in terms of last 20 years of Sino-Japanese relations this is a clear incident where the Chinese have decided to take their claim right and in respect to the Japanese if anything is actually caused the Japanese to adopt an even more hard line right and even since then have kind of suggested this right the Americans have definitely taken a relatively tough line in respect to this of course the skeptics among you may say that this is all words and what's actually occurring on the ground is more important now I talked about how moving forward and looking at Asian IR we really need to look at more than just China and if you look at the Japanese side of things the Abe government has not actually covered itself in glory in in respect to this event Abe made a visit to the Yashizumi Shrine on 26 December 2013 that has been a catalyst in the escalation in Sino-Japanese relations too right it led to a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman taking the unusual step of directly criticizing Abe for honoring fascist and the Nazis of Asia so this is really serious stuff right interestingly enough quote from the US side an unnamed US official observed that Abe's Yashizumi Shrine visit made US China diplomacy quote-unquote useless right so I think this brings home this point about how great powers have a large say in how regional relations work out but at the same time Alliance partners also have an important agency role in the trajectory of Asian IR right okay I think we have a lot of ground to cover more but unfortunately I don't have time and I think I'll leave it to the Q&A session to kind of flesh out some of the more detailed issues that may come up in respect to questions Gideh Timmy Hogan you you didn't have a time to talk about ASEAN but I just wanted to get your thoughts on ways ASEAN could deal with issues territorial issues around the South China Sea there's lots of territorial disputes not only with China and Japan but also a lot of countries in that group and I just wanted to hear your thoughts yes if anything the emerging threat that the ASEAN states feel in respect to China is actually causing them to actually cooperate a little bit more so Indonesian Philippines recently reached some kind of agreement to kind of shell their own dispute and actually they enter into negotiations so to me that's not such a big issue right it's it's a relatively minor issue that can be settled with enough time focus and energy so I'm not too particularly concerned with with that because I think that fundamentally when you're dealing with ASEAN the states are in an institution they've been at these discussions with themselves over multiple issues for over 40 years right so they have that habit of dialogue to settle disputes the interesting thing with ASEAN is that they many times agree to disagree they may not be able to settle an issue this year although they carry on talking and that's actually what we want and hope that perhaps the Chinese and the Japanese can adopt a similar attitude now of course straight away it's a whole different question right once you're talking about Japan and China in respects to territorial disputes because there's a degree of antagonism that doesn't exist between any particular ASEAN state right in respect to territorial disputes so it's it's kind of hard to actually compare Sino-Japanese relations with any particular ASEAN relationship but hopefully that's that's possible with enough diplomacy on the Chinese and the Japanese side however at this point in time we're not at that point right so it will be a situation which will require a lot of effort on the part of the Chinese and the Japanese right it there needs to be a will for that to be a way does that help to answer a little bit thank you very much for the very interesting presentations I'm high I'm from the strategic and defense studies center at NU here and I will be convinced by your argument that China is in your real estate and that we see in the in throughout the history that China behavior is really indicating of the the third four for you know the recognition of its power in the region but I may disagree with your your your assessment in the South China Sea situation that China is a reactive to other country I mean other country I think I mean it's very difficult to point out what what what is a beginning of the new the cycle of action and reactions but clearly we see that in the interest I mean first one is it what do you expect that Vietnam should you know respond if China use force to expel you know Vietnamese force out of the Paracels island and in 1974 so definitely it have to it help a voice to have to voice its opposition to that kind of actions and it has not really relinquish you know the the claim to the the islands and definitely it helps you know to say there and also if we look into the change of action or reaction in the South China Sea I think the smaller country have very little incentive to poke China and to I mean and if you look at you know this or recently you know that two matter here first one is a because it's the international law the unclos and the oil rig is beyond the beyond the Paracels islands you know territorial sea right and of course let alone that the islands are disputed and China accept that is a disputed area but it's been put in the oil rig that that is a provocation right and also the second and I think it's better to to point out I mean it's it's very hard to is it deep level of the the international law here the unclos and whether China will accept that or not thank you thank you okay there was a lot packed into there I will I will I'll actually point to the something you didn't mention which is that I think in the midst of all these specific problems and issues you're talking about you're right action reaction it really depends on where you start measuring what's the action what's the reaction and the Chinese themselves will go back to 1951 and they will say the problem started there you know who's to argue who's starting point is the right starting point right and in respect to this particular presentation I'm talking about much more recent starting point right so that's a good point of clarification at the end of the day though it's actually the United States that is probably going to be the one that really makes the difference on whether these issues get resolved or not right Vietnam understands that it's not going to be able to thwart the Chinese right you're gonna need a balancer the Chinese respect power what's the stronger power than Vietnam it's not ASEAN is the United States that's why the regional situation hinges on an active and positive role played by the United States right not a role whereby the United States comes in and does not behave responsibly and in a way that's constructive right but in a way in which it quietly tells the Chinese that the United States has a deep interest in the stability of the region since 1945 the United States has expanded blood and treasure for the stability of the Asia Pacific region I see no reason why the Obama administration would actually want to pull back from that position having said that we understand broader developments in the international system have caused it to be distracted but Asia is too important to allow United States destruction causes instability because at the end of the day when the United States does not pay attention to Asia regional developments can actually work against US interests and I think we've seen that in the last four or five years in the region so I'm pointing to a positive and significant US role in resolving these disputes now the mechanics obviously need to be worked out but I would say key to answering the stability question of Asia lies in active and engaged US Dr. Kudovic going it strikes me the really catalytic moment in China's relationship with Asia particularly the United States is at Taiwan straits crisis and at that point the United States could react forcefully and extremely effectively the Chinese didn't even have a response quite intelligently for their own security interests have developed a very effective response probably now no one's ever put it to the test and I hope they never do but this has made the stakes for both sides much higher in any confrontation and so you know that probably explains in large part of the US hesitance and the specific follow-up question would be okay you know your neo-realist views says well you know crisis can be managed by diplomacy but if you keep rolling the dice sometimes bad dice are going to come up and I just don't see how this can be resolved short of a surrender by Asia to China or war well that that's kind of grounded down in in a discussion on the Taiwan issue right because that's how the question evolved right it was started up if you look at the Taiwan issue notice that the talk today was not about Taiwan talk today was about South China Sea Sino-Japanese relation that issue has actually been taken off the front burner and put to the back burner right which is very interesting particularly since we had this crisis in 95 96 also interestingly enough Taiwan as a society has gone through a really kind of deep transition you get the emergence of very democratic forces within the country and yet at the same time they've undermined you they've been able to actually reach a sort of modus vivendi with the Chinese and that's why we don't hear a lot of about instability in the cross-strait relations so I think when I talk about agency in respect to regional states actually playing a positive role Taiwan and China actually have managed to work out some kind of relationship that's actually been relatively stable if you go back to 1979 when they had the when the United States had the Taiwan Relations Act which by the way is still in force and in fact is one of the key reasons why you have stability in the cross-strait relations right the United States in the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 has stated very clearly that it maintains a deep interest in a stable and peaceful resolution of the Taiwan Straits issue and therefore that actually only reinforces the need for an active US presence in the region and in fact 1995 96 highlighted exactly that point that you needed and engage United States to have a stable Taiwan Straits relationship so I think I'm quite encouraged by the fact that the Chinese and the Taiwanese have been able to maintain a relatively beneficial relationship now we have direct flights between China and Taiwan that didn't exist 20 years ago so there's actually a fair degree of optimism that can emerge out of looking from the cross-strait relationship Ben Smith is my name look I'm wondering if you've looked to Dr. I'm sure you have actually of America's actions against China ever since the founding of the Republic of China you know that in 1950 51 a man called Dean Rusk United States undersecretary state far East New Jersey subsequent US Secretary said the Chinese revolution but not China is at all it's in his speech and vital features of the fact in fact it was a Moscow plot the United States kept China out of out of the United Nations years saying they're a legal state not a fit and proper a state they also in truth in early 1951 did not discount the possibility of dropping an atom bomb on China and doing the various Taiwan crisis you know and we had the unedifying experience of Kissinger and Nixon asking on China's backdoor step what good with dropping an atom bomb on Vietnam so there's a whole lot of differences here that the Chinese can see that the Americans are armed at Japan so there are all sorts of backdrops for the war in Korea the Chinese can you bring it to a question yeah thank you I'm using this as a backdrop the Chinese and the Americans were fighting in Vietnam so there's a very deep suspicion on the part of the Chinese comments against the United States do you like to comment yeah I don't doubt that there is suspicion on both sides that's the nature of great power politics you know trust or rather you need to verify before you start going to a trusting relationship with any state so I think you know let's not kid ourselves the the Chinese in the US are all very grown up they understand they that we all live in a world where states seek their national interests it's relatively selfish but at the same time they both are wise enough to know that they are the states that actually are responsible for stability in the region if not the world if China really does emerge as a second poll in the system I don't necessarily see why these specific incidents of history would necessarily cause the US not to actually engage in a positive relationship with China after all they're already in a significant and deep economic relationship despite all this history that's been cited they are each other's top three training partner despite this history so history goes so far in explaining why certain things may or may not occur but at the same time you you know we move on right we move on into a new era and there are number of events and issues that have emerged in the recent past which suggests that actually United States and China can get along so I'm I try to see my history in a certain perspective and you know try and accommodate it to the kind of evolving realities in international politics not least globalization thank you very much for your talk very interesting I've got two small questions for you one is mentioned before about how there was this potential internal confusion within side the Chinese leadership I'm wondering would you also perhaps agree with that with the US administration there was a establishment of the what's called the air sea battle office relatively recently and there has been a raging debate over whether it's aimed specifically at China or whether it was a more of a you know inter-force disciplinary kind of move that's like I guess the first question do you believe that those kind of there's been a lot of talk about you know the repositioning the pivot to Asia you know has that actually been happening under by administration as much as they would claim it's been happening the other thing too was and it was interesting you mentioned a little bit about history repeating itself was the idea perhaps possibly with a to AD technology being potentially floated as an idea of almost like a lead and lease program to Vietnam or Philippines or other US allies as a cost-effective way of sure you've got your anti you know air defense identification zone but you can't enter it to exploit the resources we've got our missiles as well so do you see that as a possibility as well that the US might be venturing towards the developments you're talking about as he battle and a to AD and the access aerodinial capabilities that developing the region are a source for concern that there's that that's actually very good that you pointed out Americans adopting a relatively let's be blunt about it it's quite a proactive potentially actually destabilizing development now they would say they're responding to Chinese actions right in his back in respect to development of technology and in particular missile technology so there's clearly some kind of action reaction cycle beginning to emerge on the technology military technology front and moving forward that needs to be looked at very closely but at the same time that is the technology aspect of it one actually causes competition in technology to to intensify or not has to do with politics so that's why we need to look at the politics and what's going on in the region states react in terms of their technology purchases to politics and what you're talking about is a reflection of the deteriorating regional political environment could you please clarify exact clarifies that exactly what when you say that's China's following a neo realist farm policy could you please clarify what are the three main assumptions you are making when you're okay when you set that premise because if one looks at bought soon near near realism that I bought doesn't this that doesn't necessarily believe in applying the realism to foreign policy what I get bought is neat near realism it's primarily at least systemic so can you just clarify what the three men is something sometimes you're making when you believe that China's follow it's following these present court course of actions Chinese form policies occurring in a context which is an article there's no world government so this we're getting a bit theoretical about this China's primarily a security maximizing state therefore our concern should be with the concept of security dilemma which I talked a little bit about so that's three aspects it's a very helpful intervention your part because as you know with neo realist you get the offensive version under Mersheimer and you get the waltzian version I'm advancing a waltzian type version and I'm talking the reason why I mentioned Colin Elmer and Colin Elmer is because he talked about how you can use neo realism as a theory of form policy which is basically what I'm using you check out his security studies article 1996 that but isn't this resulting in a rather overly some simplistic understanding and I'm sure removed but by trying to present a very simple scientific scientific understanding of China's foreign policy aren't you aren't you removing the nuance and the and the historical ideation normative context which is inevitably played whenever you you see China as both an actor and as an actor and and the way in which China China behaves in international society true that's why I talk about the need to respect history which I picked off the history but what was can take any position he wants but I as a neo realist who studies Chinese form policy and and also you know took the trouble to learn the Chinese language have to believe that you need to respect Chinese history and I think if you look at Chinese history you can make a case I think a rather strong one that they have been a security maximizer along the kind of waltzian premise of states maximizing their security now what is the alternative to taking a not taking a theoretical approach it will be a an approach that is a theoretical and you know I'd say good luck with that and I think that as I started out and kicked off you need to understand the world through some kind of lens and we do so whether we say we do or not thank you spirit of the country or this one time over I just have a question I'm looking at China's rise in the Asian region in the world and that power transition like I was with it and my question is do you think China within that context will be able to build and lead to alliances similar to NATO or Western Union or any other kind of or whether that transition will be an illateral assumption of hegemony excellent question one of the Achilles heel in Chinese form policy in the contemporary international system is the relatively small number of states that ally with it now states will trade with China some of the research that I did for this paper suggested that in 2011 97 states in this system were either China's number one or number two trading partner that figures actually gone up yet at the same time we'd be hard-pressed to identify formal alliances that China has with states as opposed to the United States United States has a network of alliances in Asia alone this is a tremendous source of power that United States has in the region and I would argue that the alliance system actually serves as a mechanism to actually solidify the stability of the system now this is not without any caveats because as I pointed out United States therefore needs to manage its alliances very well but at the same time I think the history since 1945 or the region has shown that alliances have stabilized the system in East Asia so moving forward you know that's an excellent question what it does mean therefore in more kind of specific terms if the Chinese want to balance US power what do they do they don't have alliances right alliances are used to balance the power of other states it means therefore the Chinese have to rely on what's called internal balancing which is basically bolstering their own military capabilities and their economy so moving forward I would say if I were a strategist in Beijing I'd work to develop alliances and that would be something to look at moving forward thanks thanks for that question now I think we've got time for a couple of more questions Nick this is all your fault this is what happens when you warm an audience up we had we had one here and maybe one of a couple more one there and then one there obviously from your presentation the centrality of the role of the United States in the whole region is key what do you think will be the effect of the United States getting distracted in other strategic scenarios like the one emerging now in Eastern Europe again and the Middle East excellent question I'm involved in track two discussions for the Asia New Zealand Foundation and we've had discussions with colleagues Japan Vietnam India other countries in the region and one of the interesting things that's come out of these discussions is how concerned some of these states and I won't go beyond that at how they perceive the United States is so distracted by the Middle East that it's not paying attention to developments in the region and allowing instability to faster and escalate and you know sure the United States eventually comes in and intervenes but way too late in Asia so therefore for example this situation with Sino-Japanese relations I can see how a Japanese perspective would be that United States isn't paying enough attention to our security and then it comes in the last minute and after our Prime Minister visits the shrine and effectively you know tries to actually accrucize us right albeit behind the scenes so there's interlinkage between international relations of the Middle East and the international relations of East Asia very important linkage that we need to pay more attention to and I'd say that from the Obama administration's perspective this is probably one of the key issues they need to pay attention because it's not good enough that you have two major regions of the world that are destabilized thank you very much and not to leaving too much international politics in Europe you mentioned your presentation the speaking of speaking of the great powers in different different regions you mentioned Russia in Europe and China in Asia it one it might be a bit misleading having in keeping in mind that it was a different history especially in 80s and 90s both in Soviet Union and Russia and in China and there was a different kind of a kind of a background on these two countries and their weight is different geopolitical economic economic weight of Russia in Europe is much different in the Chinese way in Asia and I would I would like to ask you the question on this bilateral relations between China and Russia as there is a kind of maybe not alliances as you said China is not having an alliance but the closer relationship between these two countries how do you see the development of these relations in the future also in the context of balancing the US power US in the in the in the Asian Asian region one of the interesting questions which I actually mentioned before is if you look at it in pure power terms why haven't the Chinese and the Russians got together to reestablish the alliance they had during the Cold War or some kind of other type of relationship close relationship to balance against the United States they clearly are fed up with US intervention in their affairs I think we can agree right on multiple issues they disagree with the United States and they see eye-to-eye on a number of issues but at the same time I think history this is where history matters the the psychological damage done to the Chinese Russian relationship as a result of the breaking apart of the alliance in the late 50s early 60s is a big factor why they don't actually establish an alliance relationship now history explains part of that but also you need to look at geography in in the present day on geographical reasons although you could suspect that there will be some degree of tension between China and Russia right so in terms of history and in strategy the fact that two states share a common border pretty much guarantees that there will be some degree of suspicion the reason why United States is not raising the hackles of a lot more states in the international system is that in the post-co-war era is that geographically United States is far away from many states unless you're Mexico or Canada you know in terms of geographic terms you're not too concerned about the United States but whenever you share a border with another state then you you are concerned right so in terms of history and geography I can explain why Russia and China have some degree of a close relationship but at the same time their limits to that relationship does it help to answer the question how they may manage to well I don't think they're balancing together against against the United States in Asia I think the Chinese are doing that on themselves they're not the Chinese are certainly not depending on the Russians to balance against the United States in Asia right now I've read some press reports that recently the Russians have begun to express an interest in in Asia and taking on a greater role in Asian security right after all they are part of the six-party talks with North Korea but interestingly enough the Chinese are quite suspicious of the Russians taking a more active role in Asia so moving forward you know that actually may be something United States want to think about Paul Hubbard here a student at the ANU I just got a question about policy implications and China may not be a trading nation in the definition that you've used but Australia and New Zealand probably are and we're lucky enough not to share a land border in Asia the Treasurer and Trade Minister in China at the moment I mean should they be arguing for anything other than maximization of Australia's economic interests can we afford just to leave the great power politics to the great powers the the question is not can Australia choose to kind of leave out the great power politics aspect of it because that will come eventually through the Chinese emphasizing it right so it's not a case of Australia having a choice or not if events or situations develop the point where they get so intense it will be surprising if you don't get a situation whereby the Chinese and say some other power the United States are states to choose sides now the key then is not to allow the situation to get to that point where states start asking other states to choose sides because that's back to Cold War stuff like the 70s and 80s right so that places a premium on wise and effective diplomacy now before we get to a crisis situation but at the same time I would point out there is an interesting phenomenon that's going on in the region which is states that are deeply engaged economically in trade are also highly suspicious of each other in security terms so there is a divergence right in Europe you have I think a much better situation where states that trade with each other also have quite deep security ties so for example true NATO in Asia is actually the opposite so that's a very interesting kind of contrast thank you Nick I don't think we've exhausted the speak the questions we haven't exhausted the topic we may have exhausted our speaker I think perhaps we should call it quits I'd like to remind you that the talk will be on the web so please have a look for that and I'd like also to invite you to look at our website to look at our forthcoming talks they're well advertised and we'd certainly like to see you back again hopefully on a on a night that's not quite so grim as it was as it's been tonight and I'd like you to join me in in thanking Nick for a talk that was refreshing it was very clear and might I even dare to suggest that it was realistic