 That was not his first time in China you were twice before in Beijing and once in Shanghai if I remember correctly Twice in Taiwan we certainly count that of course we count that And then if our call also you had experience with Afghanistan as well So you've you've been in in a dealing with policy and combat zones and in the very heart of great power Competition so I was hoping that we could start with you so that you could give us You know competitive space as you heard the secretary say is not just about the military How what is this contest between the United States and China look more broadly in the competitive space big picture Foreign policy diplomacy trade allies Money, you know all the things that you know culture all the things that that would make up a Competitive space how's China doing and how are we doing relative to China? And I really appreciated that the way Randy talked about Our national security strategy and the fact that China has been operating on a similar national security strategy They're much better at not talking about At doing things quietly in other words our system does not Is not well For for saying one thing and doing another So I would say this this strategy has the benefit the new national security strategy like Randy said has the benefit Of being more upfront about where we are the Chinese I think are less upfront, but I think certainly it has been a motivating the competition The sense that they measure themselves against us both in positive competitive terms the way Randy talked about it But also in very Adversarial terms of time. I think that's a useful measure I was happy Randy sort of moved quickly away from Trade in his initial response. I'm glad he went back to it because I think that's a really important factor I think what what has been our advantage has been our broad engagement not just security And I think Asia Pacific or Indo-Pacific But more globally it is interested in the United States security presence, but they're much more interested in a broad based American commitment To the region and Randy's right that investment is different from trade I think a trade is interest and investment as values, you know that investment works if you share the same values they have the same commitment to To rule of law and sanctity of contracts and that sort of thing and that's I think a real benefit to What we bring to the region and that's what I think He put a good face on on the withdrawal from TPP. I think it was a real blow. I think and and I Take great issue with the Trump administration for having pulled out of TPP, but I take same issue with Hillary Clinton who also ran against TPP in the election didn't make the case for American leadership and with the Obama administration Which negotiated TPP? But but sort of the strategy for passage was to hope that Hillary would win and pass it in in the lame duck session So so we will look back at that if we don't find a way back into TPP With real regret One thing that I thought about as as he was talking is is our trillion dollar annual defense investment 700 billion to DOD directly Department of Veteran Affairs the Department of Energy that works on nuclear Weapons programs is that kind of the mezzanine line? Are we are we building this huge infrastructure? But but sort of letting the the other parts of the competition hollow out because I Can you answer that question? I worry about is it a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? But I know that the strategy talks all about competition competition, but it's right next to lethality, right? And so I mean if all we're doing is building a war machine. Are we inevitably heading for war? It's a real risk. I worry about it. I worry about it and and a tool go one day that I don't know if he's the New Yorker writer talks about the health System in the United States talks about how we just love intervention that you know that that specialists and You know the really high-end medicine gets a lot of attention a lot of resources in the US system and primary care Kind of gets overlooked and if you look at it at compensation of doctors that sort of thing It's it's all out of whack in terms of what's effective in terms of outcomes Versus what's remunerative in terms of being a medical professional? and I think about the same sort of construct in terms of national security that that we have the Lethality as that intervention and it's really exciting stuff and it's interesting and that grabs the attention of the American people and People who pass budgets and the political system But really what's effective in a lot of cases is primary care Which is diplomacy and and trade and investment and culture and that sort of things which is getting short Short for it Which is a great segue and we're gonna we're gonna have a dialogue here, too Which is a great segue to dr. Nancy Sun who is a senior science advisor at the National Science Foundation Which is one of the great engines of? innovation and research and development in this country Until very recently. I think just a couple months ago. She ran NSF's China office, so she was the head of that office but she herself is a very distinguished scientist has a PhD in microbiology, I believe and And was at the boroughs welcome fund Before she came to NSF in 2011 So she's been an innovator herself and has for some time now been responsible for seed funding innovation So what I wanted you to talk about is if we're talking again about what exactly is this competitive space and who's winning? You know what Dave just said it's it's more than just military material It's also about research and development and innovation. So how are we doing and how are the Chinese doing? Okay, great question. It's great to be here as well and great to be with you again Dave, and it was a privilege to work with you So I have one visual, okay I want to show that I think you know a picture is worth a thousand words, right? There it is, so I don't know if you can see that It's a little light, but this is the over time on the left you have from 1981 going up to 2015 This is gross domestic expenditures on R&D Among different countries. This is from NSF science and engineering indicators that we publish every two years And what I want you to notice the top line there Going up is the United States investment over time the line that I want to draw your attention to is China which is the pink lighter colored line and what's very unusual about it the way It's not like the other lines is its slope You can see it's really doing nothing until about 2003 and then it just begins to go like this to rock it upward and what we see there is China's Priority on research and development on science and technology investing just the way we did in our post-war period When NSF was created our investment in the S&T We believe that would make our economy strong would make our country strong China knows this and you can see the evidence here of their investment Over the last couple of decades to the point where it's now projected that that line will cross our investment within the next couple of years and so certainly in terms of funding Providing money for science China is right there with us and has no No intention that seems of slowing down this the the slope has stayed in double-digit increases over the last couple of years Whereas ours has been relatively flat, so that's one one way another is in publications scientists measure their Their contribution not in lethality, but in publications. How are we the pebbles? We're throwing on the mountain of knowledge and China has now surpassed all but the United States and the number of scientific publications and Not just in the number, but in the quality the quality of those publications is rising The journal nature has their nature index every year and the Chinese Academy of Sciences is the top rated Institute Granted, it's a hundred institutes in Earth science and chemistry and physics and is I think number five in life sciences So certainly in terms of the impact of the science that's being done China is Is rising and is on a par with us in many fields Another thing I'll point out is that our Our collaboration with China US China collaboration we work together with each other more than either of us does with any other Country, so we're each other's most important collaborator And I think this has grown out of the science and technology agreement that we signed with China in 1979 that created the platform for this cooperation and so Tens of thousands of Chinese scientists have come and trained in the US Increasingly many of them are going back. So one of the ways China is making use of this money is in recruiting the best minds back to China Not only ethnically Chinese but others who are smart people around the world This is exactly what the US has done our scientific enterprises built largely on immigrants And I think in the fields of engineering in particular maybe 70% of the postdocs are foreign born in the US So this is something that China Is doing so maybe one thing I'll point out. We've talked about the competitive space I think where Anisef sits is in what I would call the pre competitive space. We're in basic science So these are blue sky discoveries things that may or may not ever turn into a commercial product or a weapon But really very basic discovery And so this is where Anisef has sought to work with China not because it's China But because we work anywhere in the world where we can advance the science and where there are great ideas And so increasingly maybe I'll quote Pete Sutmeyer who's a scholar of China's S&T system Where he's pointed out that the benefit has been asymmetric That that since 1979 the benefit has flowed mostly to China of that S&T agreement You can see their enterprise has risen and now we're we're sort of at a par and we may get to the point where The asymmetry may begin to point where we can benefit from Collaborating with China in terms of access to facilities that they're building world-class facilities access to experts Access to unique research sites. So the benefit may begin to flow toward us If we don't pull out now So one way I like to think of it as my personal opinion not NSF's opinion is I wouldn't want to see a cell when the market is low Pull out at the point right when we may begin to benefit by cooperating and again in these basic science fields And I'll just one other comment is that the way NSF interacts with China We don't support Chinese scientists. We only support American scientists And if they're collaborating with Chinese scientists We work closely with the Chinese science agencies to support those projects in an equal way in a reciprocal way So that's how we approach it. So that reciprocity is very much in our mind as is Supporting only those things where we can articulate the clear benefit to the United States So you actually see a future where competition Scientific competition at least in basic science with China doesn't have to be hostile. It can be right that it's possible Yes, and that's based on your time there and watching the way that US and Chinese scientists interact Yes, and also when we bring complementary expertise to a big problem. So for example One of our very new partnerships with China is in the ecology and evolution of infectious disease So this is not curing diseases. It's not going out and controlling an epidemic It's how do we understand the mechanism of disease transmission from one species to another the real basic kind of stuff And in China because you have so much population Concentrated massive changes in land use. This is a amazing laboratory for these kinds of questions And so we want to establish those ties to work with those scientists so that maybe someday if we have a pandemic We're able to work with them. We have good communication and trust on that very basic level so that's I see that as not competition, but as collaboration really you did mention though that there are a couple of Areas where the Chinese have become competitive with the United States and I don't you're not talking about basic science Can you mention a couple of those places? Well, certainly in artificial intelligence. This is an area where a year ago China announced a very aggressive policy by 2030 They wanted to be the world leader in this area and I think just this week They kind of backed off of that a little bit and said oh we want to cooperate internationally in this field So I think that in the AI field. I'm not sure. I'd say that they're on a par with us I think that they have different capabilities China has a lot of data I think what makes AI a very rich field is the the kind of data that you have and in many areas China just By nature of its population has a huge amount of data and what the US can bring is Expertise in what kind of questions do you ask of that data? And that's something where I think the US expertise is quite valuable to China And we have to think about where are the areas where we're going to cooperate in AI NSF is not seeking To collaborate with with China in some of those areas. We're choosing other areas where there's more of a Peer relationship and where the the cooperation is clearly to our benefit Dave. I know we've heard that That there's an intellectual property theft in there But also a lot of American companies have willingly gladly gone to China So that's is that a problem or I mean have they given away? Intellectual property to their competitors. Sure. I mean most of those I think the idea of intellectual property theft is clearly It's a problem But an awful lot of it is just American businesses faced with the the price of entering the China market have made a The short-term decision that it makes economic sense to To give up that property that intellectual property as part of the as part of the deal And that has long-term consequences. It has long-term consequences, and I think it's I mean there are a lot of Issues where it's just a fundamentally different approach to how we organize our systems, right that that there is a top-level sort of commitment to helping Chinese entities strike that bargain right to say to to You know to state-level support to say, you know, you're gonna welcome American investment But we'll help you drive the hardest bargain Let's switch gears a little bit and go to dr. Leon Clark and of course I I know Leon quite well, but I realized that's gonna have to read some of your bio because Because you need the integrated modeling and energy group at the joint global change research Institute Which has the happy acronym of jicri in case you're wondering, but that's a collaboration between the University of Maryland and Pacific Northwest National laboratory, which which is also where you hang your hat and Dr. Clark is a very seasoned scientist who's been a leader in the intergovernmental Who's it IPCC? It's one of those things where the acronyms easier than the name Intergovernmental panel on climate change And was a member of the National Academies of Science panel on the climate choices America's climate choices He's also worked at Lawrence Livermore and at PG&E He has advanced degrees in mechanical engineering and engineering economic systems and operations research I know I had to read it even though I know you What I was hoping you would talk to us about is now the very the undergirding of all of this are the natural resources in these countries and I was hoping you could tell us about China's energy water land food people Nexus and what that looks like whether where their strengths and weaknesses are And and if you would bring in climate change to that equation too and how it's going to affect those things So Energy water land issues are an issue across across the globe and China is no different I guess I'll kind of walk through each of those separately individually on the energy side I think everyone knows that China is a voracious And much of the issues that come come forward on the resource side come from that voracious appetite for for energy Almost as voracious as we are Yeah, fair enough. I guess it's the growing. That's the big change in China, but energy is one of the largest energy consumers China has traditionally relied extensively on coal. That's where their growth has been But and they have very large coal reserves, but even with that those coal reserves They actually import some degree of coal. I want to emphasize both where they're thinking about their own resources But resources externally, so I think that's very important the national security space oil obviously is expanding oil importer And I think IA projects them over time to be the largest oil importer. So that's another obvious place I think folks in this room more familiar with China's Politics and I know that they're also moving towards importing natural gas and it's signed sign an agreement with With Russia actually for pipeline natural gas So in the energy in the energy sphere, there are very large consumers like us But without necessarily all the resources they want and they're taking a lot of actions now to address this and those includes both domestic actions and Domestic side, I think folks know that they are probably the largest Investors in photo will take cells and wind energy They've actually put a lot of effort into hydroelectric power. So they're going through some very large transitions in their energy sector And when China does anything, everyone knows they do it They do it really big and so the investments are gigantic there But also investing let's say in petroleum and resources outside of China So they're both a domestic approach and an international But that's a that's a very big area for them and the water space. I think folks know China's always had water issues They've always actually issues where there's more water towards the south and less water towards the north And that's going to be continued to be exacerbated and is being exacerbated As more people are moving into into these urban spaces as well as on the coast and so actually it's been I Think it's actually been thousands of years. They've had water diversion projects in China But are now increasingly are doing that again They have a very large water diversion program and move water from the south to the north But they they potentially face a decent amount of water scarcity as she's going forward And of course, that's a domestic issue largely although there are some transboundary issues as well on agriculture China is not actually have the most arable land for the amount of population they have So they've put a lot of emphasis over time on ensuring that their staple crops are viable So they produce most of their own wheat, which would be more than north and most of their own rights But as they're expanding as they're changing as their economy is growing their diet is changing and now they're they're importing fruits and vegetables They're actually importing importing a great deal of soy to a poor animal feed Basically the support to support that changing diet and so their agricultural System is changing and in that context, they're both trying to increase efficiency as well as again going internationally And are a large investment in land throughout the throughout the world to try and maintain maintain Maintain their supply So that's kind of where they are now just at a broad brush level in the energy water land space And I think it's important to note that as I think as the former speakers Mentioned, you know, it's a top-down approach And so they are definitely taking actions and they include both international actions and they include domestic actions In the climate space, I would I'll just you know put three things on the table one is just in general They have some some of the same classic climate things. We all note increases in extreme events like hurricanes floods and so forth one thing to note specifically in that space is that much of China's Population and economic activities and urban centers that are in coastal regions and their coast is particularly vulnerable to sea level rise Now that's not gonna happen immediately But to the extent that China thinks about planning ahead that's something that they're certainly paying attention to But there's also issues associated with heat waves, which will be increasing and it's an increasingly urban population Population they'll see those so those sort of classic climate stuff is gonna play out Which has your general effects, but I'll put two two topics that I think are pretty important one is that China is connected with with the rest of the world. So let's just take an example on agriculture One thing we often think about with climate and agriculture is how will the climate affect our own domestic production? And there's really open questions. I think Open questions about how climate is going to influence domestic agriculture and that's something we're starting to look into But it's not just domestic what really is gonna matter is a lot of these trade patterns Climate effects everybody around the world and the fact recent work that we've done and other folks have done looking at the US Which is has a large export characteristic has found that the impacts of climate change on the US over the long run are equally important Emerging from climate from our trading partner changing international prices for good as they are on the production that happens Domestic and I think that sort of issue is something that we really need to be thinking about in China space as well And I know they're thinking about those issues and then finally the final point I'll make in climate is that it's not just about climate impact It's about climate policy and as I mentioned earlier a lot those energy system changes that are happening in China Some of them are happening You know, they're happening for a variety of reasons. One is energy security Moving to more domestic resources and renewable energy and so forth another as air pollution is a huge play in China for reducing its coal consumption Also geopolitical leadership in the climate space But once you're playing in the climate space and they were in China is making big investments How much is the climate how much is these domestic interest is not clear? But big investments in changing their energy system those could have big implications over time So this large investments in solar power that has implications for Trade and solar power or trade in in the resources for solar power But also it has implications for them creating a domestic industry, which I think everyone knows has flooded the world with solar cells and that's important trade implications if they try and deal with their Transport system. They'll either have to go towards batteries Which has implications for that industry or biofuels which might influence what happens in agriculture or trade in bioenergy And so all of these sorts of change and they go into nuclear we can all think this A lot of expertise in the implications of nuclear power So all of those changes in the energy system I think are coming for a variety of reasons including climate including climate mitigation Again, we can comment how much that's the biggest but those also I think will have very big ramifications Over time and make a mistake some of this stuff is coming We have different opinions about climate change mitigation It is happening and and it will have implications for their for their industry. So those those are my remarks in this Okay, yeah, and I Want to put the audience on notice that we're going to bring you in in a minute and particularly when I would knowledge Radmal David Titley sitting hiding in the back there who's a an advisor to our project Hopefully we'll get a question from you David. So I'm just putting you on notice geopolitical implications of of both China's climate diplomacy and Their energy now, you know, they've we used to have their pattern right 60% dependent on imports as Leon was saying I mean, they're now Saudi Arabia's biggest customer and that changes geopolitics, right? Absolutely. So I was thinking I Remember 20 30 years ago thinking why aren't we not making the case for energy for sort of? Switching to renewable energy on a geopolitical on a sort of national interest basis of We are beholden to the Middle East. We're tied to the Middle East You know Randy talked about the pivot or the rebalance to Asia. The reason we can talk about that is that we're not We we are now not independent but much less dependent on Middle East oil so we can think about extracting ourselves from the from from a Place that has been an unprofitable Investment for the United States geopolitically for a long time I think China probably part of what motivates what they're doing on clean energy a lot of it is is Domestic air pollution that sort of thing a lot of it is is the geopolitic Geopolitical benefit of being a leader on climate issues But part of it is having washed what the United States did for 30 40 years and not wanting to have that So that's an interesting segue See a different kind of resource that where we may be all walking down the same path And I'm delighted to have Dr. Andrew Gully here to talk to us about it He's an analyst for the National Minerals Information Center at the US Geological Survey And he's done a lot of research on China's development of advanced technologies and direct foreign investments and specifically with with non-fuel minerals you at the Colorado School of Mines before you had your PhD there and I've been looking at these things for some time and doing some really interesting research so Talk to us about this about critical minerals and why this is so important in the competitive space Yes, I think the probably a good place to start would be To talk about kind of why I'm here and why why non-fuel minerals matter. So you talked about moving to You know renewable energies the you know these renewable energies require Elements and minerals that have very specific physical qualities. So they're they're crucial to a lot of these emerging and Advanced technologies And so let's see So historically, you know resource conflicts have often centered on fuel minerals. So, you know oil Future resource conflicts may however focus more on competition for non-fuel minerals that enable such technologies These technologies are enabled by an increasing number of minerals That are subject to supply disruption and indispensable to these these technologies that we've talked about So this includes the cell phone that everyone has in their pocket right now. It's a periodic table in there, right? yes, and and specifically a lot of these minerals that are crucial for for smartphones are also crucial for guidance systems and And You know that are in in the military applications that that could be driving next generation So in recent decades China's gained influence Over availability of many of these minerals, but no nation has all the minerals that they need domestically So, you know in terms of delineating the competitive space you can look at net import reliance and So if you compare China in the United States in terms of net import reliance which quantifies how much of a country's domestic Consumption is obtained from foreign sources Country's highly import reliant when its net import reliance is greater than 50% So minerals that China has the comparative advantage over the United States are those where? United States has high import reliance, but China doesn't so this is the common narrative of Mineral consumption and production globally as that you know China is holding all the cards the United States is dependent on on these Minerals from China so 42 minerals studied for this comparison 13 fit this category and China is a leading Supplier of US imports for nine So I'll go through these briefly just to give you an idea of why these minerals matter and what their applications are so Antimonium bismuth or inputs for ammunition and semiconductors cobalt and input to jet engine super alloys lithium ion batteries And permanent magnets gallium germanium indium and tellurium or byproduct minerals. They're not economically feasible to mine on their own Which are inputs into satellite solar cells infrared imaging? Integrated circuits and semiconductors Yttrium and rare earths or the sort of poster child of this issue And their inputs to guidance systems radar sonar and also permanent magnets But it's important to remember that that there are a whole slew of these types of specialized minerals. It's not just rare earth elements So it's worth remembering that Chinese manufacturers now dominate many downstream industries that consume rare earth elements Which were previously robust in the United States It's also remember worth remembering there was a disruption of Chinese rare earth exports to Japan during a 2010 diplomatic dispute So China now produces more than 70% of global production for six of the mineral minerals with the aforementioned applications in Terms of the national defense strategy China and not the United States Maybe expanding the competitive space for these minerals and their downstream industries On the other hand minerals that the United States may have a compared Comparative advantage over China or those for which China is highly important reliant. The United States is not so this isn't a common Narrative here is that the Chinese have weaknesses also So 42 minerals roughly eight fit this category China's address supply risks related to two of these via infrastructure for minerals agreements in Africa namely copper and cobalt mine material Then one via domestic capacity expansion. So high purity gallium. So this reflects what you were saying earlier Is that they use a combination of long-term strategic planning that that leverages domestic capabilities Whether it would be mining or just building, you know smelting infrastructure or purifying infrastructure But if they can't do it domestically then they'll go overseas and and you know It takes a decade to develop a mine So if this is something that you want now you need to think about what are we going to be manufacturing in 2025 and the Chinese do this and they think about what is it that we want to manufacture in this time period What are the inputs? What's the capacity that's related and where do we need to go because you know Geology assigns these these deposits to only particular locations So so of 42 minerals eight fit this category that China is important line of the United States isn't Notably the United States is a dominant global producer of only one of these eight, which is beryllium and So why beryllium's position represents a concerted effort by the US government most recently in 2005 Through the Defense Production Act Title III to establish and maintain reliable domestic supply, so this is the one example that we have in the United States of of a Comparative advantage over China and of a deliberate government policy to promote a comparative advantage. Yes So finally the new competitive space may prove most contentious for 11 minerals for which China and the United States are both highly import reliant Upon foreign sources of production, which are all concentrated So I think that the key takeaways are that the United States has many comparative weaknesses in terms of foreign critical mineral supply risks Many of which are sourced from China China also has weaknesses But but strategic planning over the last decade allows them to to address these via domestic and foreign Abilities, so China the United States are more likely to compete for the 11 Minerals that they need for manufacturing, but don't have domestically geographically the largest production producing countries of these minerals are Democratic Republic of Congo Rwanda, South Africa, Chile and Brazil China's mineral supply and demand may affect their strategic choices relating to non-fuel minerals in these countries So so that's the competitive space those five countries, so I think so Yeah, I mean graphically because if you're talking about these minerals are critical to The information age economy All high-tech that we all you know Did you ever think about how why your screen is reactive? It's because of what's in there So I mean everything that drives the current modern economy and current modern militaries I know we still have a lot of legacy Platforms that we invest in in this country But the next war is going to be about high-tech and it's going to be unmanned systems and robots Artificial intelligence and that all depends on these same things so five countries. That's the competitive space or part of it, right This is a knowable thing and the Chinese Get this and they've made investments in all those countries correct correct and so I think one of the you know an interesting piece in terms of sort of economic or trade competition is that you know when you when you develop a deposit when when a Chinese state-owned entity goes into a foreign country and With foreign direct investment and purchases mine or a processing facility They also have to build infrastructure to get to that mine So as we all know, you know Chinese state-owned entities are building massive amounts of infrastructure in Africa That that helps not only to get resources out, but also to create export markets for for things that they want in so when you look at at how these infrastructure agreements and are Put together in coordination between Chinese banks Chinese oil and gas companies Mining firms and infrastructure development. You have a situation where the the typical forces of competition That where the United States firms might enter multinational Corporations headquartered in Britain, Australia, Canada or Europe, you know that that's difficult to compete with because You have a relationship directly between Beijing and a host government And so it it changes the landscape in a way that makes it difficult for market-oriented economies or governments to Enter I know we started late and so that means we're already over time But if if you all can stay a little bit longer, we can take a couple of questions or comments from the audience Yes, sir, and if you would please identify yourself Oh Sorry, I know who you are Joshua. I was looking past you, but no, I didn't mean to not know who you are. So please ask your question You must be like sir what? Yeah, I thought it was weird because you already introduced me earlier today I have a lot of questions, but I'm assuming I'm gonna limit it to just one that I think I'm maybe I'm the most interested in So Nancy, I'm very very interested in the in the in the conversation around China's advantage in investing in technology and especially in things like Next-generation AI quantum computing Obviously, you know more direct military technologies like hypersonics and etc. But what I hear from people especially From sort of AI researchers within my programs is that when they go to big conferences It's now gotten to the point where there are there are more papers. There are more talks by people from Chinese institutions Then every other place combined, but what they see is that the Their judgment is that the the papers and the solutions are typically marginal improvements on existing technologies As opposed to new creative solutions For for new types of AI for new types of machine learning solutions, etc So there the assessment is that is that we still have a creativity advantage if not a strictly R&D investment advantage or number of published papers advantage What do you think about that? Do you think it's valid? Do you think it'll hold? Do you think it's useful? I? Think that that our creativity advantage remains But like the previous speaker I wouldn't want to underestimate it Because if you put the number of really bright people that China is recruiting back Into into the mainland and you give them resources. It's like an incubator, you know Something's gonna grow now the countervailing force would be the increase in controls on freedom of thought The sorts of things that you can research the kind of questions you can ask the things you can say This is where our enterprise has just been amazing really a wonder of the world in the Truly blue sky environment that we have here where I think scientists in China are somewhat constrained I mean they may have resources and be able to do that But it remains to be seen whether the system the increasingly controlling system in China Will allow this kind of creativity to emerge in fields like that and that is precisely where At the moment if you have a big instrument or their expensive piece of equipment, but you don't know what question to ask What's the next really great question? It's just an expensive piece of equipment And I think that's something where our system continues to produce people who think this way I think the Chinese system really aspires to Create those sorts of people and to bring those sorts of people in but it remains to be seen whether it will be done To the degree that it's been done here Steven Brumbi in the back and then David and then Steven was like standing up and waving his hands. Oh, okay. We're gonna do David. Okay. Yeah Try to make this not a spring, but kind of kind of thing here Yeah, again, so many questions so little time. So I'm Dave Titley. I'm professor at Penn State now former naval officer one of the things I noticed when coming back to campus is I Almost need a fluency in Mandarin to understand most of the conversations I hear while walking around and Penn State's nothing special other than it's a Typical state big-state R1 institution. So big research institution The former speaker first speaker Randy said that the national security strategy provides clarity and we're trying to remove elephants in the room To me, it seems like we are training the best and brightest Chinese national minds to go back to China and then compete against us So while it may not be direct NSF funding national science foundation funding a tremendous amount of all R1 funding is in fact from the u.s. Government and a lot is from the national science foundation So in regards to competition and how the national security strategy thinks of competition Why what are what are we doing and and is the national science foundation concerned about this? Or are we happy to see business go as it's been going for the last 15 to 20 years now? Thanks No, that's a it. I mean and it's It's their dollars that American universities all over the country got it and chase It's a pervasive issue. Are you are you able to speak to that? Yeah, I can make a few comments I don't know if it will directly answer your question, but you're you're right There's a tremendous imbalance there are now over 300,000 Chinese students in the u.s. At all levels mostly undergrads now It used to be mostly grad students And there are I think at the moment maybe 13,000 u.s. Students in China And they're probably mostly studying Chinese not in s&t fields and so the flow of Insight is one way so the Chinese Scientists who are training here are understanding our system very very well We have very little our next generation of scientists have very little understanding of the system in China Where there will be resources in the future that they may want to access in terms of expertise and? facilities And so I see this maybe isn't the problem you identified It's another problem which is this severe imbalance in the level of insight we have about each other system and I would love to see federal agencies make it easier for our students to understand the Chinese system and gain insight into it Yeah, yeah, and one Yeah, and one thing I can tell you is that in NSF's international office where I worked before I went to To be the head of the office in Beijing One of the priorities we had on international projects that involved students is we really made Giving us students an international experience a very high priority if the project came in and it said we're going to do this collaboration and we're going to send you know six students from Some out of the way place in America not even you know the usual suspects And give them this international experience so that they can then gain this insight that's something we Believed was a very high priority and we still do I think the level of funding that we have to support those kinds of projects has not grown And in fact our our programs in that area have decreased over the last couple of years But I would just agree with you that that is an issue. We need to pay attention to it. Yeah, I was gonna say I'm happily out of the government, so I don't have to come up with answers anymore But but it is a real question of how do we compete and compete in the you know The very good sense of the word that that Randy was using my instinct is whatever it is We should look at what our strengths have been what brought us here and try to be better Americans You know that and I what I see is what brought us here is our openness Our willingness to lead to create an international institutions and structures and rules And and my concern is is that we're trying to at this point in our history We're sort of taking the long the wrong lessons that we're trying to close ourselves off. We're trying to We're sort of respecting international institutions occasionally when they sort of which we have always done to some extent But but much more so now when we don't think they need our immediate interests And I worry that that's not playing to our strengths, you know specifically on how do you deal with? Education you know part of the reason there are 300,000 students and and that many undergraduates is because American public education is underfunded right that that universities are looking to Chinese students Because they're paying full fare right because they're paying $50,000 a year apiece So yeah, it's a cash cow Stephen yeah, hi, so I'm Stephen Brumbie I'm one of the people you've kind of been mentioning because I'm a I was foreign-born US citizen Los Alamos National Lab for 17 years working on machine learning for remote sensing and then a few years ago became a scientist Entrepreneur and have my own company. It's actually doing AI technology and we've funded by DARPA to deliver the sum of that technology to US government so My question for the panel and I I think the NSF representative you're being peppered with questions about AI Is my particular area and my question From the Chinese point of view What is motivating China's investment in AI is it that they see it as something to and Maybe the whole panel, but is it mostly to ensure domestic tranquility? From their point of view, or is it that they're trying to optimize their industries and avoid Shutdowns because of their reliance on specific minerals and things And just overall optimization of the system Or is it because they they also connect it with Lethality and in particular are trying to form an asymmetric advantage where they're no longer They realize they can't compete with pinnacle legacy systems Like F-35 that's the best of its kind in some sense, but is vulnerable Potentially vulnerable to an asymmetric threat Can I do the glib short answer and let the real people I mean, I think it's the happy confluence of what paranoia and Mercantilism right they see those those sectors and it's not just a either, you know, it's clean energy and You know range of just look at made in China 2025 with both are are sort of from a national Security perspective or domestic security in the in the question of, you know, internet technologies and AI You know help sustain the regime, but also that they're gonna be money makers in the future I was gonna say was that a question or an answer? Yeah, you know, either or it's a both and and I think just China thinks long-term and just looking into the future. This is an area where they see There's an awful lot of the economy will be based on innovations that are Come out of an AI system one I sat in on a meeting about a year ago With an Institute that was using an AI approach to search all the literature in neuroscience, which is our System that we've set up where all of this literature is searchable and available to anyone in the world To see what are the next things that are emerging in neuroscience that maybe haven't been identified So that we can then begin to research these threads that are coming up that we don't even realize our new trends. I think I'm I'm not convinced. We're not doing that too, but that's the kind of foreign or a forward thinking Using AI in any at all circumstance But also it is important to note that China spends an incredible amount of resources on its own internal security making sure that its own citizens are Behaving in certain ways and I think this is a huge amount of that effort and resources going in that direction as well last question sir Duke Center for innovation policy just a quick observation about your chart The reason that the US growth rate looks healthy is principally because of our investment since the 1980s in biomedical research whereas the fields you Pointed out the Chinese publications are excelling in our in large part Physical science and engineering field. So there is an important composition question about national investment But a specific question about students The administration has proposed I don't know where these proposals stand to restrict Chinese students particularly in the length of time they can spend in the United States and Despite the concern that was expressed We know that Chinese students are paying tuition, but they're also staffing university laboratories So restricting Chinese students in the United States could well be shooting ourselves in the foot Maybe we're shooting both feet, but you know what I have seen and I haven't made a study of the administration's policies that it was restricting the validity of visas of certain categories in other words if you're in a High-tech field your visa would be only valid for a certain amount of time But if you know the US process, I mean that's the the ability to enter the United States once you're in You can you can stay as long as you're in status as a student or whatever the Particular status is so to me it doesn't actually address the if they have identified a problem It does that step will not actually address the problem that they have identified So it should give no one We're well over time, but Mindy were you waving your hand? No, okay? I just wanted to check we're over time but I want to thank you all for coming and for staying past the end of the scheduled event and If if you do have questions, you didn't get answered. You may be able to catch these folks And help yourself to coffee and food in the back I want to thank the panel for a really interesting discussion and not the last time I think we'll all be talking about this. So thank you very much You