 Thank you very much for the very kind introduction and for most of all for welcoming me here at this institute. It's my first time here, not only at the think tank, but in Dublin, and I'm very honoured to be able to share my views of China's policy, not so much in the entire world because it's an entire book in itself and we have limited time, but I will be focusing on China's approach to the region, China's approach in China's foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific and most of all focusing on the last two years and the sitting pin because many questions have been raised about potential change of foreign policy. Is there a real change or not? What does it mean? How China is approaching the region? Is there some form of coherence strategy building up concerning different zones of the region, being Central Asia, Eastern Asia, Southeast Asia? This is a type of question that I would like to share with you today in 20-25 minutes. Sorry about the slide, I didn't know about the room setting, so if it's too small, just let me know. Or we can pass, so the PowerPoint will be online, I think, so no need to take too much. So why did I start to focus on this question is first of all looking at official communication, sitting pin and central leadership over the last two years. I've been underlying that for them the region is a priority of the foreign policy. This is an official term. It has been first underlined in October 2013, so it was this peripheral diplomatic work conference. In China, you have regular diplomatic work conference, major one, not every year, it's because it's a major gathering, but the last one was in 2006 and it was a general foreign policy, I mean it was a diplomatic work conference that was talking about the entire global situation and this last conference was specifically focusing on the region and half of the communication that was issued at the end explained that the region is more than important than ever for China's foreign policy. We have been witnessing a multiplication of bilateral and multilateral meetings with neighboring countries and the sitting pin has been traveling all over the region, except maybe Japan, but all over the region and he has received a significant number of top leaders from the region and thinking also in particular of central Asian leaders, but not only some Southeast Asian leaders in recent years. Well, you may say well, but this is not an argument to say that something is happening in the region or China's foreign policy in the region is changing. No, but there is some, at least for example if you look also at other elements such as rhetoric, there is an intent to be innovative with now I'm mentioning very frequent mentioning all over the world and especially when Chinese research are fitted to think they're struggling with what they are emphasizing on this new concept of maritime silk road and silk road economic belt. We can discuss about it in more detail in the coming slide. It's not a new concept, but now sitting pin is saying that they are guiding access of development for China's strategy in the region and we have to take them seriously. We have to analyze it, but that's official communication and a sitting pin. So in general term, we are witnessing a sitting pin and not necessarily a U-turn, a complete change of strategy, but at least an acceleration of the reason of visits, meetings of your communication on China's foreign policy in the region and a slight change of style in this approach. Existing concepts, existing motivations, I just said that I don't think there is a major complete significant change in China's foreign policy in the region because the motivations, the drivers, the factors explained in this region of foreign policy are still the same as under Huyin Tao. First of all of course is the opening up of inland provinces. Huyin Tao has not managed to reduce the imbalance in terms of economic development within the Chinese territories. Western and central provinces are still strongly underdeveloped compared to eastern provinces. So it's urgent now under the current leadership to try to develop these provinces and one way to develop them is to reinforce the international exposure and its belief that through cross-border exchanges, investment, regional investment, development and infrastructure of the region, that might be a way to open up these provinces which cannot be opened through maritime exposure such as the one in Futian, Zhejiang, etc., which were targeted, identified by debt-shelping in the beginning of the year or pre-promenade opening up at the late 70s and beginning of the 80s. So in this context the central government has been identifying several provinces and trying to put them or to develop them, I bridge four specific investments and trade with specific region of the world. Just an example, for example, it's Ningxia, which we don't talk a lot about Ningxia, Ningxia provinces. Northern western part of China and there is a strong Hui population. So the central government, when Niko Tian was still not prime minister, identified this region as a bridge to the Arab world because it considered that possible connection, language connection, religious connection, cultural connection might help in developing economic exchanges. I've been there so far, there is not much happening, but it's interesting to see what the general methodology was, the general approach of central government to these provinces. And you go to Yunnan, which has been identified on the Houtian Solidarity as a bridge to the Southeast Asian provinces, so because of geographical location. So every provinces who are still considered as poor or remote or underdeveloped compared to the eastern side are kind of pushed to be toward regional integration and that's the general idea behind the Silk Road project. The Silk Road project is basically, the core of the Silk Road project is infrastructure development. It's hard to see really the consequences so far of this concept because there are still relatively new concepts. But the leadership is trying to develop investment projects in Central Asia or in Southeast Asia with Chinese companies, major Chinese companies contributing to the construction of ports, railways, highways, roads, airports in many countries of the region. And in general terms, it seems that the current leadership is very ambitious in terms of trade investment in the region. The current leadership is talking about reinforcing trade investment between China and its neighbor and most specifically, there is an official name of China as their trade to reach US$1 trillion by 2020 in comparison with US$400 billion in 2012. Existing concept, existing motivations. I just talked about the development of infrastructures in the region. This is so far the main concrete implication that we can witness when we talk about this concept or this regional policy. And recent visits, sitting being visited to neighbors, significant infrastructure contracts have been signed, including with a country which has ambiguous relations with China, such as I'm talking about, for example, India. And China is pushing and has pushed and now it has successfully managed to create Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, where China will highly contribute to the budget of this bank and this bank is supposed to generate a multilateral project of infrastructure development and to fund countries such as Cambodia or Laos who are not themselves able to finance such projects. We are not sure, still, once again, it's too early to assess the outcome of this bank and we are not sure because we also have other development banks, such as the ADB, which is already well established and not sure that this bank can compete with the ADB. And also, some countries have not been attending the launching ceremony of this bank, some Asian countries are thinking about Korea, I'm also thinking about Australia, Indonesia, among other countries and of course Japan to name a few. So, but these are just to underline this project to underline China's focus and emphasis on infrastructure development in the region. And we also have to read this development in light of the need to open up the underdeveloped provinces of the western and the central part of the country. Additional motivations behind China's approach toward its neighborhood, the first one, of course, is energy security, which is clearly a top objective of SEAS Visit to the four Central Asian countries in September 2013. Major investment projects have been conducted in Kazakhstan in the field of energy among other countries. And there is still this ongoing strategy of diversification of supplies in the region as far as energy-rich countries are concerned. Another additional motivation, I'm listing them, but of course the list is not exhaustive, right? We could talk about it for an entire day. This is fascinating topic, but another topic, another motivation of China's foreign policy in the region is counterterrorism. We have to remember that China, I mean, that since China has several, not only ethnic tensions, but rise of radical extremism in Xinjiang. And it is a concern about the situation in Xinjiang and is trying to develop ties with countries neighboring Xinjiang, namely Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, to try both to open up economically this province and to reinforce potential security cooperation within the region. Of course, this is in the process, and I don't myself have a specific views of the nature of security cooperation, but that is China's concern, the security of the region and specifically the ties and the networks that may exist between Xinjiang and other countries of the region. A broader security objective of China, when we just talked about security, we also have to remember that China is concerned about the situation in Afghanistan, especially post-NATO Afghanistan, what will be the situation and how to stabilize the tensions in this context, so situation in Afghanistan or so the situation in Pakistan in the broader region as well. So to sum up, region is a clear priority for China because the region necessarily concentrates a series of security, energy and economic interests for China that are core to both its economic development and security concerns. At the same time, we have to underline the fact that just as observers, we have to remember that we are witnessing both soft and hard move of China's foreign policy in the region. Just previously when we talked about the Silk Road project, we meant it actually is our main economic diplomacy project. We talked about reinforcement of cross-border investment, reinforcement of infrastructures, reinforcement of cooperation between the countries, but if we look at the other side of the region in the East and South China seas, we have been seeing a tit-for-tat move vis-à-vis Japan and regular-getting territorial disputes. And China, China is considering that starting point was Japan's purchase of part of the Diaoyu Senkaku Island in late 2012. Japan would say that this purchase was actually on the contrary to the countdown tension raised by the nationalist mayor of Tokyo who wanted to purchase the island in a more assertive and offensive aim and also to be more active on the island. This is a matter of debate and I won't enter into this debate, but what we have seen, we have seen more initiative from the side of China in these waters. The first one that I can list, or once again the list is not exhaustive, is the ADIZ, so it's Air Defense Identification Zone above the Diaoyu Senkaku Island in November 2013. This in itself is not something uncommon, but it's the declaration, because the Euridice declaration is often unilateral, but the context of the declaration and the timing, because it was already very tense, the situation was very tense regarding this island and considering that it was already patrolling on interior waters, the timing of the declaration was considered as a provocation by a part of China's neighbor and they were response from Japan, the US and other countries in the region. China also declared the equivalent of an ADIZ ADIZ for fish in January 2014 in the waters of South China Sea, recrying basically at foreign fishing vessels and trying them to seek permission. This is a very brief summary of the situation and most recently as you probably all have noticed, China's decided to set an oil rig in a contested area of South China Sea in May 2014. It was a 2014, this rig was guarded by China's vessels and it provoked reaction from Vietnam because Vietnam considering that this is within its territorial waters and at least it is within disputed waters. So all these initiatives, if you could say, or hard move, whatever you call it, all these actions are appearing in sharp contrast with so-called low-profile foreign policy that has been developed under Deng Xiaoping, so-called Taowang Yang Hui that has been like the tradition of the core of China's foreign policy because basically Deng Xiaoping was considering that in late 70s, in the 80s, China was so poor that it has no mean and it has no time to focus on foreign policy issue so we leave status quo or we don't care so much about territorial dispute and we focus mainly on domestic economic development. It doesn't mean that we don't care about this dispute, it's just that we will resolve them later and wait for next generation when China will have the means and the time to address these issues. A question I would like to raise with you is does China have a clear-cut strategy in the region because how to read these moves basically? Are they corroding currents with a broader approach of the region? I would say at the moment, no. We can list several ambiguities that I'm calling. First, ambiguity is the relation between this soft economy diplomacy and how they move on territorial disputes. What is the relation between them? Is there is any? And in terms of communication as well, we'll see that this various type of moves or initiatives lead neighbors to raise questions about the ambition of China and the region and also give additional way to the China-thread thesis that have been supported by Japan, for instance. The second ambiguity is related to the concrete implementation of the new Silk Road project. For sure, faster-to-development is a concrete and serious implementation of this project. We should not underestimate them. We're talking about major contracts, rapid implementation, start of the construction of this project for some of them. But apart from this faster-to-development, what are the guidelines for the new Silk Road project? It's unclear for China. China itself, within Xinjiang, resites region. Xinjiang is thinking now on the best ways to implement this concept that have been underlining and will be emphasized by the central leadership. So what concrete does it mean? China itself is thinking about it. How to put this in practice in the best, most efficient way in the short and medium term. It's also unclear for China's neighbors. Neighbors who are directly identified as part of this new project, or at least who are considering that they've been identified as a country where the roads will pass through them, don't know themselves what does it mean. Some, for example, I was a senior researcher in Kyrgyzstan. There are some of countries who are already friendly with China, consider it's potential good economic opportunity and they're welcoming the general concept, but sometimes they ask Chinese government, so tell us what does it mean for us, what projects we really implement and how fast you will do that. Some neighbors are welcoming China's Silk Road project. Some of us are not so much welcoming it and I'm thinking, for instance, about Russia. We often talk about relatively good ties between China and Russia and we mentioned the recent gas deal that has been signed, but actually when the Silk Road project was first mentioned by the top leadership in China, Russia did not recognize it. It's only one year after, actually during the joint communique on the gas deal, actually, that Russia agreed to recognize the existence of such project in black and white on paper. But still, Russia is considering, for instance, that China's new project towards Central Asia might interfere with Russian influence in the region and is not so welcome. Another question regarding the Silk Road and regarding the potential ambiguity surrounding the project is how to secure the roads. We talk about security issue, talk about tourism. If these roads become valuable, they might become target. Target, I'm not just talking about a terrorist target, I'm talking about mafia, criminal network that might be hard for China and the neighbor to secure this economic network that are supposed to pass. I remember it was from China up to Europe and the general motivation for developing the Silk Road, at least the center, the inner part of the Silk Road, not the maritime one, is to also transport the goods to find an alternative transportation route for goods, Chinese goods from China to Europe by train. So faster reducing, significantly, the time of transportation, not the cost, but this might work effectively if there is security surrounding this transportation line. Another ambiguity that I would like to mention with you when we think about China's foreign policy in the region is what is the weight of affect or historical recentment on foreign policy decision-making process and the sitting pin? And I'm specifically asking on the sitting pin. Of course, the weight of affective and historical recentment is varying according to the issue at stake and certainly higher on some flashpoints, such as the Diagu Sen Ka Khudan on other issues. At the same time, also, we have to nuance a bit the weight of historical recentment and affect on foreign policy decision-making process because pragmatism is still very widespread or still the guiding approach to China's foreign policy decision-making process. China will have an ideological framework but it's pragmatic decision-making process that can account economic interests first of all and concrete situation on the ground. But at the same time, we see that it's not new but under leadership, new leadership is particularly obvious. There is a general belief that under previous decays or even dynasties, China was occupying an international or regional status that was not in line with its long history or culture. So you have frequent official, I'm talking about official references to the hundreds years of humiliation, to the European war, et cetera. And the sitting pin has been opening new museum regarding a Second World War, regarding tension with Japan, and anti-massacre has been opening new memorials and we have, it's not, while Japan now is hoping to turn the page of history and build a new defense in the foreign policy strategy region that is not a direct legacy of a Second World War, China now is opening back the book and want to analyze it in more detail and to focus in more extent, at least in its communication, that's what it is trying to do. And sitting pin has been often mentioning the following expression, the great revival of the Chinese nation. It's still unclear what it means in concrete foreign policy term but there is a general belief in China that it's now time to occupy the regional status that China should occupy considering its long history culture. So it's more culturalist approach, a culturalist argumentation to this development. But I would like to underline and something that we discussed informally in our just previous discussion before arriving here is that the dangling of this great revival of the Chinese nation is a long-term deadline. It's set more or less at 2050 for the centenary of the PRC. So it might also be broad concept also to appeal to a general public to kind of build some form of unity behind the current leadership and reinforce and counterbalance the erosion of the CCP legitimacy but in concrete terms that might not have so much short-term middle-term implication. Still, the great revival is not new. It was a silent hope but it is becoming an official aim on the sitting pin which is considering that China now has a means, economic means, financial means to support such revival. It's still to put in line with Deng Xiaoping, a foreign policy and Deng Xiaoping they might have a willingness to revive the Chinese nation but on foreign policy level China did not have the financial means to do that now. There is a clear rising confidence on the side of China following the 2008 global financial and economic downturn. China resisted relatively well to the crisis thanks to the stimulus package that has been launched at a fast pace and current leadership is considering now we are entering a favorable context with the development of new economic balance of power in the region and also China is conscious that the region itself is under restructuring. So as things are moving it is now time maybe to take more initiatives because if you don't take initiative in this favorable context then when will you promote your national interest when will you advance the regional status of China from an economic view at least or economic side but also a more general term of influence and political influence. So there is also, there is obviously under sitting pin is a belief that it's now the appropriate time for China to consolidate its regional power status. We're talking about ambiguities before and the question we can raise as researchers and analysts of China is are these ambiguities intentional or unintentional? And I would answer that they are both. They are both intentional and intentional. Intentional first, well, yeah, just if you remember foreign policy and the Mao Zedong and even lecture, there is a personal belief in the opacity that opacity is itself a strategic asset. It's not necessarily good to disclose information about what you want to do but this is not specifically China but it's not even sometimes good to disclose basic information about the mechanism of the foreign policy decision making process about who is heading which office and how does it work. This is a general belief in China from several decades and it's still waiting on the approach of China. So when we say, well, China is not explaining clearly what it wants to do. Well, it has never really done so. Both at foreign policy level and at institutional level, neither. Also under the current leadership, there is an attempt to develop some form of transparency on some issues or some decision making mechanism. There is also, it seems, and this I in fact I don't think because we are still quite early to analyze this foreign policy development, it seems that there is a general belief in China that economic diplomacy and foreign territorial moves can be conducted concurrently or even to some extent independently. What I mean is that the leaders, so the territorial moves, the harder territorial moves will not impact the former, meaning economic diplomacy. Given the size of Chinese foreign direct investment and the general attractiveness of the Chinese market, the leaders of China will still be able to sign contracts given in this situation and considering that China would like to reinforce its economic diplomacy in the region. At the same time, ambiguities are also non-intentional and intentional for one reason we have to remember that there remains strong institutional obstacles to strategic planning and the sitting pin. A number of institutions taking part in the frame, policy decision making process over the last 20 years have been increasing at a very sharp pace, fast pace. You have economic oriented institution that are very powerful, I'm thinking about the NDRC, but I was also thinking about major SOE, state-owned enterprises who also are contributing to some extent to the shaping of China's foreign policy and who have also institutions such as the Minister of Foreign Affairs in China who are on some issues, weak, and I can say that. Basically, the more important, the more closer to core interests, the issue is the higher the decision making process is, logically, but on some issues, the party is CCP is certainly more influential than other institutions, and there is in this context an issue of coordination of the decision making process, how to coordinate the different institutions who are taking part in it, so sitting pin is calling for coordination of diplomatic work, and it's also talking about top-level design, so it's having a strategic view, long-term one, and not only responding to moving the region, not only being passive and basically establishing foreign policy day by day, which may not have a broader comprehension of the general geopolitical context. I'm mentioning this because when we talk about ambiguities, ambiguities are partly originating also from the institutional framework in China and from this overlap and issues of coordination, and there is also another issue regarding China's foreign policy, if we can say, is the under assessment of communication and strategic impact of the hard move that were previously mentioned in the East and South China Sea. We received recently researchers, friends, we can say from a Chinese think tank, and I'm quoting her now anonymously, but I could quote many others who share the same comments. She was saying, China needs to use international communication standards to explain its foreign policy better. So far we have failed, we are not used to these standards. There is a communication issue here and also an issue of perception gaps because we could say that the moves in the East and South China Sea was counterproductive as seen from Beijing, at least in terms of national interest, Chinese national interest. It contributed to reinforce the fear of its neighbors and some were even more favorable to reinforce their ties with the US. So China is sending mismisage and there is still some ambiguity surrounding its foreign policy in the region, just mentioning a counterproductive effect of some of these moves, but we also talk about a productive effect of these moves or let's say of these ambiguities that is surrounding China's foreign policy. We could say, we could argue, these are just points of analysis to support and to give some food for thought for the debate. We could say that the remaining flexible or adaptive inner region that is itself undergoing a restructuring can be a strategic advantage to position itself or to size opportunities faster than rival. Just a footnote, but the secret project actually is the initial idea, of course there is historical legacy but the initial idea was coming from Hillary Clinton who gave a speech in 2011 in Afghanistan saying that to kind of stabilize the region would be good to reinforce ties and economic integration within the region and talk about Silk Road and then China said, oh wow, why not, this is a good idea and maybe we are more legitimate to do that considering historical background and we can do that maybe faster way, so let's do it and there's a declaration of hitting ping on the rival and then there is implementation of it now. So you see how China's foreign policy is trying to readjust according to moves from main regional key players. That's also a matter of flexibility and sizing opportunities. Another point is domestically as well and not only China is trying to reshape its foreign policy division but also other key regional players such as Japan and the US who could talk about the US pivot or rebalancing to Asia but also Japan's new foreign policy security guidelines under current ABL leadership. We could also argue that remaining ambiguous may disturb strategic planning of neighbors. I'm thinking for instance of the declaration of the ADIZ over, as I think I could have had, there was, after this declaration in November of 2013, there was a series of rumors and discussion among regional players and beyond on potential declaration of a similar zone in the South China Sea, above the South China Sea and each country was trying to see how they could react or adapt to this move if this move effectively happened. Actually it did not took place but that should give you an example of how this ambiguity may disturb the strategic planning or shaping of neighbors. So even if China's foreign policy in the region remain ambiguous and even if I'm now doing a risky exercise which is to analyze development that are really new and we probably need to take time to continue to analyze it with more distance but even in this context we have, even with these ambiguities, we have one sure that one development that we can be sure of is a reinforced China-US regional competition. China is clearly trying to establish a new regional balance of power with the U.S. As you think Ming has been talking about new type of great power relationship. In this regional balance of power is being developed at several level. First of all security strategic competition. China is trying to develop and to enhance asymmetric catch up with the U.S. It knows that it's clearly laid behind them of military capabilities but maybe there is a smarter way to coordinate these capabilities in order to face U.S. presence in the region militarily in case there would be escalation and also sitting pink has been emphasizing and the need to develop a strong navy in particular and he has been talking about a navy that should be able to fight and win wars. This declaration has been made during the visit of me, Terry Bay, at the beginning of its mandate. So maybe it's also to reinforce the loyalty of the PLA to the CCP. So it has the domestic target, this communication as the main target and not only maybe not only reflecting new foreign policy orientation but it's important to mention them, I believe. Another reinforce China-U.S. regional competition at another level, which is trade level. There is of course a dichotomy TBP asset that I won't go too much into detail because it's another chapter but China is also trying to, beyond this mega FTS, China is trying to negotiate FTA with the maximum of country in the world and especially in the region with the focus on East and Southeast Asian countries. Another competition that has been reinforced and the sitting thing with the U.S. is at the monetary level. China is hoping to expand the scale of the use of the GenMINB in the surrounding areas and hoping that the influence of the GenMINB in the regional monetary system become higher. So we could talk about the intent of internationalize the GenMINB but also to regionalize itself first of all with the number of cross-border trade settlement in GenMINB that has been signed and also number of bilateral currency swap agreements signed with neighboring countries. I just mentioned a few on this slide since 2008 but the list is not exhaustive once again. Regional competition between China and the U.S. also is also noticeable at institutional level. China is trying to reinforce its participation in existing regional institutions and framework such as ASEAN Plus 3 app pack that will open very soon but also China is hoping to create or trying to create or even refresh institutions in which it could play a leading role. For example, thinking about the conference on interaction and confidence building major in Asia, CICA, CICA, whatever you call it but China has been focusing and emphasizing on it a lot because it's heading it for two years. It has been hosting it and now there is 20 plus participants but not the U.S., not Japan. And the official aim from a Chinese perspective is to convert it in a reference institution for regional security cooperation. That might be too optimistic given that there is no, not all key regional players are taking part and also given that you also have other institutions in place in the region in this field but I'm mentioning it because the speech of given by sitting in the opening was also enlightening regarding competition in the U.S. For instance, in the speech sitting being talked about and for the fact that it was according to him up to Asian countries to solve their own problems and it was time to forge the Asian communities of common destiny and the meaning in the U.S. is not welcome in this community building because it has no legitimacy according to Beijing to take part in this new Asian community of common destiny. This is quite a new rhetorical development that at least has been more emphasized on the sitting thing. Question we could ask is, are we heading toward a competition or more frontal rivalry between the U.S. and China? The answer is that at the moment we don't know the relation is not stabilized and there is a debate within China, China's foreign policy community about the orientation of this relation. Some and including influential researchers are saying that, well, we should not engage in a two confrontational relation with the U.S. considering the strong economic interdependency and considering that also we might need the U.S. to cooperate on a set of security issue including in Afghanistan but also including on the development of terrorism in the broader global context. So you have diverging views among China policy makers and analysts regarding the nature of China-U.S. relation and we should not be over-simplistic and say that China is heading towards a confrontational relation with the U.S., I believe. Some concluding remarks to support the Q&A session. We are clearly witnessing a multiplication of initiatives and moves in the region. China's foreign policy is becoming more proactive in the entire Asia-Pacific region from Central Asia to the China seas and it's likely that these initiatives will continue to be numerous in the short and medium term. We will, it's likely as well that we will witness still a continuity of soft and hard moves in parallel concurrently because there is no political will but also there is no institutional ability to coordinate a homogeneous regional policy under the current leadership. The regional policy student construction, we have a diversity of interests and a flash point to manage in the region. Sometimes we say, well, China does not have a common foreign policy strategy in the region. I say, well, yes, it's still ambiguous but at the same time we have to consider the diversity of the flash points that it is facing. Addressing the current peninsula issue require a different approach than addressing the East China Sea territorial dispute, the South China Sea territorial dispute or the border dispute, for example, between China and India. All these are very different set of issues that probably that would be hard to address with a common coherent strategic framework. And in general term we have to remember that we have to remember the strong geographical hierarchy of foreign policy priorities from a Beijing perspective. Still, it's following a geographical logic. China has a lot on her plate at domestic level. We talked about social tension, ethnic tension, economic imbalance at the scale of the national territories, coordination between central government and local government. It has these issues. If we just focus on security issues, we have strong security issues in Xinjiang but not only with increasing the number of attacks beyond Xinjiang and concerning, for example, recently Yunnan province or even Beijing. So a lot of that played domestically. It has a lot of a plate also. If recently we think about Hong Kong issue and to some extent Taiwan, if the issue is different and it's not so much a flash point today but election are coming up, local election and then 2016 presidential election. So if there is a change of part, if the DPP come back to power that might be a flash point I've seen from Beijing. But in general, China has a lot to do in the region and we just received some flash points of current peninsula, East China Sea, South China Sea territorial border dispute. So in this context, China is hoping to build a leadership role first of all at regional level. We often try to analyze China's position regarding Syria or Ukraine. China is following very closely these issues but I wouldn't say that establishing global power status is a top priority for China in terms of security of foreign policy initiatives. I would say that first of all it wants to consolidate its power at regional level and it wants to focus because it has to protect increasing number of investments and also citizens abroad. So it is taking more seriously international issues that is happening beyond the region and it is participating to anti-parasy for instance operation near Somalia. It is sending UN peacekeeping soldiers in several regions of the world but at the same time we cannot say for instance that China has a very clear cut position or has been very proactive in Syria or we cannot say even if the vote at the UN we cannot say that China is also a top leading actor regarding Ukraine. It's trying to position himself still to some extent in an ambiguous way keep trying to maintain good relations both with Russia, with EU and the US in general. I won't go too much to detail but I thought that on this because I want to say that there is still a very strong geographical hierarchy of priorities of China's foreign policy and the focus is mainly on the region. So when we talked about reinforced competition between China and the US China has been aiming at, it's first of all the region that it should take place and that it has no means to do so at a broader international level so far. So I will conclude on this and so to keep enough time for the Q&A session but there is seriously strong willingness there is undoubtedly strong willingness from part of China to counter US influence the region but still the regional policy remains ambiguous at several levels. And maybe one last comment is that I fully understand that this is an analysis only after two years of power of sitting ping. I would be happy to continue to exchange with you. I will continue to focus on this topic much later in the year and sitting ping is in the coming years and sitting ping is at its position until 2022. So that may be a timeframe that we have to follow to analyze more closely front post development in the region to see if there is some form of current strategy building up in the coming decades. Thank you very much.