 Welcome to Thing Tech on Spectrum OC 16, Hawaii's weekly newscast on things that matter to tech and to Hawaii. I'm Marby Kelly. And I'm Cynthia Sinclair. In our show this time, we'll visit the 2018 meeting of the Board of Governors of Pacific Forum to hear their current thinking about our critical relations with Asia. The meeting celebrated the life of Admiral Joe Vasey, founder of Pacific Forum and featured remarks by former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. Admiral Vasey organized Pacific Forum more than 40 years ago. Its meeting this year was historic in that Joe Vasey has recently passed on. Also, Pacific Forum's relationship with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, CSIS, has ended. And President Rolf Kosa, who has been with Pacific Forum for 25 years, has announced his retirement. The meeting celebrated the life of Admiral Joe Vasey, founder of Pacific Forum and featured remarks by former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. For many years, Joseph S. Nye Jr. of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University was a regular speaker at the annual Board of Governors programs. More recently, and this year, former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage has played that role. Over the years, Pacific Forum has made huge contributions through its research and reports and articles and programs about relations with Asia. With its remarkable professional staff, fellows, interns and supporters, it is positioned to make increasingly valuable contributions going forward. There were hundreds of supporters and friends there that evening. After all, Pacific Forum is a Hawaii nonprofit and very popular among the diplomatic, business and military communities in Hawaii. This year, Pacific Forum President Rolf Kosa joined in a discussion with Richard Armitage to explore the events and issues facing the United States in its relations with Asia Pacific in the world today. Armitage is, of course, very well-informed and a very interesting and candid speaker. It's important that the people of Hawaii look beyond our shores and see Hawaii not just as an island state, but a multifaceted center of the Pacific. ThinkTech was there to support and tape this event, and here's the footage we took in the first part of the program. Next week, we will present the second part of that footage, including the reactions we got when we walked the floor. Last year, we had Joe Nye and Harry Harris on the podium, Mr. Softpower and Mr. Hardpower. And I asked the same question to both of them, which was, China, friend or foe? And Harry said, I think China is a great friend of the United States. I also believe in the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. And then he gave us a pretty comprehensive rundown. Joe, as you might imagine, was a little more professory and nuanced. So I wanted to throw that same question to you if I could. China friend or foe? China is an adversary, in my view. That's what I describe her as. This is not necessarily a foe. If we have good diplomacy, this is what our diplomats are supposed to do, keep an adversary from becoming an enemy. But we don't have the only say in that. China is going to make some basic decisions herself. Xi Jinping becoming president for life, that's bad news, good news, or doesn't make a difference? Well, I guess I ought to say it's a Chinese decision. So having said that, I think it's probably not a wise one. It's not wise because after Mao and China made their own decision, they didn't want to put all that power in one person's hand. And now they're going back and concentrating it all in one person's hand, president for life. So I could make the argument. I won't, I'm not foolish, and I know you're not foolish, but I could make the argument some in China make that it is more efficient to have Xi Jinping as president and the only guy who makes a decision. It's also dangerous, I think. It's dangerous because he'll probably surround himself with the yes men. He won't get the advice he needs to fully understand a problem or a course of action. And it's also dangerous because I happen to think that the president of China doesn't have, I was talking to Admiral Swift earlier and said that I believe Xi Jinping does not have an article term. Xi Jinping is much freeboard. He doesn't have much room for error. Having put himself in charge of everything important in China, he's got nobody to throw under the bus. So in the longer view, I think Xi Jinping has probably made an error. Thank you. We talked a little bit today at lunch about the various threats that the U.S. faces and the national security strategy this year sort of laid out three primary threats. One was revisionist powers, China and Russia. One was sort of rogue states with nuclear ambitions, North Korea and Iran. And then transnational terrorism, crime and all of that. What it didn't do is prioritize those and say, what's the real threat that we ought to be worried about as Americans? I get asked all the time, aren't we in terrible shape? Isn't the world a mess? It's so chaotic out there, have we ever been worse? And as a matter of fact, the world's been much worse. World War II was worse. The 80s, during the Reagan administration, we had four or five active wars in the beginning of terrorism. Marine Corps barracks was bombed in Lebanon. It's been much worse. And you can go back all through history and find that it's been worth. The other side of that coin is you, me, none of us have an existential threat today. Because to have an existential threat, you have to have the capability and the intention to destroy us. But China certainly has the capability, but she doesn't have the intention. Too much skin in the game, I believe, right now. Russia has the capability, doesn't have the intention either. Iran, I believe, does not have the intention, nor do they yet have the capability. The same is probably true in terms of capability for North Korea. There is one actor out there, however, that would love to destroy us. They have the intention. They have not the capability. And that's ISIS. So I think that we don't have the luxury of prioritizing, because should the balloon go up, we're going to turn to the Admiral and Lieutenant General, here, others. And we're going to ask them to go take care of the problem, whatever it is. And it might be a force on force problem, it might be terrorism problem, it might be a rogue state. So to prioritize them probably is troublesome, because when we prioritize, our enemies know that as well. And so they will act against our, they're not going to hit us strength on strength, they'll hit us where we're not. So I really am loathe always to prioritize threats. It's bad business. It can only lead to problems for us. You are a leading authority on Asia policy and spent much of your life crafting it. I wonder if you could tell us from your perspective, the current administration, what is it doing right in Asia? Are you also going to ask me what they did wrong? That'll be the second question. Well, look, the easy one first. What they've done right, I think, clearly is that the President went to the EAS and the APEC. There was some questions at the beginning of his administration, whether he'd do that and he did it. And I think I have to give our President his props for that. Beyond that, there hasn't been much right in Asia. But as I would think I said to Barbara Tanave earlier tonight, if one moves aside the tweets of our President and the language and the borishness of his behavior and just concentrate on his foreign policy, it's kind of like the music of Wagner. It's better than it sounds. And that's kind of right. As he hasn't changed very much, I mean he griped about NATO. He talks about removing forces from Korea, getting out of course, but we haven't done it. So in a very real way, it's like the music of Wagner. Now the second half, what do you think have been the biggest or the biggest mistakes in Asia? Well, the biggest mistake clearly is TPP and the decision not to go in. But to be fair, Mrs. Clinton, had she prevailed, would have done the same thing. It was then the blame for this, Ralph actually falls on people like you and me. It falls on us because we always concentrate in trade policy, at least I always did. I'll let you speak for yourself. Trade on trade policy on the winners. And at least as far as I'm concerned, none of the trade decisions that we've made when I was in government didn't have a majority of our people winning, but we never gave the thought to the losers, the people who didn't win because of a trade agreement. And so now we've sown the whirlwind and now we're reaping the storm for a while temporarily. But it's this whole TPP thing is probably, in my view, the worst decision. Now there's a second one. I guess you're going to get to it, but I'll let you talk about Korea in a minute. Give us the second worst, please. Well, my enthusiasm is dramatically under control for the bigger button meeting that's allegedly going to take place in May. I think this is fraught with disaster. And the reason I say that is, first of all, we've not heard a thing from the North Koreans. Not officially. Not a word. Now, on the one hand, I can see why would Kim Jong-un want to have a word about this? There's no need to. He can sit back and watch the bodies fall in Washington as the Secretary of State gets fired. The National Security Advisor is rumored to be fired. Who knows about John Kelly as Chief of Staff? So why should he speak about anything? He doesn't know what team he's going to be dealing with. So he'll just kind of watch these, as I say, the bodies fall for a while and see what comes out of it. Second, we know from our South Korean envoys what the North Koreans said and what Kim Jong-un said. But what we don't know, as my grandmother would say, is a matter of emphasis. Where was the emphasis? And without hearing the emphasis, the raw words don't convey, I think, the full feeling of whatever it was that Kim Jong-un said. Third, the South Korean envoys told us that among the many things that surprised them was how well-versed on North-South issues, how well-versed on regional issues, and how well-versed on international issues was Kim Jong-un. I think they were, I'll put words in their mouth, they were a bit surprised. I must say I'm a bit surprised, but I guess you can think about it. He can get CNN. He can get whatever networks he wants and kind of stay abreast of what's going on. The other side of that is the whole situation in North Korea has subtleties, has historical context that must be understood and taken into consideration. And whatever we want to say, I have to say that I don't think our president thus far has shown that he's got the temperament to engage on this kind of unscripted, unrehearsed situation, nor necessarily does he have the willingness to learn. So that's a situation that leaves us with one option, and that option is Japan. And we're counting where Foreign Minister Kono came into town last Friday, and he saw Secretary Mattis and some others around town, and I guess his concerns were part of these subtleties that I was talking about. His concerns are short-range ballistic missiles. Oh, that's a great surprise. If you live in Japan, you're going to be concerned about SRBs and abductees. These are issues that wouldn't even get on the table unless Kono sensei and later in the 18th of April or so, Mr. Abe, when he comes to Washington, didn't lay these in front of our president. So I would be one that would say I'd be delighted if this occasion passed by without this meeting. It's not ready yet, in my view. It's not ripe. The fruit is not hanging low enough to be picked. The spade work hadn't been done. The gardening hadn't been done. The other side of that is I'm afraid this would be, if you think about it, the most watched TV event ever. And I think that's got an attraction for our president, because something like that would knock everything else off the headlines if you get my drift. You just mentioned Japan, and one of the questions was about Prime Minister Abe. Is he, how much trouble does he in? Can he sustain the current challenges? And how does he play in the North Korea issue? About 10 days ago, I was in Tokyo, and it was right when the finance ministry person resigned and the Treasury official committed suicide. I was having dinner with the deputy prime minister, and he actually was late for the dinner because he was giving a like a two hour press conference. There was so much interest in this. And at the time, I must say the whole situation surrounding the Morimoto Gakuen Osaka school looked pretty dicey. Or as I said, I think at lunch they're pretty gnarly. My sense is, and a couple of the newspapers, Asahi and Manichi, they're really digging at the prime minister. They don't have any other thing to hit the prime minister with. The opposition, and splendid, has no policies of their own on the one hand. On the other hand, unless there's a new revelation and a big revelation, I think they've weathered the worst of this. There is some Abe fatigue, Mr. Abe understands that. I think everyone understands that it happens in every democracy. But the other side of that is, who else is there right now? And that doesn't seem to be much. So I would say Ralph, I think he's weathered it, unless there's a new revelation. I think, however, he will be challenged in the September LDP presidency race. And I think he'll prevail, but he will be challenged. He will, I think, end up being the longest post-war prime minister in Japan's history. He will preside over what I have no doubt will be a successful Olympics. And their situation in North Korea is changing almost daily. The situation, and I mentioned with Foreign Minister Kono coming and raising the issues of the short-range missiles and abductees, is very much politically on the minds of our friends in Tokyo. And I think Mr. Abe feels that he has to come and be seen as raising the issues of great concern to the people of Japan. And now I've read today that Mr. Abe also wants to meet with Kim Jong-un. So I don't know where, but that's not unprecedented. Kozumi has met with him in the early part of George Bush 43's administration. Rich, I've got two or three questions that essentially are, what's going on with one belt, one road? How is that going to impact the US? What's China up to? Well, if you'd asked me that question six weeks ago or so before the People's Congress, I'd have said, oh, yeah, every time Xi Jinping opens his mouth, he talks about one belt, one road, a huge infrastructure program, et cetera, et cetera. In the last month, they've been very quiet about this. And I think the reason is kind of twofold. The first and most important was the People's Congress. And Xi Jinping had to consolidate this presidency for life. And I think that's where his whole focus was. The second reason has to do with a little headwind that China ran into in Central Asia. The Russian Federation has some views about former satellites of hers, and Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, et cetera, et cetera. So that's kind of slowed down some of the one belt, one road. And this gives me an opportunity to bring up something. Tomorrow, our president will announce his tariffs on China, and it'll be strong. And it will be combined with at least a limited petition to the WTO. So there's going to be tough tariffs, but there'll be some obeisance paid to the WTO. China will react, I can't tell you how China will react, and maybe she'll react without saying anything. Just buy less sorghum, less soybeans, fewer cattle, and fewer pigs. Buy them from Argentina, buy them from somewhere else. There are plenty of suppliers. Without saying a word, that would be the best we could expect. The worst I think would be a somewhat harsher reaction. It could even evidence itself in some pressure on Taiwan. I'm not talking about invasion or anything like that, but some pressure, more pressure on Taiwan. One thing you can take to the bank is our markets will react negatively tomorrow. And I don't think it'd be long live, but they will react. The markets will go down tomorrow, I think almost certainly. And I think that's what happened at the tail end of today. This gives me an opportunity, forgive my length, to bring up something. I'm not, as I did at launch, I'm not going to talk about security issues in China. You live here, you're right in the middle of it. You probably, with a combination of an AV Marine Corps Air Force team out here, Army, you hear about the security challenges all the time. But there's an economic aggression coming from China. There's a coercive economics that they're engaged in. And wherever you look around the world, you will find China engaged in coercive economics, Japan, rare earth, Taiwan tourism to restrict tourism. Norway, tried to bully Norway for hosting the Nobel Prize for the chair, for the Nobel Prize winner, Sri Lanka. Anywhere you look, Cambodia, it's economic coercion. And this is part of what the administration of Washington is trying to get the attention of the Chinese on. Hawaii can and should be a magnet and gathering place for international relations in Asia Pacific. In addition to the obvious economic benefits, this can yield a new global reputation and role for Hawaii in the family of nations, serving national interests and also serving Hawaii's interests. Thanks for watching this. The first part of the 2018 Pacific Forum Board of Governors program. Tune in again next Sunday evening to watch the second part, including more of the views expressed by Richard Armitage. Want to know more about Pacific Forum? Check out its website, packforum.org, and take a look at its publications and PACNET articles. When you do, you will realize how important it is for Hawaii to be part of U.S.-Asia relations. And now let's check out our ThinkTech schedule of events going forward. ThinkTech broadcasts its talk shows live on the Internet from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays. Then we broadcast our earlier shows all night long and on the weekends. And some people listen to them all night long and on the weekend. If you missed a show or if you want to replay or share any of our shows, they're all archived on demand on ThinkTechHawaii.com and YouTube. For our arduous stream, go to ThinkTechHawaii.com slash audio. And we post all our shows as podcasts on iTunes. Visit ThinkTechHawaii.com for our weekly calendar and live stream and YouTube links. Or better yet, sign up on our email list and get our daily email advisories. ThinkTech has a high-tech green screen studio at Pioneer Plaza. If you want to see it or be part of our live audience or if you want to participate in our shows, contact shows at ThinkTechHawaii.com. If you want to pose a question or make a comment during a show, call 808-374-2014 and help us raise public awareness on ThinkTech. Go ahead, give us a thumbs up on YouTube or send us a tweet at ThinkTechHI. We'd like to know how you feel about the issues and events that affect our lives in these islands and in this country. We want to stay in touch with you and we'd like you to stay in touch with us. Let's think together. And now here's this week's ThinkTech commentary. Serial, we need you back. I'm specifically talking about Serial the podcast, Season 1, which covered the murder of Heyman Lee and Adnan Seyed's prosecution. The strength of Season 1 was that you wouldn't have been able to say anything about Adnan's situation unless you were listening to the full reporting on the background of the case and how the criminal justice system works. When Serial was covering Beau Bergdahl in Season 2, it wasn't the same at all. You might want to have a conversation about Bergdahl, but you couldn't know if the person you were talking to was basing their opinion on having actually listened to all the serial episodes or if they read a single article in the newspaper, saw a headline on Facebook back when the story first broke or heard a few snippets on Fox News. The fragmentation of reporting on most stories definitely affects how we form our opinions. Just this week, there was a ThinkTech episode where it was expressed that the Harvey Weinstein victims must have been implausibly naive to agree to one-on-one meetings with him in hotel rooms. And the two other people on the show didn't point out that this was inaccurate. If you read the Ronan Farrow piece, which I admit I only did this week, it's clear that the modus operandi was to get women to agree to come to a corporate event or group meeting, and then the enablers, co-conspirators would leave them alone with him. This is a case where knowing the background is essential to forming an opinion on the matter. If these women were planning to meet him alone, I can see that you might wonder whether they were willing participants. Well, they weren't willing. That's why Weinstein's staff had to resort to setting up these meetings on false pretenses. We all think we know what the Weinstein narrative was since it was so broadly reported, but how consistent is our understanding of those stories? When we have a conversation about it, are we really talking about the same thing? For issues like gun violence, opioid abuse, immigration, and sexual harassment, where we have to make decisions as a society about what our norms and policies should be, we need new seasons of serial. It's important to have serious journalists go in-depth on an individual story that hasn't been big enough to break into the news cycle. If you know someone disagrees with you after they've listened to the whole story, it means something, and you can have that dialogue to find out where you agree and disagree on the issues. We need that in-depth journalism to get us thinking deeper, and as a side benefit, I think we'll also find that our friends on the other side start sounding more reasonable when we're all talking from the same starting point. We'll be right back to wrap up this week's edition of Think Tech, but first, we wanna thank our underwriters. The Atherton Family Foundation, Castle and Cook, Hawaii, the Center for Microbial Oceanography Research and Education, Collateral Analytics, the Cook Foundation, the Hawaii Council of Associations of Apartment Owners, Hawaii Energy, the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum, the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, Hawaiian Electric Companies, the High Tech Development Corporation, Galen Ho of BAE Systems, Integrated Security Technologies, Kameha Meha Schools, Dwayne Kurisu, Calamon Lee and the Friends of Think Tech, MW Group Limited, the Shiler Family Foundation, the Sydney Stern Memorial Trust, the Volo Foundation, Yuriko J. Tsukimura. Okay, Cynthia. That wraps up this week's edition of Think Tech. Remember, you can watch Think Tech on Spectrum OC16 several times every week. Can't get enough of it, just like Cynthia does. For additional times, check out oc16.tv. For lots more Think Tech videos and for underwriting and sponsorship opportunities on Think Tech, visit thinktechhawaii.com, be a guest or a host, a producer or an intern, and help us reach and have an impact on Hawaii. Thanks so much for being part of our Think Tech family and for supporting our open discussion of tech, energy, diversification and global awareness in Hawaii. And of course, the ongoing search for innovation wherever we can find it. You can watch this show throughout the week and tune in next Sunday evening for our next important weekly episode. I'm Marby Kelly. And I'm Cynthia Sinclair. Aloha everyone.