 I'm sorry to interrupt. This is a very nice cavernous echo-y, I feel like God. I'm Michael Green from Georgetown School of Foreign Service, also at CSIS, and on behalf of the security studies program in Georgetown and our co-sponsors at the U.S. Institute of Peace, I'd like to welcome you and thank you for joining us. And I'd like to now take the opportunity to introduce our very distinguished luncheon speaker during this conference on China. It is difficult to tell the story of U.S.-China relations over the last 200-plus years without also referencing the history of U.S.-Britain relations in the same period. The United States' first encounter with China was actually Britain's fault. The banker for the American Revolution, Robert Morris, was flat broke in 1783, and to recoup some of his money somewhere in the world where the British weren't in charge, he outfitted the Empress of China in New York in 1784, filled the hole with ginseng from Pennsylvania, sent it off to Canton, and made a 400 percent profit. America's first major foreign policy strategy towards China was actually a British idea. John Hayes' open-door notes in 1899 were actually the plan of Sir Peter Wezmikot's predecessor and formulated the censure of U.S. foreign policy towards China for 30 years after that. In World War II, Winston Churchill thought that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was dead wrong to assume China would be a major power after the war, but he went along with FDR's vision of the four policemen to maintain world order, including China. Ten years after that, Dwight D. Eisenhower thought that Anthony Eden, the British Prime Minister, was delusional to be offering liaison offices and consulates to the Chinese communist government in Beijing, but of course the United States followed suit and did the same thing 15 years after that. So we've been in each other's space, and we have more often than not taken our cues from each other as we've each dealt with China over the last few centuries. And so it's appropriate today in a different era. For most of our history, it was the West that was shaping Asia, that was determining China's destiny, but now we're in an entirely different international system where it's China and Asia that are increasingly determining the nature of international dynamics. And so as we do with all global issues, we turn to our closest and oldest friends, and today our distinguished speaker, Sir Peter Westmikot, a distinguished diplomat in the foreign Commonwealth office for many decades, first joining in 1972 with tours including ambassador to France and Turkey and senior positions in London and now since January 2012, ambassador to the United States of America. I'll invite the ambassador to make some opening comments and then we'll have a short dialogue up here at the podium. So please join me in welcoming Sir Peter Westmikot. Well Mike, thank you very much. I've never set foot in this building before, so it's a great treat to be here and I'd like to thank the Institute of Peace and Georgetown University for giving me the opportunity to share a few thoughts with you. I've been spent quite a lot of years of my diplomatic career in both Iran and Turkey and well used to hearing that everything is the British fault. When I was in Iran, they used to say that if you lifted up Khomeini's beard, it said underneath Sakhti English, which means made in England in Persian. So we are held responsible for an awful lot of things that went wrong in different parts of the world. But you might wonder what I'm doing standing here talking a bit about Britain and China and China's role in the wider world. And it is true that I've spent most of my time in other parts of the world, apart from Iran. I've been ambassador in Turkey. I've been in France. I've served in both those countries a couple of times and here and I am absolutely not a sinologist. Two days, two decades ago, however, I did have the privilege of taking part in some of the negotiations for the handover of Hong Kong. And I've been in China a couple of times since then as a line manager for Heads of Mission. And also when my then boss, David Milliband, who is often in Washington these days, had the rather brilliant idea of asking a group of senior British ambassadors to spend a couple of days in Beijing four or five years ago on a brainstorming of a number of current foreign policy issues, which was a great privilege. So I feel I've got some right to express a few views on the country. But more importantly, the rise of China I think is now a subject which is far too important to ignore. Both the United States and the United Kingdom are, in my view, genuinely global players economically and in terms of our security. Our friendship, bilaterally, involves matters that range far beyond our respective borders. In my embassy here in Washington, I've got, for example, dedicated policy teams handling regions as far-flung as Europe, Middle East, and of course Asia. And I also have the pleasure of discussing regional and global issues from time to time with my Chinese counterpart. When he was in China in December, my Prime Minister, David Cameron, said that China's rise is one of the defining facts of our lifetime. And we feel that as strongly in London as people do here in Washington. Strong China, of course, is not a surprise to anyone. One-fifth of all human beings on the planet live there. And as Henry Kissinger likes to remind us, China's economy has been the world's largest for 18 of the last 20 centuries. China lies at the heart of a region that's increasingly central to the interests of the UK as a trading nation, as a global financial hub, and as a leading member of the Security Council of the UN and the European Union. In dealing with the new dynamics in Asia, the UK benefits from a unique set of historical, cultural, and diplomatic ties. Not least with Commonwealth countries like Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand, and of course, with the world's other emerging giant India. And I hope to demonstrate in the next few minutes that we also think we have a special right to say something about China itself. The history of my country's relationship actually goes back a little bit further than Mike was saying, not long by local standards, just 377 years. In 1637, the first Englishman turned up on Chinese shores, and like descendants after them, they sought to trade with the Middle Kingdom. But the methods of these red-haired barbarians, as the Chinese called them, left a little to be desired by modern standards of good trading practice and diplomacy. River forts were attacked, and Guangzhou was in fact left with no option but to trade. Later on, 150 years later, 1793, there was a mission called the McCartney Embassy, which tried again and got so bogged down with imperial protocol that it left with its hands largely empty. Sino-British relations have come a long way since then. Like the United States, we have long since realized that we have far more to gain from China's success than from its failure. We no longer even try to impose our way of doing things, but neither are we so deferential as to avoid discussing difficult subjects altogether. When we urge change upon China, as we sometimes do, it is because we know from our own experience the benefits that free speech, human rights, and open markets can bring. And we'd like to see China and Chinese people benefiting in the same way that we have. When he was in China just four months ago, David Cameron took with him six senior ministers and representatives of more than 100 British companies. And the list of items for discussion reflected the depth of our relationship these days with China, as well as commerce. The agenda included innovation, cross-border crime, people-to-people links, cybersecurity, human rights, and a bunch of other issues. In other words, the same full-spectrum agenda as the United States pursues with China. During the couple of days that he was there, the UK and China signed more than 40 agreements covering trade, low-carbon technology, cultural projects, educational initiatives. David Cameron even announced that Britain would open a new consulate in Wuhan, our fifth post in China. He started his own Sina Weibo account, which prompted one member of the British Embassy to post his own comment, big boss comes to Weibo. Premier Li even noted that the relationship between China and the United Kingdom was indispensable for both countries, which as you can imagine made us feel better. A few days after he left, a Royal Naval Vessel HMS Daring arrived on the Shanghai Bund for a goodwill visit hosted by the PLA Navy. So we've come a long way in our 377 years. Since 2010, since the present British government came to power, the UK has been investing strongly in its diplomatic network in China and actually throughout Asia. We're one of very few European countries with an embassy in every ASEAN country. By the end of next year, we will have opened five new diplomatic posts in the region. We have increased by 50% the number of Mandarin speakers amongst our diplomatic staff in China. And we have added 60 new staff to the missions that we have got there, a bigger increase than we have done in any other part of the world. We've also built our specialist Asia teams in Brussels, in London, and also here in my team in Washington, as I was mentioning, which reflects how closely we work with our American and European partners on these issues. Economically, our relationship with China also continues to mature. Between 2005 and 2012, our trade went up 150%. Admittedly, like lots of other Western countries, we still have a substantial trade deficit with China. But our exports are increasing faster than our imports, and they almost doubled between 2009 and 2012. China recently overtook the United Kingdom as the biggest market for the British car maker Jaguar Land Rover, who will be opening a new factory in Changsou next year to serve the local market. But I perhaps should add that with sales in the United States going up by 15% last year, Jaguar Land Rover doing pretty well in other markets as well. The UK is both the largest European investor in China and the largest destination in Europe for Chinese investment. Chinese companies have invested in airports, nuclear power stations, and other bits of the infrastructure of our economy. We do not view these investments as a threat. On the contrary, investors to the United Kingdom are welcome, whatever their nationality, so long as they obey British law and international law. We believe in a level playing field, and we think that should apply as much to Chinese investors as to anybody else. 58 Chinese firms are listed on the London Stock Exchange. London handles 60% of renminbi trading outside Hong Kong. Uniquely, firms based in London can now apply for licenses to invest renminbi directly into China. So we feel that London is playing its part in helping to advance the renminbi's emergence as a global currency. We also enjoy a unique historical, cultural, diplomatic, and economic relationship with Hong Kong. We know that Hong Kong is important to China too, not least as a gateway to the world for Chinese companies. Since the handover in 1997, Hong Kong's development has been a continuing success story, not just for the United Kingdom and for China, but for the international economy more generally. Last year, Hong Kong ranked second in the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business Index, benefiting from a potent combination of China's dynamic economy and strong rule of law. And Hong Kong still handles one-fifth of all China's foreign trade. It's in the interest of both China and Britain that Hong Kong is well-governed. The best way to preserve its immense strengths is through a transition to universal suffrage in 2017 that matches the aspirations of its people. We don't think there's any perfect model for democracy, but we do think the people of Hong Kong are entitled to a genuine choice and a real stake in the outcome. In the economic reforms agreed by the Third Plenum, China's leaders have decided to allow markets to play a decisive role in setting prices, strengthening regulation in the financial sector, and establishing the next generation of free trade zones. We like to think that the UK's experience and expertise can help put those decisions into practice. At the end of last year, we had a sign of British symposium to discuss the possibilities. There's a lot to gain all round, despite the fact that China's outward investment has more than tripled since 2007, the country still possesses vast, untapped potential. China's economy is three times the size of ours, but its overseas investment stock is less than one-third. On a broader level, talks are underway on a bilateral investment treaty between China and the European Union. Ultimately, we'd like to see a full EU-China free trade agreement. China's not, of course, a member of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, TPP, but we think that that deal, along with its transatlantic cousin to which we are so attached, TTIP, as complementing European efforts to improve trade and business links with China. If the members of TTIP and TPP bring their regulatory standards closer together, many Chinese manufacturers will no longer have to produce multiple versions of the same products. One reason why, according to independent estimates, TTIP alone could add $140 billion to the GDP of countries outside their transatlantic area. Today's trade routes circle the globe. International prosperity depends as much on East Asia's security, stability, and freedom of navigation as on the region's economic success. We encourage China's growth as a responsible security partner, both in the region and around the world. The search for flight MH370, which has involved many countries, including my own, that US and China has shown that our armed forces can collaborate peacefully in the Asia-Pacific region. Further afield, China's been an important partner in the unprecedented multinational fight against piracy in the Indian Ocean. China is an international power of growing consequence. It's addressing that role, we think with increasing seriousness and beginning to see the benefits that accrue from more engaged multilateralism. China, for example, has been a key participant in the Iran nuclear negotiations. It's worked to help resolve the brutal conflict in southern Sudan. Like many others in the international community, China is also facing up to hard choices in framing its policy on North Korea as well as on Ukraine. Clearly though, we still have our issues. Tensions in the South and East China Seas worry the United Kingdom and Europe as much as they do our friends here in the United States. Others in the region are concerned about China's greater assertiveness and what they see as a lack of transparency in its military development. We think that the best way of dealing with these issues is to engage frankly and constructively. The United Kingdom doesn't take a position on the underlying issues of sovereignty in those seas, but we do encourage all countries in the region to build mutual trust, work for stability, and settle disputes in accordance with international law. Here too, our voice complements that of the United States. Like America, Britain wants to strengthen the rules-based international system. That doesn't mean seeking to impose our ideas on China. It does mean working with China to shape the international order bilaterally, but also through institutions like the United Nations, the WTO, and the International Monetary Fund. My friend and our very distinguished Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns noted in a speech to the Asia Society a couple of weeks ago, out of today's crisis in Europe comes an important opportunity, a powerful reminder of the enduring value of commonly accepted rules of the road and a regional architecture of cooperation that will benefit the entire Asia Pacific. And he added a little bit later, all countries big and small stand to lose if rules are devalued, dialogue breaks down, misreading and misinterpretations multiply, and fear and tensions spiral. We too profoundly hope that out of present tensions, important lessons will be learned. Among the most urgent of the international issues we're facing is climate change. The world needs China to act on the environment just as we need other big emitters like the United States and the European Union to take action. People of China know better than anyone the urgency of dealing with pollution in air and water. Environmental degradation is estimated to cost China almost a tenth of its GDP and suppresses life expectancy in the North by more than five years. Here too, the United Kingdom sees itself as a natural partner for China. We were the first country to set legally binding emissions targets. We are a leader in renewables and low carbon economic growth. Already the UK and China are sharing expertise on offshore wind power, carbon capture and storage, low carbon manufacturing. China, the United States and the European Union are respectively, as we all know, the world's first, second and third biggest emitters. All three are increasingly aware that substantial progress on a binding global deal can't be made unless we agree amongst ourselves. And last month, the European Union hosted bilateral summits with heads of government from the United States and China and agreed to strengthen cooperation in this area with them both. And we hope to see more of this working together in the run-up to the Paris conference in 2015. The problem is urgent, the need for action is global and our knowledge and experience are complementary. We also think that we can find common ground with our Chinese friends in cyberspace. Like most countries in the world, the UK is extremely worried about cybersecurity breaches and theft of international property. Good cybersecurity is now vital to prosperity around the world, including in China. We should use that mutual interest as the basis for progress. Last month, we held the first UK-China cyber dialogue and we hope that these discussions will form the basis for mutually beneficial cooperation in the future. Our cultural links are also key to bringing Chinese and British people closer together. We're proud to have been one of the first three countries to establish a people-to-people dialogue with China. The British Council, the cultural arm of our diplomacy, is one of the leading providers of the English language in China and of English language examinations. Almost 300,000 Chinese tourists visit Britain every year, despite the fact that in Mandarin slang, Big Ben is sometimes called a big, stupid clock. British television exports to China went up 90% in 2012 alone. Thanks in part to China's insatiable appetite for Downton Abbey. In 2012, 30 million Chinese viewers watched the royal wedding live on television. We're not quite clear yet whether Chinese viewers prefer the US or the UK version of House of Cards, but I hope that neither is taken as too literal a rendering of how Western democracies really function. Then there are our academic exchanges, which are increasingly high-tech. The UK is now China's second largest foreign partner in academic research. Peking and Manchester universities, for example, are developing a partnership in genomic medicine. The University of Nottingham has established a center in Guangdong that will train 2,000 Chinese financial specialists every year. And of course, like the United States, we are welcoming more Chinese university students to our shores. Last year, they totaled 130,000, about six times, I think, the total student body of Georgetown. But we also want our own young people to learn more about China. We plan to increase the number of Brits studying or gaining work experience in China to 80,000 a year by 2020. As Confucius says, it's delightful to have friends visit from far away. As more Chinese tourists, business people, and students visit Britain, we hope that they will be impressed by the value and resilience of an open society. We know from our own historical and current experience that the most successful economies are the most open ones, and that an open economy requires an open society. Both Britain and China have made international commitments to uphold human rights. Both are members of the UN Human Rights Council this year. We believe those rights underpin peace and prosperity globally as well as locally. And it's in that spirit that we continue to engage China on the issues that concern us. When we've seen signs of progress, for example, on arbitrary detention, judicial reform, family planning, we say so. But we still have our concerns, particularly around freedom of expression, the treatment of human rights defenders, religious freedom, minority rights. We have not shrunk from voicing these in many ways, including at the highest levels. Like the United States, we have no desire simply to nag or preach from the sidelines. In any event, I doubt whether it would be very effective. But at the same time, we will not and should not ignore issues of legitimate international concern. We want to see a strong, stable, prosperous China, and that's in everyone's interests. And we think the best way to achieve that is for China to strengthen the rule of law, increase rights and freedoms, establish greater transparency. Lao Jie, classical poet and philosopher, once wrote, the more prohibitions rule all beneath heaven, the deeper poverty grows among the people. We know from our history that the inverse is also true. The more freedom people have, the more prosperous they will be. By far the biggest beneficiaries of greater openness in China have been the Chinese people themselves. In one of his first speeches on becoming General Secretary in 2012, Xi Jinping said, our people expect better education, more stable jobs, better income, more reliable social security, medical care of a higher standard, more comfortable living conditions, and a more beautiful environment. They hope that their children can grow up better, work better and live better. Remarks which could just as easily have been made by President Obama or my own Prime Minister. People in Britain, America and China have the same aspirations and we have a common interest in helping them reach those goals. Early this month, my Chinese counterpart, Xue Tiankai, stood on this same podium and commented, no country can confront all challenges single-handedly. If we don't cooperate, we will probably be overwhelmed. And he added, cooperation in areas where we agree helps deal with areas where we differ. I don't think Britain or America need fear China's emergency onto the global stage. We can clearly work together on those issues. We must simply proceed with pragmatism and deliberation. Or to put it another way, as the Chinese experts might say, we need to cross the river by feeling the stones. Thank you very much for your attention and happy to answer any questions. Thank you Ambassador, that was excellent. And we have about 15 minutes I think for some discussion up here at the podium. I was struck by your comment that Britain, like the United States, has a full spectrum relationship with China from cyber and nuclear issues to people-to-people exchange, human rights, North Korea trade. And there are a few countries in that club. And it's a very comforting thing for the United States that Britain is one of them. And we have certainly come a long way from the early 1780s when American diplomats sent to Canton were instructed to make sure that Chinese knew that we were not British and that we were much more reliable. And the Chinese court records show that the Chinese figured out that indeed we were not British, that we were very earnest, but we were somehow dumber. I want to ask a few things. I was very struck at your linkage of TTIP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. And the idea that an EU-China free trade agreement, not just a bilateral investment treaty, but a free trade agreement could someday become a reality. And it occurred to me that we have potentially a convergence of these major trade agreements. Right now China of course is not in TPP and of course is not in TTIP, but TPP is premised on agreements in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum that we would move towards a free trade area of the Asia-Pacific that would notionally include China. So it's interesting in China in the last year or two how the debate has evolved from seeing TPP as some kind of encirclement or containment framework and rather more like the WTO, an opportunity for China to use external developments to leverage and get change and reform within and to benefit as the way you described it from standards across the globe. So I wonder if you could say a bit more about how you see the evolution of all of these things, TPP, TTIP, is there room for China? And if so, is it going to take so long, we need to think a little bit differently about a framework for cooperating with China and harmonizing standards in the meantime? Because in our Congress, I can tell you, as you no doubt know, these trade agreements are like going to the dentist with no novocaine. So it may take some time for a formal Chinese participation, but are there things, is that the right direction to go and are there things we could all be doing with China, new frameworks to get us closer? Well, we think it's the right direction of travel. I think you're quite right, Mike, that over the last year or so thinking in China on all this has evolved. I remember hearing from Chinese friends deep expressions of concern when we first started talking about TTIP and because there was also TPP, which was going on and there was a sense of potential exclusion, was this all about ganging up against China and so on? And I think that thinking has evolved and certainly we think that even for those countries, China obviously notably, one of them, not directly involved in these free trade negotiations, there is the potential of enormous economic benefit. The figure that I gave in my remarks just now is an estimate of what the economic advantages can be if we are able to use these global free trade negotiations as a means not just of reducing tariffs and improving bilateral trade between the signatory parties, but also setting global standards on different issues and products, many of which are, of course, manufactured in China. That means lower cost for consumers. It means more single product lines. It means that we might one day, for example, agree that a turn light on a motor car sold in America could be orange as it is in Europe or red in Europe as it is in America. I prefer orange myself because I think it's safer. But why can't we have the same standards for airbags in America and Europe, which we can't apparently at the moment, but maybe one day we will have if TTIP becomes a reality. So I think even for those who are not in the realm of these negotiations, there are major benefits, especially for B-manufacturing countries from lower costs, more limited product lines, and the setting of global standards and mutual recognition also, professional qualifications from which we can all benefit. And indeed, putting together global regulatory frameworks, which can make, I think, trade more attractive and should facilitate more growth at the global level. Our sense is that at a time when global economic recovery is so fragile, which it is at the moment, even though we're quite proud of the fact that the IMF tell us we're going to be growing at 2.9% this year, which is better than most Europeans, where are we going to find this growth and jobs and security and more wealth? Answer, through knocking down the barriers to trade, it's win-win. The economists tell us that we could look to somewhere between 1.5% and 2% additional net GDP growth on both sides of the Atlantic, leaving aside the TPP Pacific Rim countries if we had a comprehensive free trade agreement. That must be a prize worth having, particularly when you think that Europe and the United States, for example, account for half the world's GDP between them. And that's just one of the two negotiations. So we think it's going the right way. We hope that this will get going. We'd like to see fast track authority granted by the United States Congress before too long. It doesn't really matter too much that it's not there now, but we hope that later on, perhaps after the midterms, who knows, maybe even before, that that's perhaps unlikely, that we will see that. And that will be a clear indication of intent, I think, from the United States that the US as well is serious about this business. How do we manage global governance now with not just China, of course, but South Africa, India, Brazil, and so forth, but China's the biggest and most challenging and fastest growing. How do we manage global governance? We grew up, most of us, in a post-war world where the G-5 and then the G-7 managed these large global financial, economic, and even political issues. We've democratized that, reflecting the distribution of economic power to the G-20. You spoke favorably of China and Asia having a larger share in the IMF, which I appreciated. I'm not sure that's a consistent view across Europe, but it's important. But at some point, do we lose something by expanding the membership and losing the core values that the US, the UK, the original members of the G-5 and G-7 brought to this management of the global economy? And it comes up when people debate whether or not, for example, China should be in the International Energy Agency or in other places. What's the right balance? How do we time that? I think this global architecture, global governance issue, is an enormous challenge for all of us. Clearly, those who were not at the top table when we put in place the present architecture after the Second World War are beginning to ask themselves some questions, well, why them and why not us? We have got the rise, the emergence of major powers, big economies who are understandably saying, well, we think that we should be part of these big international organizations as well. I don't think any of us feel that we should oppose that trend. We want to hang on to the values which are dear to us and which are represented by, we like to think the core membership of a number of those organizations that you value. We want to have more free trade. We want to ensure the Security Council of the United Nations is able to do its job. Equally, we have to adjust. We've had to adjust on a day factor, if not a day jury way at the moment, the G7, G8 in response to events in Ukraine. Recently, we have to be flexible. We are looking at the revision of IMF quotas, IMF reform, which we think is important. Actually, I think it's important for the United States as well. It got stuck in Congress recently when it got tied up with a number of other issues, including financial support for Ukraine, but we think that is the right way to go. And we are open, provided everybody else is content with it with the concept of a degree of Security Council and United Nations reform. How and at what speed and with which countries we need to go cautiously and ensure that, as you say, we don't lose what is valuable. But I'm quite sure, and my government is quite sure, that we do need to adjust the global architecture to take account of these new realities, not least the enormously important role which China can play and we like to think, will want to play as it assumes greater sense of international responsibility in the years to come. We are on security, finally. We have a close cooperation, closely aligned interests. I was in the NSC in the Bush administration when we had a very difficult negotiation with the North Koreans in Pyongyang in 2002 in order to send our cable back to Washington. This was when the North Koreans revealed to us that they had this uranium enrichment program. We used your mission in Pyongyang. And so, FCO, your embassy here, knew the results of our negotiations before our State Department did. We have that level of trust and dependence. I have to complain though, we had been negotiating all day with no food. We went to your mission in Pyongyang, we did the cable, and the only thing the ambassador could offer us was single malt whiskey, no one complained about that, and Walker's haggis-favored crisps. Walker's haggis-favored crisps were not exactly the thing we'd been envisioning in our hunger. Anyway, we're that level of cheek-to-jowl cooperation. But while our interests align, the United States has security committees. We have security treaties with Japan, with Korea, with Australia, and so forth. So it's a little bit like the chicken who has an interest in what's for breakfast and the pig who has a vital interest in what's for breakfast. So President Obama made a very robust statement of support for the US-Japan alliance in Tokyo. Very robust, I think. Our friends in China were a bit surprised. How can Britain and Europe more generally contribute to, if not resolution management and de-escalation and some confidence building in some of these island disputes? You said clearly, and I appreciated this very much, that the UK shares our interest in diplomatic resolutions and so forth. But is there some role you can imagine for Europe or for Britain, either in the ASEAN regional forum discussions or in the US-EU-Asian discussions or other ways to help lean in with us to try to calm the situation? I think that is what we should be doing and I think that is what we are trying to do. We don't have exactly the same treaty obligations in the region, although we do have, in the Southeast Asia anyway, the five-part agreements of which the United Kingdom is a party. But I think that we lend our weight collectively in the European Union and bilaterally through the exchanges that we have been having and the visit of my Prime Minister that I mentioned at the end of last year. We've had a bunch of very high-level visitors since then, senior ministers and our people-to-people dialogue and other exchanges. We can use the links that we have got to try to reinforce those same messages. That is to say, we're not addressing quite the same questions of Alliance commitments and so on as the President was, but we do share very much his view that where there are issues, where there are disputes, they should not be resolved in any way unilaterally. There should be dialogue and discussion that there is every advantage in de-escalation and in not immediately reaching for the militarized solution to this. So we are talking to all of our friends in the region as well as your friends in the region from that very same perspective. We don't think that there is anything to be gained from increasing of tensions, whether it's the South China Sea, the East China Sea or of other sorts, reactions to different policy decisions and statements from different governments. We know there's a complicated history, but we think just as we in Europe have had to put complicated and difficult history behind us, it is time for the countries in the region to do so as well. So I think the links that we've got, those business links, those political links, those indispensable, to go in a phrase, those relationships that I was touching on just now, we aim to use those in order to convey precisely the same messages that the President has been doing, the Vice President has been doing on their recent visits. And I think that the closer we are able to engage and to discuss and to show understanding of the different issues on both sides of the story, hopefully the greater the possibility of these issues being resolved in a manner which is much less tense and of achieving a degree of de-escalation. Well, thank you, Ambassador Wright. It's encouraging that we are both pivoting to Asia together. 10 years ago, the transatlantic relationship hit the shoals over China policy because of the EU arms embargo issue. Washington did not want the embargo lifted. There was strong momentum in the European Union among member states to lift it. Britain played a critical role in bridging that gap. I think it's essential for all of us that the U.S. and Europe are speaking with one voice, in both senses of our relationship with China, the hope for success, for a more comprehensive and positive relationship, but the importance of maintaining diplomatic answers to international problems and effective rules for governing trade and investment and so forth. And you've conveyed that very effectively today. So on behalf of Georgetown and CSI, excuse me, Georgetown and USIP, I think CSIS and USIP have the same architect. It's spectacular here. Spectacular. So on behalf of Georgetown and USIP, thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thank you. Okay. I appreciate it. I'd better run away. Thank you very much. Thanks.