 Hi, my name is Dr. Andrew Carr from the Strategic and Defence Study Centre. I'm here with my colleague Dr. John Lee, an adjunct associate professor. John, you see China's rise as much more disputed than many people, especially on the kind of economic grounds. Why are you more cautious? Well, China has been rising for 30-35 years, so history tells you they've done a pretty good job. But think about what they have to do to continue to rise rapidly. They essentially have to go from being a middle-income country to a high-income country. Now, you look at the world, only around 30 countries have done that. And you look at the way they've done that. The most important thing they've... Oh, the one thing they've all had in common is institutions. So, institutions like rule of law, property rights, intellectual property rights, and absence of corruption or relative absence of corruption. Now, you look at institutions in China will be very difficult for the Chinese to develop those without significant disruption. I'm not saying that they can't do it, but there are certainly strains on their authoritarian model. And I'm not quite sure that the Chinese Communist Party quite knows how to go from that middle-income to the advanced economy stage. And what does this economic trouble mean for China's bid to become a dominant power in Asia? Well, obviously, economic strength underpins military strength and other forms of power. And for China to be the dominant power in Asia without American withdrawal, that is, it essentially needs to go past that middle income to that advanced economy stage. The problem for China is that its military still remains significantly behind America's military capability. And as these economic and domestic problems come to the fore, and I'm talking about an aging population, rising inequality, lack of social safety nets, there will be a greater contest for funds from a public purse. Right now, China spends about 15% of its central budget on national security. That is external security and internal security. Budgets for national security have been rising about 50% faster than GDP growth. Now, that can't be sustained. So quite a few headwinds are coming. And I'm not just saying China won't be a formidable power, it already is. But for it to be the dominant power, it has to deal with these other priorities, domestic priorities, and I think they'll be more urgent than the desire to be the dominant power in Asia. In your lecture, you described China as a lonely power. What role do other countries in the region have with China's potential rise? Well, it struck me that when you look at other rising economic powers in the world or in world history, they've all exerted some sort of strategic pull or at least a capacity to coerce other countries around them, smaller countries around them, into their strategic orbit. Now, you look at China's strategic situation. It doesn't have any genuine allies to speak of. You may want to include North Korea, Pakistan, but I'm sure the Chinese would rather not. It doesn't even have any real genuine strategic partners to speak of. Russia and so on, I wouldn't really consider a strategic partner. China is a very lonely power, and I've made the point that China could well be the loneliest rising power in world history. Now, if you look at the geography of Asia, it's a very contested space. It's just not conceivable, in my view, that China could become the dominant power in the region without those strategic allies or partners. And if China is not going to become the dominant power in Asia, as many see as an almost inevitable path, what does this mean for Australia's strategic policy? Well, Australia's strategic policy, basically for the last four or five decades, has been the American alliance and secondly, to facilitate the American presence in the region. I don't think that has to change. Now, how we do it may have to change. So for example, if Russia and China is significant, Australia doesn't have the capacity to significantly alter the balance of power in Northeast Asia. But we do have the capacity still to both affect the balance of power in Southeast Asia and also to facilitate the American presence in a region and thirdly to, in a sense, increase confidence that the American alliance system can hold. So I think Australia overplays hand, but it certainly has an important role to facilitate the continued American presence. Yes, there will have to be some fitting in of China in the current system. Some things will change, but I don't see a fundamental strategic reorientation in China's favour certainly in my lifetime. Thank you for your discussion. Thank you for having me. You can see Dr Lee's lecture with Dr Merris' Professor Paul Deeb on the Australian National University's website, along with a podcast. Thank you.