 Good morning everybody and welcome to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. I'm Andrew Schwartz, I'm our Vice President for External Relations here at CSIS, and I'm joined by my colleagues, Dr. Mike Green, Nix and Cheney and Bonnie Glazer, who are all terrific Asia experts as you know. And I should also say that nobody here tested positive for steroids in 2003. And everything's, you know, okay. We don't, but we're just going to go with that. Without further ado, I'm going to pass it over to my colleague, Dr. Green, who's going to give you sort of an overall picture of what's going on, and then we're going to circle back and talk about some of the regional issues. So with that, Mike. Thank you. I'm going to try to provide an overview. Secretary Clinton's trip to Asia, some of the themes to look for, and I'll focus in particular on the Korea and Indonesia stops, because Nix and Cheney and CSIS Japan share to my right will say more about Japan, and Bonnie Glazer will say a bit more about China. I had an opportunity to have a dinner with Secretary Clinton last Thursday. She invited seven outside experts on Asia to talk about the trip. I was the only former Bush and McCain advisor, and I was pleased when I got to the dinner to find that I was not actually on the menu. I found her, they obviously didn't want us to talk about it in great detail. It was mostly us giving advice and our impressions of the region. But I have to say I found Hillary Clinton very well informed, very focused, very strategic in her thinking. And I've been impressed with the people who are reportedly going to be nominated for key positions on Asia, like Kurt Campbell, formerly of CSIS for the Assistant Secretary job covering the region, or Chip Gregson at the Pentagon, former Marine Commander of U.S. Pacific Forces, and at the NSC, Jeff Bader, all very capable and strategic thinkers. And I also have to say I was very impressed that Secretary Clinton chose Asia as her first trip. You may have seen in the Washington Post and Al Cayman's column, I think it was yesterday, he listed all the previous secretaries going back I think to Warren Christopher and said that she was the first secretary since Warren Christopher to make Asia the first destination of the new administration. But actually you have to go all the way back to Dean Rusk, who went to Thailand during the Kennedy administration to find the last time that the fact the first time that a U.S. Secretary of State went to Asia. So the fact that Hillary Clinton is making Asia her first stop is very important in signaling to the region U.S. commitment and in focusing the State Department and the U.S. government on the challenges and opportunities there. We face immediate pressing problems with the financial crisis and the Middle East requires in Iraq, Afghanistan, with Iran hard choices and almost a weekly sense of crisis. But in the longer sweep of history historians will judge this administration and our generation on how we managed the shift of power from the West to the East and the rise of China and India and the growing confidence and activism of countries like Indonesia, Japan, and Korea. And I think historians will look back at this as a very important signal to the region. The U.S. position overall in Asia is quite strong. The Chicago Council on Global Affairs did a survey in Asia in five countries on soft power and soft power is a very popular phrase now and the general assumption is that the U.S. has lost soft power in the world. The U.S. Council conducted a major survey in Japan, Korea, China, the U.S. and Indonesia to see how soft power measured up and they asked well-considered questions about diplomatic influence, cultural economic and military, and all the different aspects of what you might consider soft power. They hired a well-known China expert to write the final report because they expected China has the most soft power in Asia and that it would be important to explain why that was. But when the numbers came in, what they found, and this was done over the summer, what they found was that in every category in Asia, the U.S. came in number one in the view of Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, and Indonesians, diplomatic, cultural, every aspect of the U.S. came in number one. Japan in almost every aspect came in number two and China was number three. So Secretary Clinton goes back to Asia with an environment that is favorably disposed to the United States in general. We did a survey ourselves at CSIS in September and October and we chose over 300 elites across nine countries in Asia. People who were involved in foreign affairs and strategic thinking in their countries. And we found that on average across the region there was a strong expectation that in ten years China would be more powerful than the United States in Asia. Even among American experts, that was a prevailing view. But when we asked across the region the question of which country poses the greatest threat potentially to peace and stability, China also came in number one by a rather large margin. And particularly in countries close to China like Korea. And then the old ghostbuster question, who you going to call? What country is going to be the most important force for peace and stability in Asia? The U.S. overwhelmingly came in number one. So this sort of reinforced some of the findings in the soft power poll over the summer and suggests that while China's power is clearly growing in the eyes of strategic thinkers in the region, that doesn't make the U.S. less important. In some ways it makes us more important. And I will now do a little bit of product placement. We are releasing our survey and doing a full report and press conference right in the middle of the Secretary's trip. It's February 18th, excuse me, February 17th. Thank you. February 17th, which is next Tuesday at 10 o'clock here at CSIS. And we asked a lot of questions in the survey and got a lot of very interesting results. One of the other things I will use as a teaser is, when we asked what the most important priorities in Asia should be in 10 years in terms of regional integration, the number one answer was preventing war and building confidence. About 98% said that. Number two was trade integration. And number three was promoting good governance. Number four was human governance. And number five was free and fair elections. And even among the Chinese experts, over 50% said that in 10 years promoting free and fair elections should be a goal for Asia as a region. So I think it shows not only that the U.S. is valued in the region for our contributions to peace and stability, because people are uncertain about China, but it shows a remarkable degree of support for what we might consider global values like human rights. Now, there's a lot of other stuff in the poll that would suggest that the U.S. has to be very careful about not having a heavy handed approach. A lot of the regional experts said they value sovereignty, they don't like being bossed around. So subtlety and humility would be the watch words. But we have a pretty good hand to play in Asia. I think the big themes to look for broadly on this trip are first and foremost the financial crisis. I suspect, I think that the Secretary of State is going to lead with a certain amount of humility. This is not like the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis. When the U.S. was up and Asia was down. Where we were arguing that our Washington consensus, our economic model was right, and crony capitalism in Asia was wrong. This time the crisis started in the U.S. market. And I think that it's appropriate for our officials and I think this is the tone the Secretary will set to make it clear that we have problems we have to fix. And in part that's possible because there is no alternate model. There is no Beijing consensus. No one's out there saying corruption and poor governance and lack of transparency is the way to go. We all are sort of stuck in this together and collectively have to make the changes to get out. Second theme broadly I think will be climate change. I understand the Secretary of State will be bringing her climate negotiator with her. The U.S. is going to clearly put a lot of emphasis on climate in the overall relationship with China. Whether we can pass a cap and trade bill in our Congress this year will be an important variable in how much we can get the Chinese to do. But I think it tends to begin that dialogue on this trip. Although it was not mentioned in the State Department briefing on the trip a lot of you picked up on North Korea as a third major theme how we're going to try to get the negotiations back on track. Her first stop is Japan and I think that that's an important signal. Nick is going to say more about what's going on in Japan but Hillary Clinton was a candidate for president. She like the other candidates published a foreign policy vision in foreign affairs and it was not well received in Japan because it had a line in it saying the most important bilateral relationship in the future is the U.S.-China relationship. Boy if you want to get the Japanese public and the Japanese government unhappy that's how you do it. She has corrected and backtracked and adjusted quite effectively and in her testimony when she was going up for confirmation hearing she started on Asia by saying that the cornerstone of our Asia strategy is our alliance with Japan which played very well. And of course her first stop in the region is Japan so I think she's gone a long way towards correcting concerns in Tokyo about what is sometimes called Japan passing. A fear that Democrats in particular will do what Bill Clinton did 10 years ago which is travel to Asia, skip Japan, spend over a week in China and then in his press conference criticize the Japanese with Jiang Zemin or Zhu Rongji standing by his side. I think the Democratic party has learned that's a mistake and she's clearly signaling that the strategy begins in Japan. So the fears of abandonment or Japan passing may have passed but the question now in Tokyo is can Japan deliver and I'll let Nick say more about the rather complicated political scene there. In Korea President Lee Myung Buk is under a great deal of pressure that Korean economy is in rather desperate shape, worse shape than Japan or China or the US in terms of the collapse of exports and the banking crisis. And to make things even more difficult for President Lee the North Koreans have chosen the past month to open up an extremely belligerent salvo of criticism and threats. They have abrogated the 1990, early 1990s agreements on denuclearization and confidence building with South Korea. They have threatened repeatedly to go on a more aggressive footing. Intelligence was leaked that they are possibly preparing a tepodong to missile launch and other missile launches and of course they have refused to provide verification for their denuclearization and in so doing have brought the Six Party Talks to a screeching haul. Lee Myung Buk to his credit is saying that he will not continue transferring to the North tens of millions of dollars in fees that were begun by his predecessors essentially bribes, cash bribes that Kim Jong-il used for his own purposes and the Lee Myung Buk government has frozen those because of the North Korean intransigence on the nuclear issue and other difficulties caused by Pyongyang. And the North Korean regime is angry. So I think that it's going to be very important that the Secretary of State and the administration send a signal that they are not rushing to engage North Korea that they're first going to stand with South Korea. They're going to coordinate with both Japan and South Korea on our approach to the North. It would be extremely destabilizing and unnerving for our allies if the major headline in North Korea out of this trip was that the first priority is engaging North Korea and not sewing up our relationships with our allies and making sure we're on the same page. It's well known that Japan was unnerved by how quickly the U.S. made concessions to North Korea over the last year or two, but within the Blue House there's also great learn, particularly giving the North Koreans effort to isolate Lee Myung Buk from the left in Korea and if possible from the U.S. And it would be a mistake to play into that game. It is possible that the Secretary will announce the North Korean envoy. There are very high profile envoys for the Middle East, for Afghanistan and Pakistan in Holbrooke and Mitchell. It's going to be hard to find someone of that stature. There are some reports that Jim Leach, the former congressman from Iowa, might do the job, but it's going to be a thankless job in some ways because the North Koreans have showed their cards. They've declared that they are a nuclear weapon state and that they intend to move forward on that basis, which is simply unacceptable. Indonesia is the only Southeast Asian stop. It's a very important one to watch. Obviously, Barack Obama grew up in Indonesia. I am told by Indonesian diplomats he can still speak a little bit, not much, but he kind of remembers the greetings and small talk. He's hugely popular in Indonesia for obvious reasons. And Indonesia is a very compelling story now. A democracy that emerged from the financial crisis 10 years ago, had full elections, is developing a strong civil society, is a large Muslim nation with influence in Southeast Asia and in the broader Muslim world. And it's an important place for the Secretary to stop. And I think when Barack Obama goes to Asia for the first time later this year, it's a safe bet Indonesia will be on his itinerary as well. I think the Obama team would like to make the US-Indonesia relationship sort of the equivalent to what President Bush did with the US-India relationship. It's a transformed relationship, a new strategic partnership. I think there's a lot more we can and should do with Indonesia. It's a much more complicated case than India in some ways though. For one thing, because it is a prominently Muslim country, the relationship will always be hostage to what happens in the Middle East. We will never distance ourselves from Israel to the extent that we'd have to satisfy the Indonesian public. And so we'll always have ups and downs in the relationship and it will be affected by what happens in the Middle East and our support for Israel, which cannot and should not change. Indonesia has a very strong non-aligned history and somewhat less of a strategic ambition than India has. And within ASEAN, of course, there's going to be some jealousy and concern about a US relationship that's too close to Indonesia. We, after all, have two treaty allies, Thailand and the Philippines, and in Singapore a very strong strategic partner. And these countries' diplomats are already grumbling a little bit that the US may be falling in love with Indonesia and forgetting that when push comes to shove in international crises, it's countries like Singapore that really step up. Nevertheless, it's very important and I think a growth area for US diplomacy in East Asia. Another thing worth watching on Southeast Asia is how the US is going to handle the East Asia summit, which was started three years ago. We were not formally invited but we were told we could participate. One of the conditions, the main condition is to sign the Treaty of Amidian Cooperation with ASEAN, with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. I think there's going to be some movement to do that to open up options. Whether Barack Obama can commit to doing the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation APEC summit and the East Asia summit given everything going on in the Middle East and the financial crisis is an open question, but I think at least there's some good gestures in that direction. China's the last stop and Bonnie's going to say more about that. The one thing I would say, the interesting sort of bureaucratic inside Washington battle on China is who's going to actually run China policy. Under the Bush administration, Secretary of the Treasury Paulson kind of grabbed it with the strategic economic dialogue and now there's a great game, a great contest to see who's going to actually try to own China policy. At the end of the day, it's probably too big and complicated for anyone to own it, but I'll leave on that note and turn to Nick and then ask Bonnie. Thanks. Thanks, Mike, and thank you all for coming this morning. I'm just going to go through some of the agenda items for the Secretary's visit to Japan, talk a little bit about the domestic political situation there and how that could complicate the bilateral relationship and then conclude with some thoughts on the agenda-setting process in the next year or so. Mike mentioned earlier that the Secretary has already sent several positive signals to Japan, so she'll be arriving with a great deal of encouragement and I would say high expectations for her visit. She's expected to greet the Prime Minister, Prime Minister Asso, meet with Foreign Minister Nakasone, and perhaps some other officials as well. There are some stories floating around in the Japanese media today that she might also meet with the opposition leader Ichiro Ozawa, which would certainly be interesting if that occurs. The agenda will be very typical in the sense that it's a combination of traditional bilateral issues discussions of the region and areas in which the U.S. and Japan can cooperate globally. I'll quickly breeze through six of them and we can discuss them later in the Q&A in more detail. If you'd like, first is obviously the global response to the financial crisis. We have a G20 summit coming in April in London. There are some stories out that the Prime Minister would like to confer with President Obama prior to that summit, so it's safe to say that there will be a lot of discussion on how the U.S. and Japan can demonstrate some leadership on the international front with respect to the global economy. Second is North Korea. Mike already mentioned the challenge moving forward with the six-party talks. You can predict that Foreign Minister Nakasone will highlight two other Japanese concerns about North Korea, those being the missile threat and also the fate of Japanese abductees, citizens who are kidnapped by the North Koreans in the 70s and 80s. And I would note parenthetically that adding to Mike's list of positive signals to Japan was the Secretary's reference to the abductee issue in her first telephone conversation with Foreign Minister Nakasone that got a lot of positive press in Japan. The third issue regards the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan. The two countries signed an agreement back in 2006 on this topic, and it's been moving very slowly. Some for budgetary reasons, but also resistance in some of the local regions, especially Okinawa, and we could see some movement on this front during her visit and her meeting with the Foreign Minister. Shifting more to sort of three global issues, if you will. I think Japan's future contributions in Afghanistan will be an important subject. Japan managed, Prime Minister Asso, managed to extend a refueling mission in the Indian Ocean for a year last December, but there's been an ongoing debate about what else Japan can contribute on that front. And there could be talk about perhaps reconstruction or humanitarian assistance. Same applies to Pakistan. There's been a lot of reporting lately that Japan is interested in hosting a donor's conference for aid to Pakistan sometime this spring. And that is likely to come up in these meetings. And finally, which Mike already mentioned, is the subject of climate change. You may recall Japan hosted the G8 summit last summer and tried to demonstrate some leadership on that front, and is very active in trying to reach a global consensus on a post-Kyoto framework on climate change leading up to the UN conference in Copenhagen this December. So given the fact that the Secretary is taking her climate change, Dar, if you will, on the trip, you can expect that this topic will come up not only in a global context but also regionally. There is a regional framework in place for the two countries to cooperate in the form of the Asia-Pacific partnership on development and climate, which incidentally includes China and India. So that could be a forum in which the U.S. and Japan try to get some movement on climate change. That's a brief overview of the issues they'll cover. I think the most intriguing aspect of the Secretary's visit is the political situation she will jump into. First and foremost is Prime Minister Asso's political standing. His poll numbers are extremely low, due mostly to the fact that the public has not responded positively to his efforts at stimulating the economy. There's some other issues as well that we can get into later. A poll out yesterday had his approval rating at 18 percent, with a disapproval of 70 percent. There's another poll out today that has it even lower, 14 percent. And according to one Japanese newspaper, that's the lowest approval rating for a Prime Minister other than former Prime Minister Mori who hovered at 9 percent in 2001 and then had to resign soon thereafter. So these numbers are not good, particularly because the Prime Minister recently passed a second stimulus bill through the diet and hoped to get a boost from that, and these numbers show that that is not happening. He need not call an election until September of this year, but given the fact that these numbers are incredibly low, it's likely that we might see an election sooner than that, and I'll get into that in a moment. Pressuring Mr. Asso is a very well-organized and energized Democratic Party of Japan, which is the largest opposition party led by Ichiro Ozawa. He has stated publicly that his mission is to destroy Asso's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, and he is very focused on winning an election, obviously, and has really been a brilliant tactician in the diet ever since his party captured the upper house of Parliament in an election in summer of 2007. His pressure tactics contributed to the resignations of Prime Minister Abe and then Prime Minister Fukuda, and now he's looking to go three for three with Prime Minister Asso, and he is going to continue to pressure the Prime Minister and hope for a quick snap election. When will this election take place? Plenty of rumors floating around. It seems that it might happen late April or early May, right after the Parliament passes a budget for the next fiscal year, which starts in April, in which case we will see a very interesting political dynamic in Japan in the spring. So what does all this mean for Hillary Clinton's trip? Two quick points on that. First, she is visiting Japan and trying to revitalize the agenda with a key ally at a time when the ruling party and the Prime Minister is fighting for political survival, and the opposition party is focused almost exclusively on winning an election. So as important as her message is in terms of reassuring the Japanese that the U.S. places great priority on the U.S.-Japan alliance is the response that she gets from her counterparts. First impressions are very important, and as Mike noted in the introduction, the question is whether her counterparts can present a proactive agenda that will get the alliance moving forward despite all of these political issues. As Mike noted, the administration has several domestic and foreign policy priorities, and given the long list that President Obama looks at every day, Japan is not going to have too many opportunities to present a bilateral agenda, and President Clinton has sent a very strong signal, and it's very important for Japan to respond equally with the proactive agenda, and that's really the wild card with regard to her visit and the outcome. Having said all that, given all the domestic political complexities in Japan, there is reason to be positive about the U.S.-Japan alliance and the agenda going forward. There are two major events coming up that will sort of guide the two governments as they develop a agenda for cooperation. One on the economy is the fact that APEC has shifted to Asia, Singapore hosts this year, Japan hosts in 2010, and the United States hosts in 2011, so that's sort of a medium-term time frame in which the U.S. and Japan can try to come up with some innovative ideas especially to combat protectionist instincts in the wake of a global financial crisis. The second is on security 2010 is the 50th anniversary of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, so you can expect the two governments to work towards some celebration of that mark, but also a new agenda. So in some, you know, this trip is not just about gestures and messages, but is the beginning of a process of developing a new agenda and revitalizing the relationship for the U.S. and the region. Thanks. Thanks very much. I'll try to be brief so we can leave time for some questions. The Obama administration, I think, is inheriting a very solid, strong U.S.-China relationship. Many would say that this was one of the more successful foreign policies of George W. Bush. And so I think that Hillary Clinton's visit out to the region and particularly to China is really going to try to pick up where the administration left off. A lot of the objectives that I think that the Obama administration will be pursuing with China are really quite similar to those that we were seeking to achieve in the Bush administration when Secretary Clinton was having her confirmation hearings. She talked about encouraging China to become a full and responsible participant in the international community, very reminiscent of Bob Zelick's phrase of calling China to be a responsible stakeholder. She also called on China to make greater progress toward a more open and market-based society. So, again, I think the objectives of this administration in dealing with China will be quite similar going forward. And the Bush administration has left the Obama administration a considerable amount to work with. In December, a state counselor from China, Daibingua, was in Washington, D.C., for the last round of the senior dialogue which he held with Ambassador Negroponte and met with representatives then of the Obama administration as well as people in the administration and experts on the outside. And one of his main messages that he conveyed was that China wants to have a good beginning to this relationship, how the Kaito, that was one of the messages that he conveyed in virtually every meeting. And this will provide this visit by Secretary Clinton. I think we'll provide a good opportunity to do that. The Chinese are certainly very pleased that she is heading out to the region very early giving China an opportunity to engage with her early and to try to find areas in which our two countries can work together and to forge a pretty solid basis of cooperation in some places where we share common interests before we get to what's going to be a potentially sort of sensitive and difficult year for China. China is calling this the year of anniversaries. We have lots of anniversaries coming up that the Chinese are somewhat nervous about. We have enlarged the anniversary of the 50 years of the uprising in Tibet and the Dalai Lama's departure for India. It is the 20th anniversary of the June 4th Tiananmen uprising. It is the 10-year anniversary, this year I believe in April, when 10,000 Chinese citizens surrounded Zhongnanhai where the Chinese leadership live in protest of the restrictions on Falun Gong. So this is a year in which the Chinese are somewhat nervous. I do think that although human rights issues will not be a centerpiece of this visit, that they will be on the radar screen of this administration. But I think on this visit, what Secretary Clinton will really try to emphasize is the areas that we have common interests that we can pursue things together. It is very much I think a tone setting visit for what really is a very complex agenda and relationship. For those who are looking for a label for this relationship, and I'm sure that Beijing will be looking for a label, one might find one in Senator now Secretary Clinton's but then Senator Clinton's confirmation hearings where she referred to a positive and cooperative relationship that we want to have with China. You may recall that Bush administration used the phrase constructive cooperative and candid relationship, candid emphasizing that where we have differences that we will not hesitate to air them with the Chinese. I actually don't think the Obama administration will have a different position on that, but the label might be a bit different. The Chinese I would not be surprised if they are interested in having the U.S. agree to insert the word strategic somewhere in there. If we go back to the Clinton administration we use the phrase building toward a strategic relationship with China, but my guess is that the Obama administration for various reasons not terribly dissimilar from the Bush administration will avoid using that term strategic. This visit will put the relationship if successful on a solid footing toward the first meeting between President Obama and Hu Jintao, which will take place on April 2nd on the margins of the G20 meeting. And so I think that both countries are looking at this visit as a step in that direction. I do think in addition to the issues that my green has raised, climate change, financial crisis, that North Korea will very much be on the agenda of this visit, North Korea has been a very important issue for the U.S. and China to cooperate on. And if the North Koreans do launch a Taepodong missile, then I think it will end up pretty high on the agenda where we will be looking to the Chinese to join with us in a response that will be harshly criticizing North Korea for what could be a very provocative step. One thing that one might look for coming out of this visit, although I don't expect to see any huge list of deliverables, but one thing might be a restarting of the Mil-Mil relationship. As of October last year when the Bush administration sent some notifications to Congress for arms sales to Taiwan, China has suspended not only the Mil-Mil exchanges but also dialogues with the United States on proliferation and security issues. So one possible, and I think a useful step would be for the Chinese to agree that resuming these dialogues and these exchanges are in the interest of both of our countries if the Chinese expect that they will receive a promise from the administration that it will not sell arms to Taiwan in the future. I don't think they are going to succeed. So hopefully they will agree to move forward on that front. So I will stop there and feel free to raise questions. Howard. Thanks. I was wondering if maybe both Bonnie and Michael could discuss a little bit what you think Clinton meant also in her congressional testimony I believe by the use of the word comprehensive that we should have. It was taken as something of a criticism of the Bush administration's policy being too focused on economics and I'm wondering how you saw that, what she meant by that and maybe if there was any indication at the dinner you had of what that meant. I think I read it as a criticism of the strategic economic dialogue which was led by Secretary of the Treasury Paulson because there's a broadly held view among many China Watchers that the relationship got hijacked by purely economic issues and certainly when I was working in the NSC when we prepared the President for meetings with the Chinese leaders we had a range of issues that we had to touch on and the economy was one of them and it was usually about exchange rate issues or intellectual property rights protection but we also had to touch on Tibet, we had to touch on human rights, Taiwan usually came up, North Korea and increasingly the company China kept abroad from Darfur to the regime in Burma and so forth and it was my experience that if you dropped some of those from the agenda to focus on economic issues for example exclusively or primarily the other issues didn't sort of stay on the back burner so you could return to the next time the Chinese side would completely take them off and you would actually lose ground and I think that's partly why you'll recall before President Bush went to the Olympics he invited Rabia Khadir and Harry Wu and a number of very very high profile dissidents extremely sensitive for Beijing and I think in part that was an overcompensation because the human rights issues had slipped off the agenda and the Chinese side came to think that we were willing to trade to get results on two issues, currency and North Korea and I read that the Secretary or then designees testimony as a criticism of that. I think the Bush Administration up until the strategic economic dialogue had a comprehensive approach and I dropped a little teaser in my opening remarks maybe Bonnie wants to pick it up about who's going to run China policy there have been various proposals floated around. One is that the U.S. and China created G2 a model something like the Gore-Chirna-Mirdin meetings where Vice President Biden would oversee dialogue on everything from economic issues to strategic issues and human rights. The hope being that Gore would, excuse me, Vice President Biden would naturally be able to meet with Premier Wen Jiabao. I think Secretary Paulson thought and hoped that Wen Jiabao the Premier would be his counterpart but he got his counterpart a state counselor basically. That's one idea that's out there. The other idea is that same idea but Hillary Clinton a Secretary of State will run this comprehensive overall approach to China. The Treasury Department I think is well obviously is quite preoccupied with the stimulus package and the banking bailout and it's still getting people in place they got a slower start from state but I don't think they're eager to give up some of the primary positions they had and USTR would very much like to regain some control of this process because the feeling in the trade representative's office is that trade issues and USTR's role were diminished by Treasury's lead. So there's a bit of a scramble on this and it gets even further complicated because our allies in the region are going to get nervous if it looks like our whole diplomacy is centered around a G2 bilateral condominium. So I think they're going to have to work this out. As I was saying earlier from my perspective if you want a comprehensive relationship then you probably want the President in charge and then everybody stays on their core competencies and the NSC coordinates it. That's I think how we did it the first five or six years that's the right way to do it and maybe that's where they will end up but it's one of the subtexts for this trip. Bonnie I don't know if you want to weigh in on that. I will just add something very briefly. What Secretary Clinton said if I recall is that economics and foreign policy need to be better integrated and I really think that that's a signal that the dialogues that have been taking place so far are really sort of disparate and not well connected and I would add to that not only our strategic economic dialogue, our senior dialogue that is focused on foreign policy and diplomatic issues but also military dialogues that have taken place at the Pentagon. There is an important relationship among these. The overall goal is to have a more better strategic trust between our two countries to be able to work out differences that keeping these dialogues separate and does not serve American interests that we are not getting enough done and that particularly economics need to be really looked at more in security terms and so integrated with these other issues. There is certainly an argument to be made for having a chappau perhaps under the Vice President's office as Mike mentioned that tries to integrate all of these dialogues. My guess is that this is a decision that will be made before the Secretary heads out to the region and I think there is still some jockeying for power going on within the administration to see how these dialogues will be integrated and what roles specific individuals will play. Just to thicken the soup a little more, there is also a proposal that came out of I think the Asia society to make climate change, the centerpiece of U.S.-China relations and the U.S.-China dialogue, the centerpiece of climate change strategy and the argument and Steven Chu, the energy secretary and others were involved in this process. There is another argument which is it is all about climate with China. So hopefully these will be resolved before she goes. I suspect this will take a little bit of time to sort itself out. Mike, a question for you. In a sense Secretary Clinton is going to go to the region without any kind of an enunciated policy on North Korea, it seems to me. Not a whole lot was said about it during the campaign other than the emphasis on allies, the criticisms of the Bush administration for allegedly failing to engage in the kind of direct diplomacy although you could argue that the last couple of years the Bush administration was almost an Obama North Korea policy. So I wanted to ask if you could sketch out one how you think this administration is likely to approach the North Korea issue. Two, whether you think there is room for under the six-party process or separate from a deeper direct U.S.-North Korea engagement perhaps on a much broader range of issues. And then three, if you could lay out for us what might be the concerns or anxieties or views particularly of the South Koreans and Japanese if that's the route that the Obama administration decides to pursue with North Korea. If you look back at the Bush administration I was there from the beginning we didn't announce our North Korea strategy until June 2001 and the Clinton administration in 1993 really didn't start to do that until in many ways until 1994 and the crisis over Yongbyon. So I don't begrudge the incoming Obama administration a couple weeks or months to sort this out. It's a very hard problem. There are two views that I sense are at play. One view which is kind of residual from the campaign is the one you mentioned that the problem is there wasn't enough high-level engagement and that an envoy who would either quickly go to Pyongyang or convey a letter from President Obama to Kim Jong-il is the right way to go. I think that the prevailing view, however, is that it's better to start with the allies. Make sure that we're onside together. I think for those who worked on this issue in the past and are coming back into government they are finding that we cut a lot of corners in the negotiations that we lifted the terrorism-related sanctions on North Korea in exchange for a very vague verbal promise that the North Koreans would deliver verification and at the end of the day when we convened this in the Six Party Talks the North Koreans said no and then announced that they are a nuclear weapon state and then proceeded to bully South Korea. And I think those coming back into the administration who were working on it in the Clinton administration see some familiar Bellicose patterns and are going to approach this a bit more cautiously. I'm sure that the Six Party Process and direct engagement of North Korea will be part of the strategy. No doubt about that. A big important variable will be who's the envoy. If it's someone like Jim Leach, former chairman of the Asia Subcommittee in the House, he knows the region, he knows the Allies' concerns, he knows that we are working to push a very heavy rock uphill as we try to get North Korea to denuclearize, but that we have another mission which is to make sure we're shoring up our strategic position with our allies and our relationship with China getting ready for a day when there is no North Korea. I think he would have a if it's Jim Leach he would be the kind of person who would have that comprehensive view of US interests on the problem. The North Koreans, you asked about the Allies, I mean, you know, the Japanese government warned Secretary Rice that the North Koreans would not agree to verification even if we preemptively and unilaterally lifted the terrorism sanctions. You know, the Foreign Minister Nakasone spoke to Rice in October when she told him that the US was going to be lifting the terrorism sanctions and had a verbal commitment and the Japanese said you're going to be, I mean, my words, not theirs, you're going to be snookered. The North Koreans are not going to do it and sure enough they didn't. So in Tokyo there's a sense of, I told you so, but also a little bit of nervousness, I think, about whether the US may just decide this problem is too hard and inadvertently send signals that we can live with a nuclear North Korea for the time being. So I think that's something we have to be careful about. It's not signaling that, you know, we don't want it to be too hot, we don't want it to be too cold. If we're too ambitious and we send an envoy to Pyongyang early with bold gestures without making sure our allies are fully on board, that's risky. On the other hand, if we despair and sort of think this isn't going to move very fast and then we risk sending the signal that we're comfortable with where North Korea is in its bellicose behavior and finding that middle ground the porridge that's just right, I think is going to depend on what Hillary Clinton hears in Seoul and Tokyo and I hope she goes and she listens and bases it on that. The South Korean government's nervous for the reasons I mentioned earlier. Extremely bellicose, aggressive moves by North Korea. I think there's a better than 50-50 chance that there will be blood, that there will be violence when the North Korean fleets come down on the western sea and challenge the so-called northern limit line. Usually they follow fishing fleets that are looking for crabs but then they have a little mini-battle of the Jutland every couple of years as patrol boats from both sides fire on each other and the current North Korean stance is very bellicose and there's a real chance of violence and in this context I think we have to be careful to stand side with Seoul and as Nick mentioned, the statements about the Abdukti families, that's a very important signal to Japan. Wait over here. Did you speak into the microphone? Thank you. How relevant is Taiwan in the new illustration and in the U.S.-China relationship and how, what would satisfy China to restart mill to mill if not for stopping arms sales to Taiwan? I think in the statement that was released by the White House about the telephone conversation between President Hu and Obama there was a reference to respecting each other's core interests and I think that that was codeword for Taiwan. I don't know whether in fact President Hu actually raised Taiwan but undoubtedly with Secretary Clinton he will. I think that there will certainly be a desire on the part of Beijing to hear the new administration state its position of respecting the one China policy and the three communiques and perhaps say something in support of the improving relations between the two sides of the strait and I would expect that Secretary Clinton would be eager to do that because we do see the process that is taking place, the east tensions the economic cooperation between the two sides of the strait is positive. I personally hope she will also say something about the need for China to follow up to some of President Ma Yingzhou's gestures with some movement on the military front and reducing the military build up opposite Taiwan and also taking some more measures to support Taiwan's desire for meaningful participation in the international community. As on the specific question relating to what China wants the United States to do on arms sales there is no doubt that China has had a long standing position and may repeat it that it wants the United States to stop arms sales to Taiwan but I don't think that that is really what they expect my speculation is that Beijing is looking for some kind of a face-saving gesture by the United States in order to resume the Milmo exchanges. This is not the first time that this has happened there were sales last I think September in 2007 I believe and the Milmo relationship at that time was suspended for a month. So we've seen this before I think the Chinese are just looking for something that will enable them to say okay we understand we have a common interest in seeing peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and now let's move forward and resume Milmo. We're going to go over here and then to Jay. Hi I'm Jay with Jay Park with Radio Free Asia. This question is for each of the panelists on North Korea policy. As you mentioned North Korea is one of the main subject or topics for the Secretary Clinton's visit to Asia. What do you believe or predict Secretary Clinton try to address on North Korean issues when she stops to each of the Asian countries and what in your opinion what she should do on those issues. Thanks. Well I think the problem hasn't changed. The administration has changed but the problem is still there and that is that the North Koreans have refused to provide verification of the declaration that they prepared on their plutonium production at Yonggyeong and that's important because if we can't get verification on that piece of it we'll be in no position to get verification on all the other aspects of the nuclear program. Remember the agreement in the Six Party Talks at the end of the Bush administration was narrowed down just to plutonium production at Yonggyeong. The highly rich uranium, the actual nuclear weapons themselves their relationship between North Korea and Syria was all deferred and I and a lot of other people said that was a mistake but that's where we are and I think it's where the negotiations will pick up in some ways at least that will be one of the main focus areas and I don't think that Secretary Clinton is going to have a more accommodating view to North Korea on that issue. I think without verification the Yonggyeong plutonium piece of the negotiations just won't be credible and in fact Barack Obama as a candidate said that in the fall. So that's one thing I think she'll push forward. I noticed that she said Steve Hadley in his exit interview highlighted the highly rich uranium program but sometimes also called uranium enrichment program and she did too. She cited that so I think that says to me that there is growing evidence that this is an active program at least twice the North Koreans provided documents or samples in an effort to satisfy the US. The documents and samples were not very revealing in some ways except for one thing they were both glowing with highly rich uranium which suggested the North Koreans are up to something and the way Hadley emphasized it and the way that State Department officials and Secretary Designate Rice came back to it suggests to me that's going to be on the agenda in a serious way. The Chinese would like to defer the HEU issue. They were very happy to just focus on plutonium. My sense is that that's going to be a more front and center again. And I think pushing those particularly with Beijing is going to be important that the Japanese and Korean governments want to hear we're serious about those issues, verification and HEU. Both will want to hear that and I think my guess is the Secretary will focus on those. The harder problem is the North Koreans have dug in and they've declared their nuclear weapons state and they're now threatening in their bellicose so in some ways while the Secretary is going to focus on these immediate challenges she'll probably want to step back and have a broader strategic discussion with her counterparts in all three countries on where North Korea is heading and how to get movement because there are other things that are happening like Kim Jong-il's stroke and questions about future stability and whether or not the U.S. can with China begin discussing ways to prepare for new scenarios in North Korea. We already do that somewhat quietly with Korea and Japan and so that also I think could be an agenda item even if it's only just touched on briefly as a marker for further discussions. If I could just add briefly the I think that Secretary Clinton will be very eager to hear from the Chinese how they are reading Kim Jong-il, his intentions as well as his health. As you know the head of the international department, Wang Jiao-rae was just in Pyongyang a few weeks ago and spent according to the press reports five hours with Kim Jong-il surely some of this time was in addition to drinking a lot according to the news reports was spent talking about his intentions regarding the commitments that he has made to denuclearization and to the six-party talks process. So I think that there is something here that perhaps Secretary Clinton can learn from the Chinese about how they assess North Korea's intentions going forward. In addition in the aftermath of that trip the North Korean press reported that there was some additional economic assistance that was provided by China to North Korea and indeed I think we can all acknowledge that the Chinese have perhaps more influence and leverage potentially over North Korea than any other power. And so perhaps Secretary Clinton will engage with the Chinese about how it plans to use that leverage going forward. I think that she will reaffirm the U.S. commitment to continue the six-party talks process. I think that's something that the Chinese will want to hear. They very much value that process although they also see the value of bilateral dialogue between the U.S. and the DPRK. And as Mike Green said earlier just as our allies are concerned about the United States perhaps being a bit too comfortable with the current situation and potentially accepting a nuclear North Korea I believe that the Chinese share those concerns. I have heard from experts in China concerns about another India or Pakistan scenario in which the U.S. essentially leaves China high and dry. I mean if you recall in October 2006 when North Korea conducted its nuclear test, China's reaction was in terms of the language that it used the harshest among all of the involved countries. And in 98 when India had set off its nuclear test we worked with the Chinese and urged them to be really, really tough in their response. And then we ended up doing a 180-degree turn going on a new course to improve our relations with India. It took some time for the Chinese to repair their ties after that. And I think if the Chinese fear anything regarding North Korea it is a potentially hostile relationship with that country that is on its border at a time when North Korea might be improving relations with the United States. Just a quick point on the Japan portion. I think two things they'd really like the Secretary just to listen to their concerns given that it's a first meeting, not just the abductee issue which will clearly come up, but their overall approach to the six-party talks. When the U.S. announced its decision last fall to delist North Korea from the state-sponsored terrorism list the Japanese Finance Minister Mr. Nakagawa was here in DC for the G7 and he was asked about it by Japanese reporters and said point blank there was no coordination on this issue with Japan. So the Japanese were very upset. It did some damage and I think the most reassuring message the Secretary could send is that we are going to coordinate closely with our allies and partners prior to engaging the North in dialogue. Jay Solomon and then we're going to take, we got time for about one more. Maybe that's why he's going to Iraq now, but just a bit more about how much damage was done over the past six to twelve months, particularly because it looks like North Korea's back being extremely belligerent again. I didn't recognize you Jay with a goatee. Yeah, they have good security in the green zone. Well there are a couple ways to measure this. In Japan, public opinion about the U.S. in polls done by Yomiuri Shimbun or the Prime Minister's office or who else is here, NHK showed a steady increase, a little bit of a ripple during the Iraq war, but a steady increase, an all time high, around 2006 and then a rapid collapse in opinion of the United States. And some, I think Yomiuri asked specifically about North Korea, and this was in the most recent poll late last year was how is U.S. Japan coordination on North Korea positive, and Nick you may remember, but 16% said it was positive. So you can see in those polling numbers the huge damage done to the U.S. image with the Japanese public by our more accommodating stance to North Korea. The other way to measure it is to look at some of the decisions and debates in the diet or in the government about what kind of weapons Japan needs. The Japanese defense budget has been flat or shrinking for the past five years, but there's great interest in the public debate, you see this, and among experts in a unilateral Japanese deep strike capability to deliver kinetically messages to countries that threaten Japan. And that has also been accompanied by growing debate about whether the U.S. nuclear umbrella is credible. The kind of debate that in Japan 20, 30 years ago would have been a handful of obscure, weird nuclear strategists at some defense think tank, but now it's much more broadly debated in media and among experts. Is the U.S. nuclear umbrella really credible? Is decoupling possible? Could the U.S. be a blackmailed by Japan-Tepodong missiles and leave Tokyo vulnerable? As DeKal said about Paris, would the U.S. be willing to trade New York for Paris? You hear sometimes with the U.S. trade Los Angeles for Tokyo. Among strategic thinkers, including in the defense establishment, you see nervousness about the credibility of our extended nuclear deterrent, interest in a hedge. Some of this is probably just talk, but that should be a source of concern. And it's why I think the Secretary's message needs to be just right. If we say we're not going to engage North Korea at all, then that suggests we don't have a peaceful path to getting rid of this threat. But if we seem overly eager to suggest that we are not going to stand by our allies, it is not just enough to say that nuclear weapons are unacceptable in North Korea. You know, Bill Clinton said that 15 years ago, and guess what? North Korea has nuclear weapons. President Bush said that. Guess what? North Korea has nuclear weapons. I think that the actions we take in the negotiating process, how much we focus on things like verification, that's going to be really an important indicator. In South Korea, the read in the Blue House that I hear is that Kim Jong-il is trying to isolate and pressure E. Myeong-bak internally in South Korea and then separate him from the U.S. which will put him in an even more vulnerable position to squeeze out of him the tens of millions of dollars that are no longer flowing for the K-song project and other things and the fertilizer that the North wants. And it's in some ways, the perspective that I hear in Seoul is it's basically like a mafia shakedown. You know, it would be unfortunate if your plate glass window had a truck driven through it. And others think, well, the North Koreans are posturing and trying to gain ground for negotiations with Obama or perhaps testing a new president. That may be possible. But in Seoul, the reading I pick up, maybe you do too, is it's about isolating and pressuring E. Myeong-bak. All the more reason why we need to counter that strategy. Are you also picking up on this? You hear that theory. I think one Jirae's visit and other interactions with the North Koreans don't bear that out. The Kim Jong-il is still enough in control that this is not the military going haywire because the leader is sick. We're going to just go in the back here. I want to ask if Bonnie could expand, please, on specifically the ways in which she thinks Secretary Clinton is going to ask the Chinese to cooperate and engage. Some of the global issues that Michael pointed out were the rescue of the financial system and global warming. And I think the third thing was North Korea. So if Bonnie and Michael could please talk a little bit more specifically about what the United States wants China to do in concrete terms. On the financial crisis so far, China's response has been that the most important thing that China can do is to keep its own economy running to deal with unemployment in China, keep the situation internally stable, and that is good enough. I think that the message from Secretary Clinton may be that that's great we do want China's economy to keep growing, we don't want to see instability in China, but that we do hope that China will do more. I do think it's up to the Chinese as to what they will put on the table. I don't know whether Secretary Clinton is going to ask for anything specific. It would be certainly helpful if the Chinese say that they are going to stay in our treasury bills, that they don't see themselves as getting out of them. I don't think they're going to get into very specific discussions about currency on this visit. I think that's likely to come at a later time. But essentially Secretary Clinton has said that we are looking for other countries to take appropriate policies to support a common solution to what is clearly a shared challenge. And so I think we'll be looking to the Chinese to come up with some creative things that they can put on the table. On climate change this is a big discussion I think we're going to have with the Chinese but I think it will take place at a very general level in this particular visit. The Chinese have said that they are not at this point willing to commit themselves to any caps on their carbon emissions. I'm doubtful that that will change. But I think the message from Secretary Clinton so far and from President Obama is that climate change is a global problem that requires a global solution. And the Secretary referenced the Bali action plan from 2007 in her confirmation hearings which states that the post Kyoto agreement that the countries are discussing should include measurable, reportable and verifiable actions by developing countries. And China is in fact one of those countries and is probably the greatest emitter of carbon emissions today. And so again I think there's a lot of ideas on the table. Mike talked about the Asia Society and Pew Cooperative Report that was released there was another one that was released by Brookings. There are a lot of ideas on the table of how our two countries could work together to foster a low carbon economy in both China and the United States to improve energy efficiency and conservation and to develop alternative renewable energies. And that whole agenda is out there for the two countries to talk about. But again I don't think those kind of specifics will be agreed upon but what they could agree upon is a mechanism high level potentially beginning with the at the summit level as this new Asia Society Pew report is recommended with task forces beneath that to build an agenda of cooperation. Mike do you want to follow that up? Great. Thanks everybody for coming today. We will have a transcript of this out later today. You can find that at csis.org and if there's any questions leading up to the secretary's visit please contact me at my emails at csis.org Thanks very much.