 We have assembled a group of all-stars. When it comes to Asia and Asia policy, CSIS's Asia Wing is second to none. And these four are perfect examples of that. Before I do some of the introductions, just a few logistical notes if we can make sure the cell phones are on silent. And when we get to the Q&A section, if you could try to the extent possible to make it to a microphone, we can start off with Bonnie Glazer, she'll give us a little insight into who Xi Jinping is, why he's coming. Bonnie is a senior fellow at the Freeman Chair in China Studies, also known as the Senior Associate for CSIS's Pacific Forum. After that, we'll go to Ernie Bauer. Ernie directs our Southeast Asia program. It was Ernie's conference yesterday on Singapore, where the foreign minister made a few comments about the US-China relationship sort of leading us nicely into this visit. So Ernie will put it in sort of a regional context. Matt Goodman is our, the newest member of the CSIS expert team. He is just joined as the Simon Chair in political economy. Came straight from the Obama administration, where he was the coordinator for the APEC and the EAS forums. Also has long experience dealing with the G8 and G20 summits, so we'll certainly call on Matt again in May when Chicago hosts the G8 summits. But for our purposes here today, he'll sort of lay out the state of US-China economic relations. And then we'll finish with Mike Green. You all know Mike. He's our Japan Chair, Senior Advisor, was the head of Asia at the National Security Council under the Bush administration. And he'll sort of round this out with a little geopolitical context and talk about some of the places around the world that have been in the news recently where the US and China don't exactly see eye to eye. So again, thank you all for coming. And Bonnie, I'll let you lead us off. Bonnie Good morning, everyone. Start with some background as to who Xi Jinping is. He is currently Vice President and Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission in China. He also heads up the Central Party School. And as of this fall, he will begin the process of taking on the three most important titles that senior Chinese leaders take on, probably one at a time. This fall, at the 18th Party Congress, he will become the Secretary General of China's Communist Party. In the spring, he will take on the title of President. The third title is a bit uncertain. In past practice in China, the current leader has retained the post of the head of the Central Military Commission for two years before he has passed it on to his successor. This time, it's a little bit unclear. There is some discussion about the possibility, I think, that he might take on the position earlier. But if past practice is a guide, he will not become the head of the military until 2014. But of course, he remains a member, nevertheless, as Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission. Vice President Biden, as you probably know, has met with Xi Jinping twice previously. They met in Rome, and then Biden was hosted by Xi Jinping in China last summer. And they had about nine hours of conversation together. Some of it in larger group meetings, and some of it just the two of them with interpreters, they had dinner together in Chengdu. And they have already talked about a broad range of issues. And it, I think, has been a very rich conversation. They have talked about the role of the U.S.-China relationship in the world. They've talked about human rights. They have even talked about the need for better coordination between the civilians and the military in China. So this is an ongoing conversation. Xi Jinping comes here now to meet not only with Vice President Biden and others in the United States, but I think, most importantly, with President Obama. And they are going to meet together in the Oval Office. And this is an opportunity for the two leaders to establish a rapport, to get to know each other better. If, of course, and this is definitely an if President Obama were to serve a second term, this would certainly be a very, very important relationship. The playbook for this visit, and my colleague Mike Green will talk more about this, is the 2002 visit by Hu Jintao. Because he came here before he took on the leadership titles in China. So many of the things that Xi will be doing here are actually based on what Hu Jintao did. And Mike Green was in the NSC at the time. And he'll talk more about that. I know that you're going to learn more from the White House about some of the things that are going to take place on this visit. I think there's a phone call that's for the media that's taking place on Friday. My understanding is that there will be a luncheon held by Secretary Clinton, Vice President Biden. And as you know, Xi Jinping will be going out to Iowa and to Los Angeles. In terms of issues that are going to be discussed, again, my colleague Matt Goodman will talk about the economic issues. But there will be a range of issues on security issues. The Iran and North Korea are going to be very high on the agenda. Human rights will certainly be discussed. And the military relationship is going to be discussed as well. And Xi Jinping is going to visit the Pentagon as well, just as Hu Jintao in 2002 went to the Pentagon. And this is going to be, I think, a discussion that is an attempt to inject some new life, if you will, into the military relationship, which has been pretty stagnant over the last couple of years. And I think that the president and the vice president will also be speaking to the issue of the importance of establishing an ongoing, sustainable, cooperative military relationship with China as the relationship has become somewhat more competitive and occasionally more tense between our two militaries. So I'll turn the floor over to my other colleagues and happy to answer questions later. Thanks, Bonnie. I'm Ernie Bauer. I run the Southeast Asia program here. I think the Southeast Asians will be extremely interested in how this visit plays out. They see the US-China relationship as extremely important to them, not surprising when you consider that the United States had been the largest trading partner and still is the largest investor in that region up until about 2008 when China and its growing economic might sort of took over. So they'll be watching the relationship very closely. And this visit, the Xi visit, is very important. What the Southeast Asians want to see is the United States and China getting along, but not becoming sort of a G2 where they two countries sort of rule the world. I think that scenario has been pretty much settled and not headed that way. We tried that, I think, in Obama's last visit or his first visit as president to China, but they also don't want to see the US relationship with China to be confrontational. So I think they'll be watching every word and nuance of this trip very carefully. The trip is important for the United States, too. We have engaged in an Asia strategy that the administration has called a pivot back to Asia. For those of us who are in this business, I think we see more of sort of a refocusing, rebalancing rather than a pivot, but it's semantics. Mike might have some fun with this. He did yesterday. He's pretty funny when he talks about it. But I enjoy it. I think that's important because the Xi visit is an opportunity for the White House and the United States to talk about how important Asia is and why it's important, both from a security point of view and a trade point of view. The structures that we are building or investing in in the Asia Pacific include security and trade structures. On the security front, we have just joined the East Asia Summit, the EAS, which is part of, which it does include China and it's an ASEAN based structure. And on the trade front, we had sort of not had a trade policy for Asia up until about eight months ago when we stepped it up. We've joined the TPP, which is the Trans-Pacific Partnership and we've got the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement put through. So Matt might talk a little bit more about this. That's very important to Southeast Asia to see that the US is bringing together security and trade to the table. The end goal of American strategy, I believe, is or should be to include China at the table in these regional structures. So we don't want to, there's been a lot of talk and Ryan referenced it about whether the United States is trying to contain China. That is absolutely, in my view, not the goal of American strategy. And I think you'll see the administration at pains during this visit to make that clear, that that's not the goal. And it's an important theme for you to watch. That's very important to Southeast Asia because they don't want, and our other partners in Asia, because they don't want to have to choose between the United States and China. On the security front, expect some discussion. I don't know if there'll be public about it, but there will be discussions about regional security issues. That includes Burma or Myanmar, depending on your politics. China had sort of had free running with the Burmese until the Burmese decided to move forward with their political reforms. And now that looks like, if things stay in the direction they're going now, this would be resolving some of the political issues and opening up Burma politically and economically would take away a real ball and chain that's been around ASEAN's leg for the last 20 years. ASEAN, of course, is 10 countries, 650 million people with a $2 trillion GDP. It's our fourth largest trading partner. So getting Burma right and getting ASEAN strengthened as part of American strategy, and it's not clear, I think, how the Chinese view this political evolution in Burma. I think it would be an interesting issue if it comes up and one for you to watch for. The other one is the South China Sea. It's a point of, it has been a contentious, or feels like a contentious point between our two countries, but it's really, the issue is really about China and the Southeast Asians resolving disputes over, there's six countries actually disputing the South China Sea, claims in the South China Sea. And the American position is that they want to see this resolved according to rule of law and through multilateral discussions where that's appropriate. So you might see a little bit of discussion on that. I'll stop there and see the floor to Matt Goodman. Thanks, Ernie. As Ryan said, I'm Matt Goodman. I'm newly arrived at CSIS and working on global economic issues. Pleased to see you all. So as you know, the U.S. and China have a broad, complex and growing economic relationship, one that is marked by both areas of mutual benefit and areas of cooperation, as well as areas of competition and friction in some areas. The administration, the U.S. administration, the Obama administration has adopted a fairly consistent approach to that of previous administrations of the last 30 years of both engaging with China economically as well as managing the friction, engaging bilaterally through a number of interactions, engaging regionally through forums like APEC and globally through forums now like the G20. But also in those contexts, working on these areas of friction, the friction, as you know, ranges from issues to do with rebalancing of macroeconomic forces, currency issues, as well as intellectual property concerns and a range of market access and trade issues. This kind of visit, the visit of Vice President Xi is what's known in the jargon as an action-forcing event which leads to both sides trying to produce deliverables, another term of art in the run-up to an event like this, and certainly I think the Obama administration is going to want to demonstrate an ability to move forward the economic agenda and make progress on that agenda. But I think in the context of a visit that is largely about relationship building and getting to know each other, I don't think expectations should be very high for significant breakthroughs on the major issues in the economic relationship, whether currency or intellectual property or the other big issues. There will probably be some small deliverables which are being negotiated as we speak and there will be some buying. There's a large delegation of agricultural interests from China that will probably make large agricultural purchases perhaps during the visit to Iowa and there will be, as I understand it, a focus on inbound Chinese investment during a forum in Los Angeles that is being organized for the SHI delegation. But I think most of the big issues will be reserved for other forums later in the spring and later in the year, the Strategic and Economic Dialogue, which will be held sometime in May, June, period, and the G20, some of these issues will be taken up there, and then later in the fall in the Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade, which is really the place that most of these issues are arbitrated. So with that, a brief introduction, I will pivot to Mike and let him take over from there. I think the, since our friends in Beijing found pivot too aggressive and threatening, I've heard the administration is going to change it to pirouette. We're going to pirouette to Asia. So, the Xi Jinping visit is rightly garnering a lot of attention. Even my four-year-old son is now fully engaged. We were driving in the car, listening to NPR recently and I think it was Jackie. But anyway, whoever the announcer was said, Xi Jinping, the vice president of China, whose father was a famous gorilla, and from the back of the car, I hear my four-year-old say, his daddy was a gorilla? And then my wife pointed, she says, don't worry, your father's a famous chimpanzee. This, I was in the NSC in 2002 when Hu Jintao came, and I think in some ways the comparison is illustrative of how US-China relations have evolved and how the challenges in the relationship have multiplied. But at the end of the day, as Matt suggested, I think that the game plan for the Obama administration may be generally the same on this visit as it was for us in 2002, which is to lower expectations of deliverables, focus on the relationship. In May 2002, when Hu Jintao came as vice president, he had a similar itinerary. He met with the president, the vice president, secretary of state, Colin Powell, Secretary Rumsfeld. He gave a speech in San Francisco. The message from the Chinese side, from Hu Jintao and his delegation, was on the importance of US-China relations, conveying the strong signal that who would be a responsible and strong steward of the US-China relationship, that he was not gonna change the fundamental Deng Xiaoping line of engaging and not challenging US leadership in the world while standing up for China's interests. His speech in California at San Francisco is worth looking at. The press from the Chinese side is very, very positive about the relationship. Ari Fleischer, and those of us in the NSC who briefed on and off the background, focused on the relationship, the ability of the US and China to work together. But mentioned, you'll notice in every White House briefing from Ari or from those of us who did it on background, Taiwan, Tibet, human rights, trade, and made a point of not letting any of the controversial issues fall off the radar scope. And that was sort of the balance. And for the most part, it worked. The main point was to invest in the relationship with Hu Jintao, who we didn't know well. The administration does not know Xi Jinping that well. The vice president has met him. We will be dealing with him for 10 years, probably, this president and the next president, whether no matter what happens in November. And so building that relationship is important. President Bush did that, and his relationship with Hu Jintao was pretty good. And in the US-China bilateral relationship, the ties between the leaders are important out of proportion to what there would be in other bilateral relationships. Why? Well, for example, just look at the security relationship. The current leadership, civilian leadership of the PLA, consists of two people. Xi Jinping is one of them. He's the vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, Hu Jintao is the chairman. Below that level, there is no civilian oversight of the PLA. And so a lot of things in the Chinese system, which are stovepiped, particularly on the security side, really kind of get integrated at the leadership level. And the leadership relationship with American presidents is really important. It's also important because there are a lot of contradictory voices in US-China relations on both sides, all over the gamut from the China threat to the desire that Chinese foreign direct investment will increase. And it's really the periodic summits and relationships between the two presidents that set the overall tone and that are necessary to continually remind audiences in both countries that we are basically continuing on the line begun 30, 40, 40 years ago, which is that we may have differences, but we're focused on expanding a stable, cooperative China-US relationship. And we're not seeking containment confrontation. China's not seeking revisionism. And really that has to be set from the top. If the foreign minister in China says it, it's a blip. The Secretary of State says it, it's got more oomph, but it's still not as powerful as coming from the top. So the relationship's important, it's important to invest in it. That said, I think this is a harder task for the Obama administration than it was for us in 2002. In the 2000 election, China was not a major issue. After 9-11, the focus of the press and the country was obviously on terrorism, much more than on problems with China. In 2002, the US business community was pretty much on the same page about the importance of the US-China economic relationship. Today, the business community is badly divided and major multinationals like Dow Chemical are going to court openly over intellectual property rights violations and other things that in 2002 they would never have done. They would have tried to quietly work within the system, hold together the American economic viewpoint that the US-China economic relationship is fragile and has to be nurtured because it's so important to the American economy and business. There's much less consensus now. There's much more willingness to openly take complaints about China to court, to USTR, to the press. In some ways, the human rights situation in China is now worse. In 2002, 2003, we could pass in a summit meeting an envelope to Jiang Zemin with a list of political prisoners and some would be released. And it may have been a token, but it was something. We could talk about human rights. That doesn't happen anymore. We don't have the ability to get political prisoners released the way we did because of, frankly, a more paranoid view of the Chinese government towards internal dissent in recent years. And then we have a whole new range of problems that were only beginning to show up in 2002, in particular cyber, where you have former directors of national intelligence and the FBI openly saying what they could not say before, which is there is a Chinese massive assault on cyberspace. And then, of course, the collision with Japan over the Senkaku Diao Yutai, the South China Sea. So it's a much more complicated environment and a lot more political pressure in the US this election year on China issues than there was in 2002 when Hu Jintao came. Frankly, the situation on China's side is also different. Xi Jinping is a Dengist. He essentially, I think, follows the Deng Xiaoping line of pragmatism. His father, the famous gorilla, was famously pragmatic. And that's continuity from Zhang and Hu. He's also the first leader who is not handpicked by Deng Xiaoping for promotion to the top level. He was not, as the Chinese leadership analysts say, he was not helicoptered up through the ranks, personally by Deng Xiaoping. So he comes into the leadership in a different context, and there are still things about him that we may find out on this trip and in the months and years ahead. One of the questions is his relationship with the PLA, which Bonnie may wanna talk more about when we get into the Q&A. His father was a general. His wife is a famous singing major general. She sings patriotic songs. It sounds like a Gilbert, it sounds like Pirates of Penzance. She's the model of a modern major general, but she's a very popular singer. But there's still a debate among the experts about whether he can shape the PLA because of this, or the PLA will shape him. He was a party boss in Fujian, and so there's some speculation that on maritime issues and towards Southeast Asia and Taiwan, he might be more agile, more flexible, but there's a counterargument that he'll actually be much more clever and advancing China's maritime demands. The Dalai Lama and the Tibetan movement had some hope. Hu Jintao was party boss in Tibet. They knew it would be bad for Tibet when he became president because he had such a bad experience in Lhasa. There was some hope that Xi Jinping might do better by the Tibetans because his father had a particular view and more open view towards the Dalai Lama in Tibet. But in July, when Xi Jinping traveled to Lhasa, it was pretty, the message was pretty hard line. And towards the international system where Hu Jintao was very careful not to engage in a kind of a dialectical debate about China's system versus the West. In his public speaking, Xi Jinping has been more willing to criticize the West. His famous three did nots in Mexico City where he said we did not create poverty, we did not create job losses and sort of preemptively criticized the criticism of China's economy. And then finally the two issues North Korea and Iran which are getting more complicated. And North Korea, Xi Jinping accompanied Hu Jintao to the North Korean Embassy in Beijing after the death of Kim Jong-il to express condolences is clearly fully engaged in the strategy of Hu Jintao to maintain stability on the peninsula, a so-called to Korea policy where even though China's trade with South Korea is 100 times larger than its trade with North Korea, it's still an equidistant policy which drives the South Koreans bonkers and Xi Jinping's gonna continue that and do what I think China can to keep North Korea propped up under Kim Jong-un which is problematic because the nuclear issues continue to develop in unhelpful ways. And then on Iran where China imports 11% of its oil from Iran has a $40 billion trade deficit. The 11% is comparable to where Japan or Korea have been in recent years but their numbers are clearly going down rapidly, Japan and Korea, but China's are not. And there's some debate about whether Beijing is stuck because of a desire, a mercantile desire to exploit the opening to get cheap oil from Iran, whether it's bureaucratic intransigence or whether some in Beijing actually like the idea of Iran keeping us off balance and the US pulled into the Middle East and away from Asia. So a lot of questions about Xi Jinping still even though he is essentially a dungist and no one expects major changes in overall Chinese policy but his style is different, he's under more nationalistic pressure, there's more pressure on our side and for all those reasons, I think Matt got out of the White House just in time because this will be harder next week than it was in May 2002 to invest in the relationship, emphasize the positive low expectations for deliverables when there's enormous pressure for deliverables. Folks, again, just a reminder, try and make your way to the microphone and we'll take your questions. Thanks for an excellent overview. If I may, I have a pair of questions that address discreet commenters. I would start with Mr. Goodman. In pre, she is reporting, we've sort of sensed that there's a divide in the arrangements business-wise where the Chinese are emphasizing buying missions and soybeans and things like that. And we, the United States, wants to get into the structural issues. I mean, I'm not expecting a White House summit to get into the weeds on that but generally speaking, a difference of emphasis and we kind of had that with Japan 20 odd years ago too with the Omiage diplomacy and buying big stuff but not really dealing with the trade barrier so I'm wondering what you think about that as a sort of a fault line going forward in the new relationship. That's my question. And then to Ernie, on the South China Sea, when the United States formally does not take a stance but they do say it must adhere to international law including the famous UN Treaty that we have not yet ratified, which set that aside. But by advocating following international law, are we not essentially siding with the Southeast Asians because there's not many readings of international law that would recognize the Kautang or the nine dotted line. Also please just one note when you ask your questions, take a minute to identify yourself for the... Paul, I heard of Breuters news agency, thanks. Thanks, so yeah, I mean these visits always have elements of both of those things. I mean they always have an element of buying and an element of trying to resolve issues. The Chinese inevitably are gonna focus more on buying things and that's a good thing. We wanna sell things so that's fine. I think the administration will welcome that but it's obviously not getting at some of the deeper issues as you say. And certainly the administration is going to try behind the scenes to address some of those key issues but as I said, I think the purpose of this visit in the minds of the administration, even the administration and certainly the Chinese side is more getting to know you and building relationships and I think they're focusing on somewhat narrower objectives that feed into the bigger concerns but I don't think this is the forum where they're going to try to resolve some of the big issues. I think there are other points during the year when they'll be able to take those on. On the South China Sea, put me on the record as saying we should sign the Unclose Treaty, just not afraid of that one. I really think we should do that. But I don't think we're, the intent here is not to side with the Southeast Asians. It is to, I think we felt the need to say something though. What's happened over the last four or five years is Chinese economic power really did. It made a huge impression on Southeast Asia. They had the sort of charm offensive that went on since the started around the time of the Asian financial crisis in the late 90s. And I think the Chinese started to test whether their new economic and military power could help define new definitions of sovereignty in the South China Sea in particular. And the Southeast Asians have reacted to that and responded to it. This process of working with ASEAN over a code of conduct on how to resolve disputes in the South China Sea is one that I think the US administration supports. And the issue that the Chinese were not comfortable with was having ASEAN consult and negotiate together. The Chinese wanted to take these countries bilaterally. I think if the code of conduct discussion can go forward, that gives ASEAN the opportunity to try to get that, the right to discuss those issues as a grouping codified in that code. So I think this is the American's position on this is pretty clear. And I think it's probably a pretty good one, but it's not, I don't think it's meant to side with one side or the other. Can you attempt more like de facto because of this? Bonnie, you wanna? I would just add that China's claim is really not clear and that's part of the problem. I think that the administration is trying to encourage China to make clear whether it is, in fact, a claim that is what you referred to as the cow's tongue. Is it the sea or is it just the land features and then the 12 mile territorial waters, 200 mile EZs, from those that are not completely submerged and most of them are, they're rocks and small reefs. And so I think that that's part of the strategy of not only the United States, but all of the other ASEAN nations that we want the Chinese to be clear about what their claims are, how they justify them, and not just in terms of historical experience. And then that will lead to a process of perhaps being able to manage them a little bit more easily than today. But the Chinese have been deliberately ambiguous. So it's very difficult to know exactly what their claims are. The Chinese submitted in 2009 this map that was something that they had inherited actually from the KMT in Taiwan. This was a map that was established in 1947 and it originally had 11 dashes and today has nine. And that is because two of those dashes were removed because of compromises with Vietnam. And some people believe that that suggests that there could be some room for accommodation in the future. Of course, we are facing a more self-confident China today. But if you look at all of China's territorial disputes that it has had with its neighbors, particularly land disputes, many of them have been solved. And of course, they remain with India in particular. And the land border with Vietnam has been solved. But this does suggest that at least in the past the Chinese have been willing to compromise on some of these territorial disputes. I think that will be difficult going forward. This is not the era of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. But we cannot rule out that there could be some accommodation. The first part of that process is making the claims clear. William Won from The Washington Post. Just a question for Bonnie or Mike about, in terms of messaging toward their own audience at home for China, what Xi Jinping would be trying to do and also what the difference between that messaging and what they're trying to present to the US audiences and how they would try to strike that balance, yeah. One of the reasons why deliverables are unlikely during this trip is that Xi Jinping is vice president and it would be presumptuous of him to grandstand, so to speak, by solving problems that his boss could not. This is not an election that's contested. The important thing for Xi Jinping is to not make mistakes and to be treated in a way that his elevation is seen domestically as respected and appreciated and valued around the world. But for him to have breakthroughs would be very unusual and risky because it would be presumptuous vis-a-vis his current boss and it would be very hard to do without creating some debate in Beijing that he had compromised. And he doesn't have to sell himself the way a presidential candidate would in this country. He has to sort of go through the ritual and survive it. That's why I think deliverables are very unlikely. Now, they may try to package these in the who visit in 2002. There were things that looked a little bit like deliverables, an agreement that military to military talks were important and so forth. But for the most part these were spun within China as Hu Jintao implementing agreements that Jiang Zemin had already made with President Bush in Shanghai and Beijing in the previous year. And so what may look in the press readings like agreements will in fact be packaging of things that are not new. The payoff for this visit for the administration is going to come in a year or two, frankly, when Xi Jinping is president and then eventually chairman of the military commission and so forth. As far as messaging back home to China, I think that Xi Jinping needs to demonstrate that he can manage this important relationship with the United States. This is, the sunny US relationship is going to continue to be important to China for a number of reasons. And so he has to be seen as being able to manage that relationship. And then I think that part of that is also showing that domestic audience back home that he can protect Chinese interest. He's not going to be too soft on the United States. And there will be opportunities that he will have public speeches here. And I imagine that part of the messaging will be to the US audience, China's going to rise peacefully and you don't have to worry about China posing a threat to the world. And part of what he says I imagine will be directed towards the audience back home. Again, signaling that he can manage the sunny US relationship and he can defend Chinese interest at the same time. One thing about Xi Jinping that will be interesting to watch is, as a person, he's much more confident and charismatic and personable than Hu Jintao was. And I spend a lot of time observing or in meetings with Hu Jintao. I have not with Xi Jinping, but those who have leaders in Asia, for example, describe Xi Jinping as just much more charismatic. If you were to do a personality test, he'd be an ENTP. And Hu Jintao's more of an INTP. He's more of an introvert, he's more cautious. He doesn't have the pedigree or the exposure to the leadership from an early age that Xi Jinping did. So it's possible he'll be a little more creative and dynamic and interesting in his meetings here. But that's more, sorry? Cowboy hats. Well, that's more style than substance though. So one of the back ventures make their way to the microphone. Thank you. It's Margaret Taliv with Bloomberg. Thanks for doing this. I wanted to ask sort of the flip side of William's question, which is how this administration handles the positioning of this given the fact that the 2012 election like started two years ago and is full swing. So how does President Obama play what he hopes to accomplish out of it in terms of domestic politics, balancing that against what he really wants to accomplish in terms of foreign policy and long term, whatever, the strategy. And then what does Romney do? What does Gingrich do? Do they mess with him the whole time? Xi's here? Or how does that work? Is she speaking to Congress? Do we know yet? And if not, why not? And I guess that's US politics. Thanks. Matt, maybe a comment on the Republican trade war. Thanks. So, I mean clearly China is going to play, is playing into the political debate this year in the US. And I think both sides are gonna wanna demonstrate both. I mean in a strange way, similar to the transition in China, they need to show that they can manage this important relationship. In our case, that means they need to demonstrate that we can work cooperatively on a range of global regional bilateral issues. And those include both security and political security and economic issues. I think that, as I said, I think the president is gonna, in this particular interaction, is gonna wanna focus more on the importance of having a good, solid relationship with the leadership in this critically important country to us to demonstrate our commitment to being a constructive and active, engaged partner, participant in Asia, generally, and not to put as much focus on those sort of contentious, difficult issues. But those issues are there, and there's no question that he's gonna have to demonstrate that we're able to move forward, that he and his administration are able to move forward on these issues. So to pick up on something Mike said before, although it will not be likely that we will see new breakthroughs on the economic agenda, for example, you'll see some small deliverables that help resolve issues that have already been in the works that Hu Jintao has committed to or that have been committed to in the S&ED, bringing those to closure. The administration will portray that as sort of more significant that it probably is in substance, but it will show that we're able to move forward and make progress. And I assume that there will be, from the Republican side, there will be an effort to demonstrate that the Republican, a Republican administration would similarly be able to manage a relationship with China, probably airing on the side of saying that they'd be tougher on some of these issues, including the economic issues, maybe Iran and other issues. I'll let others comment on that. And, but I think broadly speaking, that will be the positioning of both sides. I worked for the Anshin regime, but I think there's pretty broad, bipartisan support among the experts for the overall strategy of the last year. The first year was more debatable, but the last year of the Obama administration, in Asia, on substance. But there's also, I think, some concern that perhaps the White House and State Department overdid it a bit in this pivot or rebalancing of Asia. It was too much about China. I'm a Teddy Roosevelt fan. In situations where you're showing your strength, it's important to speak softly and carry a big stick. And the China, the Asia trip last November was framed in Secretary Clinton's foreign policy article and in some of the White House briefings, not Matthew, but others. It was too much about China. And so it got to the point where, for example, in the Singapore-US Dialogue, Ernie organized the past two days, our friends, the Singaporeans, who were telling us to come into Asia, do more to counterbalance China and I was saying slow down, tone it down. It was a bit too much. I think part of that was actually not signalling to the region, but domestic politics here. And that in some ways reflects, I think, the fact that as a candidate, Mitt Romney is highlighting the economic issues, especially the currency issue with China. So in this election cycle, the China policy issues have become a real football, which could cause candidates, presidents, to say things that they then have to adjust on both sides. It's not happened yet. No one's gone over the bounds, but it's usually a problem. It happened with Clinton, it happened with Ronald Reagan. It usually happens in presidential elections that when China is a major issue, big tough talk happens and then people have to adjust. I don't think any candidate or the president have gotten to that line yet, but if it gets out of control, it would be a concern. The president's tough talk on that last trip may give him some room to not be quite as tough during the Xi Jinping visit. We'll see. Now, I don't think there's any major foreign policy speech plan for any of the Republican presidential candidates and I'd be surprised if they actually went at the relationship with Xi Jinping because presumably if they win, they're gonna have to work with the same guy, but what you might see, and for good reason, is in the bits and pieces of press availabilities and town hall meetings and so forth in the coming week that Iran, Syria, cyber, there's a whole range of areas where China is causing us problems. And to the extent the administration is not able to make progress on those, I think it's politically appropriate, but also it's a legitimate topic of debate for the opposition to point out these problems. But a major speech or a major assault from any of the Republican candidates on Xi Jinping or on the visit would surprise me. I don't think it's especially good politics. We had another backbencher that's been waiting. Turn it on, please. You gotta hit the button. Jeff Dyer from the Financial Times. I'm just picking up on some of the previous comments. There's been a lot of big changes recently in American security policy as a new military strategy that talks about shifting substantial amounts of resources to Asia, specifically mentions China is one of the main reasons for that military base in Australia, talking to the Philippines about expanded cooperation, a whole range of things going on. How should the administration, or how would you frame it to the Chinese in a way that explains this as not being about containment? I mean, all said that it's not containment, but in average, this will be interpreted that way in China by lots of people. Or another way of framing the question would be to say if American security strategy is a mixture of engagement and hedging, that does seem to be an awful lot more hedging going on at the moment and a lot less engagement. Is that a fair characterization? I don't think so. I'll let everybody sort of take a crack at this, but just a note, CSIS has just started the Pacific Partners Initiative that's co-directed by Mike and Ernie, sort of the only game in town as far as looking at the U.S., Australia, New Zealand relationship. And the Pacific plug, yeah. Pacific Island. You know, I think the communications on this issue have not been great. I think the U.S., to be honest with you, I think the Pentagon, it started pretty well actually. The president sent his first signal than the secretary briefed, and then Admiral Willard did some around town briefings. But the new military strategy and the budget's impact on how we work in Asia actually means that we are refocusing on Asia, but the footprint is actually designed to be very nimble, light. We're not trying to build bases around Asia. The Australia announcement is about access, and it's about being in places where countries, where we have deep relationships with countries that want us to be there. And so that's the case, I think, with the Philippines. We're in discussions with the Philippines. We haven't decided exactly what that looks like yet. But I think what you're seeing here with the military footprint of the United States is sort of a smart return to Asia. And it's not a return. I think the messaging should be, this is very consistent with a long-term American security presence in Asia, and it's sort of updating that to the modern day, modern age. So we're not gonna be building new Okinawas or Korean-style bases in Australia or anywhere in Southeast Asia. But guess what? The Southeast Asians and the Australians, if you look at polling done by the Lowy Institute down in Australia, the actual question in the poll, I believe, was would you welcome American bases in Australia? And the 55% were in favor. So it's that sort of response that the Americans are taking advantage of and responding to. And again, with a light touch, the emphasis on access, joint training, interoperability, but not a big bulky American footprint in Asia, I think that can be emphasized to the Chinese. It's not big and different. It's consistent and smart. I would just add that the presence of the United States, militarily and of course in other ways, is seen by the vast majority of the region as reassuring and benign. We have been the source of peace and stability in the region for a long time. And with the onset of greater, what many people have referred to as greater Chinese assertiveness, but actions in 2009, 2010, the East China Sea, the South China Sea, the Yellow Sea, there was growing concern in the region about what kind of power China is going to become, how it's going to use its growing military and even economic capabilities. We saw instances of the Chinese using economic coercion against Japan after the arrest of the fishing captain in September 2010, where the Chinese were seeking to restrict the export of rare earth minerals to Japan. So with growing anxiety in the region, what we saw here in the United States was a very clear message. What people in the administration like to refer to as a demand signal, please be more engaged, more involved. We want to see greater U.S. leadership in this region. And so I think that's the backdrop. And yes, there's a China factor. You might call it counterbalancing China or hedging. I certainly don't think it is strategic encirclement or a containment. When the President and the Secretary of State were in Honolulu for the APEC meeting, they spent a good deal of time, was spent by National Security Advisor, Donald and as well as Secretary Clinton, with a senior Chinese official, State Counselor, Dai Binghua, explaining what we are doing, what our strategy is in the region, including the new deployment, the rotation, if you will, of Marines through Darwin. After that, we did issue the strategic, the defense strategic guidelines. The Chinese are concerned. There were more discussions at the defense consultative talks in early December, but I'm certain that when Xi Jinping goes over to the Pentagon that these are topics that will be discussed. And it provides another opportunity for the United States to explain what we're doing, why we're doing it, and also why we have some concerns about what China is doing in the military realm and the importance of avoiding accidents or miscalculation between our two countries. I'll just add quickly for context. In some ways this began when China, when it was understood that China had built a new ballistic, a new submarine base in Hainan, which clearly had the intent of projecting power far beyond the Taiwan, East Sea, Japan area, followed by the Near Sea Doctrine, a new naval doctrine that extended operations to the second island chain and in fact, operations not just in the South China Sea, but around Japan's Pacific flank to islands between Hawaii and Japan. And so the demand pull that people talk about was not just in response to the instance in South China Sea. There was a steady buildup over several years of Chinese military doctrine and bases and capability and ballistic missiles that made it logical to engage more broadly with countries and allies that were concerned in the region, not also to disperse our forces a bit more because of the ballistic missile threat. But as has been pointed out, the numbers are not actually up. It's more about where we're doing things. Let's come over to the side at the end. Yongjian De from China Neuroservice. I think just a few days ago, a top Chinese official in Beijing said there is a trust deficit between Beijing and Washington that might fundamentally damage the US-China relations. So do you think is it possible that sea strip will reduce the deficit and ease some of the mistrust lingering on both sides? And another question about the, we can see lots of efforts of public diplomacy during sea strip. Do you think these efforts will be effective and help American people better understand China's leaders? Thanks. I think it's possible it can help. I mean, the trust deficit is based on some big structural factors, shifting balance of power, different, frankly, different political value systems, and domestic dynamics. But I think it can help reduce the trust deficit you talk about. Because in many ways, Xi Jinping is a lame duck. Xi Jinping, excuse me, Hu Jintao. That was quick. That's a good start, anyway. That would have been a good headline. Hu Jintao in many ways is a lame duck. His leadership is no longer that strong. His line is pretty much the same line he's used for years. Xi Jinping is new. And if there's a sense, I think, in his meetings with leaders here, this will be more about the private than the public meetings, that he's a guy we can do business with. He's got energy. That could help give some context for where the relationship's heading over the next five or 10 years. Because right now, I think there's a lot of concern in the administration and the Congress that we're heading towards a very rough five or 10 years. I would just add that there is clearly no bandaid that can solve the trust deficit. I think our leaders have been talking for some time about the need to build greater trust and understanding. That's a long-term project in the U.S.-China relationship. And yes, every high-level visit that we have, indeed every major interaction that we have with China can contribute to or detract from that project of building trust. And I think that both countries really do hope that we can begin a process of building better trust and understanding. But that's not gonna happen overnight. I do think an important element of this visit is also for both leaders as part of this trust-building project to signal and explain to the domestic audiences about the importance of the U.S.-China relationship. There's, I think, a growing sense in the United States that China's taking our jobs and it treats us unfairly, maybe not enough appreciation of where the U.S.-China relationship is very important to advance our interests and the prospects in the future for China bringing greater jobs to the United States through investment. And there's a lot of suspicion in the Chinese public about U.S. intentions, about containment, which, as other people have said, is really not a good descriptor of U.S. objectives towards China. So this is also an opportunity, I think, to explain to our respective publics the importance of the bilateral relationship going forward. That really, in some ways, is the most important point of the visit. I mean, these summits are kind of like date night. No matter what happens during the week and a lot of bad things happen in U.S.-China relations, every once in a while, the leaders get together and say, I still love you, man. Or if I don't love you, at least, I'm still gonna work with you. We're still gonna make this relationship work. We're still committed to the path. I hope you don't use that line on date night. No, I don't. I still love you, man. That's a down time, so it works well. But basically reaffirming the bargain is basically set by Nixin's visit, but by Deng and every American president since Nixon. And the ritual of reaffirming that is really pretty important. Just right here. Thanks, Betty Lin of the World Journal. Will Hillary Clinton have a tougher line for Xi Jinping than President Obama? And also, I'm sure Xi Jinping will raise the relaxing of export control to China. And we just had a hearing earlier this weekend, so I'd like to know what would happen and also what kind of message will Xi Jinping get from the Hill at this trip. Also, there's a big news. This week in China, it's concerning Bo Xilai's former confidant, Wang Nijun's seeking U.S. refuge at the consulate. And I'd like to know, or I'd like to have the panel's address on what would this affect the leadership transition? Thanks. Matt, do you want to take export controls and then, Bonnie, you can... Okay. I mean, so, I mean, inevitably, yes, certainly, yes, the Chinese side will raise export controls as they have been doing consistently for many years. And I think, equally certainly, that issue will not be resolved on this trip. There will be continuing presentation by both sides of why this would be beneficial from the Chinese perspective. For the U.S. to relax controls, the U.S. will explain why. There's a process for doing that and conditions for doing that, but it won't be resolved on this visit. But yes, it will be on the agenda. I don't think I should probably take on Hillary Clinton or the Chinese domestic turn. Mike, do you know if there's a Hill visit schedule? I think he is meeting with congressional leaders, but I don't know the details. But nothing public. Nothing public. No, no, no. Not a presentation or a speech. Again, in 2002, part of that playbook, Hujintown met with congressional leaders, I would fully expect that we would want Xi Jinping to hear from key members of Congress. I would expect that that will be private. But I don't know for a fact, and again, you'll be hearing from the administration, have you heard? I think it's being... The playbook, the precedent really matters. Yes. Absolutely. Xi Jinping needs to check all the boxes Hujintown did, and that's the measure. And so, and Matt also has planned various summits with Chinese leaders over the years, and it's not a whole lot of creativity. It's not like they're looking to do something new and interesting. Camp David was always a hard sell or even Crawford, Texas was a little bit of a hard sell. There's a real need to demonstrate precedent has been met, maybe with a little extra. So that's why the playbook is fairly predictable. Yeah. On your question about Wang Lijun... How is the San Francisco equivalent? You've undoubtedly heard what the State Department has said on this, that Wang Lijun requested a meeting that he went to the consulate. He had his meeting and he left of his own accord. This still does not explain what the step of security was around the consulate. I don't know what the real story is and I think we're all still trying to separate facts from rumors. My guess would be, and again, Mike would know more about this than I do, but I would think that issues like that that are pretty much down in the weeds are probably not going to come up with Xi Jinping unless there's some major problem that we think needs to be solved at that level. Yeah, just here and then you can come up, make your way to the microphone after. Thank you, David Ivanovich with Argus Media. Michael, you mentioned Syria and we've been talking about Iran. I mean, we just had the double veto at the Security Council last weekend. Do you think that's an issue that the administration will press during these meetings or will that be old news? There'll be nine days old at that point. And likewise, do you think they'll press the issue of Iran? I'm certain they'll press both Iran and Syria. I think your mic is, you know, Susan Rice, our ambassador to the UN, her reaction to the double veto was pretty strong and I doubt that was spontaneous. I think I'm sure that was cleared with the Secretary in Washington. So Syria and Iran will be on the table. There is, you know, it is difficult. There's no precedent that suggests that explaining to China its interests in a stable Middle East and nonproliferation and sort of reasoning with China about their own interests. There's no precedent to suggest that will convince the Chinese side to change its approach to Iran. And a few years ago, you'll recall Jeff Bader, the senior director and Jim Steinberg. I don't know, was Jeff Bader and Donald and perhaps when he was deputy. In China, told the Chinese and they told us to the press, deliberately the U.S. side did. It was in the press, told them that there could be military action in Iran. And so when China and the Chinese side thinks that kinetic action, military action or something like that is possible in cases like Iran and North Korea, that's when you tend to get some movement on things like sanctions. Will they, will the administration tell Xi Jinping that they are concerned that there could be no option left but our military option or that Israel might take a first step? Possibly, I don't know what the plan is, but I think we and the Obama administration sort of have this experience that trying to explain to China, China's own interests in a case like Iran has not been terribly effective, but when they are given the choice between sanctions, joining some form of sanctions or letting things spin out of control, that's when you get some movement. I don't know how they'll handle that because there are a lot of issues on the table. I'm certain it'll come up. There's no doubt about that. Katie Wong with Newtown Dynasty Television. We know that last month US Ambassador Gary Locke has some statement on China's human rights issue and the inner stability. And do you think that fully represent this administration's view on that? And as you said that human rights is no more a token for United States than to press China, then how do you think this issue will be raised in this trip or it will be just off the table? I think that the facts on the ground show and administration officials share this view that the human rights situation in China has deteriorated. It has deteriorated not only since Hu Jintao's visit to the United States last January, but since Vice President Biden's visit to China. And it is a great concern. And Vice President Biden, as I understand it, when he met with Xi Jinping when he was there last summer, conveyed why human rights is important to the United States, that it's part of the fabric of who we are as a people. And we believe that this is a universal issue. It's not just an issue that is an internal problem that other countries should leave up to China and not comment on. Now, having said that, I don't think that there will be much discussion of individual cases. I don't think that that's the nature of the conversation that will be held at this point. And as Mike said, if Hu Jintao didn't do something, certainly Xi Jinping can't do it until he's actually in the position of being the leader of China. But I think it's important for Xi Jinping to understand that human rights is a concern of the United States that we're going to have going forward for the 10 years that he is in power. And it will be a continuing conversation and that this is something we care very much about and the rest of the world is watching and cares about how China treats its people. And recent incidents that we've seen, such as in Tibet and the self-immolations, these are a problem. We like to see China deal more constructively with the problems that it has with its people. And so I think that this will be a broad but very direct and frank conversation. Hu Jintao on these questions was conflict diverse. And if you look back at what he's said when human rights, democracy, religious freedom came up, he never challenged the proposition. So when Bob Zelik in 2005 said China should become a responsible stakeholder, Hu Jintao's next speech in the United States said, China is a responsible stakeholder. When the president or other Secretary of State Rice in 2005 talked about the importance of democracy, Hu Jintao used the word democracy 11 times in his next speech in Washington and in his press conference when President Bush was in the region said China has its own approach to democracy. He never challenged the sort of premise or the fundamentals. He just said, yes, we agree, we just have different approaches. Very conflict diverse. What'll be interesting with Xi Jinping is he has actually taken on sort of Western criticisms of China publicly. And I would be interesting to find out if we can, if in the meetings with the president, the vice president, he actually contests the issue and says, oh yeah, well you have human rights. I could see him pushing back more privately and maybe even publicly because he's done it before. The other thing to keep in mind is that these meetings will probably be an hour with the Secretary of Defense. The lunch is a very formal lunch with 200 people in the audience. The meeting with the president, I think probably an hour. This consecutive translation, so that means it's really only half an hour because they have to be translated. And both sides have to say certain things. They have to say, they can't tell their domestic audiences they did not raise certain things. And so that means that predictable positions take up 20 minutes. So to be honest, the actual real discussion is often only, if including translation in 20 minutes, so really only 10 minutes of kind of new things. But add to that, that Vice President Biden will be traveling out to Los Angeles and we'll have more time to get into some of these issues in depth. Yeah, he may have that opportunity. It's not clear they'll sit next to each other the entire time talking on the way out, but. They're having an informal dinner, just the two of them interpreters as I understand it in LA. So that will give some more opportunity. The other thing is on individual human rights cases, I mean, typically the president would not raise these. It would be the Assistant Secretary of State or the Senior Director or the National Security Advisor would pull aside the farm minister or the ambassador or someone and say, look, the president wanted me to raise this. So there's some issues that can get lateral to senior officials and worked and the margins of the meeting as well. Let's go Dan on the end and then we'll go over in the corner. Hi, Dan Robinson with Voice of America. So Vice President Biden down in Florida last week, I believe it was, repeated the criticism of what he called the God-awful one-child policy and made some other comments about competitive this competition with China and their economy. What has that relationship done since he's taken over as he noted in that speech part of the portfolio he said on China? How is that relationship affecting the way forward? About sort of what happened in China, but my sense is that they had a good first interaction in China and that there was good chemistry. I think I wasn't on that trip, so I don't know the details of what was discussed, but my sense is that it was a good basic first meeting and I think a good basis for continuing dialogue and discussion. But it goes back to the point that was made earlier. There are things that are discussed in private meetings between leaders and chemistry that's developed in relationships that are built as well as tough private messages about the difficult issues. Then there's sort of public consumption and things that are said for public consumption and those are also a mix of both things that emphasize and I think particularly on this trip that emphasize the importance of this relationship and why we need to engage with this important country while also there's an important need publicly to talk about issues that matter to the United States arranging from our economic issues to our political issues, to values, issues to others. I think it's not inconsistent that in different forums and different situations, you'll hear a little bit of all of that. I doubt that Vice President Biden is doing the equivalent of the Gore-Cherner-Myrton Commission where all policy flowed through Gore and Cherner-Myrton during the Clinton administration. I think what he's doing is sort of taking the lead on the relationship with Xi Jinping and in his public discourse, he hasn't quite found the sweet spot yet. You know, I forget it was the post of the times, he had a piece on China that struck a lot of people as a little pulling a lot of punches on human rights. Now he's kind of going the other direction. He hasn't quite, in his public explanation of US-China relations, hasn't quite found the sweet spot. But he probably is the point man for developing a relationship with Xi Jinping, if not the overall relationship. I mean, let me just say that clearly, just to reaffirm what Mike said, it's clearly not a Gore-Cherner-Myrton type of arrangement, but it is, you know, clearly Biden is gonna be very involved, but it's not that kind of structure that's being set up. My understanding is that a lot of what Vice President Biden is bringing to the table in this relationship and building that rapport with Xi Jinping is really based on his own personal experience. And as we know, the Vice President has had an enormous amount of experience on issues that he can then use to engage Xi Jinping on. And I'll give you one example. The Vice President has been very involved in issues pertaining to Iraq and Afghanistan. He has dealt with our military, and he understands the importance of coordination between civilians and the military. And he's, I think, tried to convey that to Xi Jinping and tried to bring his own experience to bear. And I think this is exactly how you can build a very good rapport between individuals. It's by calling on your own experience and then trying to use that to promote the U.S.-China relationship. And Vice President Biden is just extremely well-positioned to do that. Okay, we're running up on the end of our time, so let's take a question here, and we'll go over here and here, and we'll take them all in one round, and we'll let everybody just sort of give a last comment. Laura Mechler with the Wall Street Journal. I have two questions, a specific one and a more general one. Specifically, do you see that the issues of Hollywood and intellectual property around entertainment likely to come up on this visit, particularly since he's going to Los Angeles? And secondly, you've all talked about a successful, what a successful visit looks like, it's relationship building, it's no mistakes, but what should we be looking for as we're observing this visit to determine whether it was a success, thank you. Go ahead, please. Yann Ho Kim with Voice of America. Obviously, North Korea is one of the important issues to be discussed, but I was wondering if there's gonna be any serious, eager, and the specific discussion on how to get North Korea to get back to table when North Korea has been harshly Christy-sizing the South Korean government, and there's gonna be an election in Korea in couple of months, and also presidential elections both in the United States and South Korea this year. Thank you. Please. Another Voice of America, I'm with the Chinese branch. Still, we haven't discussed the dimension of Taiwan, I'd like to know how this Taiwan issue will come up and especially on the sticking point issue of arms sales to Taiwan, thank you. I'll do the Hollywood one. So I don't think that there's a direct connection. I don't think there's a direct connection. I think the reason for the stop in LA didn't relate to Hollywood per se, but I do think that there is an outstanding issue that is of interest to Hollywood, which has to do with the distribution of films in China on which China lost a WTO case to the US, and there is the issue of how to resolve that and compensation and change in policy in China with respect to that. And I think that you might keep your eye open for the possibility of that being one of the deliverables, whether it actually will be or not, I don't know, but I think that's one of the things they may be working on. I'll comment on the Taiwan issue. I think that given the recent elections in Taiwan, the reelection of Ma Yingqiu, I believe that there is great confidence in Beijing that it will continue to be able to manage its relationship with Taiwan well. I do think they remain concerned about US arms sales, but I don't think that they would be as perhaps panicked about the future of the cross-strait relationship if the election had gone the other way. And undoubtedly, Xi Jinping will raise Taiwan. He will want to convey his concerns about US policy arms sales being one of them and his determination to reunify the country. That's something that he has to do for his domestic audience back home. I would doubt that there will be much that the president or vice president will say that we have not said in the past on this issue and our commitment to the three Sino-US joint communiques and of course to the Taiwan Relations Act and our desire to see peace and stability maintained in the strait and perhaps a bit of urging that China begin to draw down its forces opposite Taiwan. I would expect that to be a fairly short conversation, however, given the confidence that I think that both sides have in Washington and Beijing that that cross-strait relationship is going to remain relatively stable over the next several years. I'll take the what to watch for question. I think given what we've all said, there's a serious interest in both the United States and China on making this visit look good. Meet the previous benchmarks that Mike so carefully talked about. I think look for chemistry. You know, if the chemistry is good, I think that's gonna be a reassuring sign to business and to Asia. If the chemistry, if it's sort of awkward and tones or notes are missed on some of the issues that we talked about, if it seems a little asymmetric, I think that will be interpreted as warning signs by the rest of Asia. And so there's a lot at stake here. I think that's, those are the key things to watch for from my perspective. The North Korea conversation is probably going to be short and very frustrating for the President and the Secretary of State and others. China is blocking any effort in the Security Council to follow through on, for example, there's a working group on the Uranium Enrichment Program that's supposed to report to the Security Council. We know there's a Uranium Enrichment Program. China's blocking that with Russia. But on that one, Russia's not out front the way they are with Iran and Syria. It's primarily China. The main message from Xi will be, return to the Six Party Talks, get dialogue going. The administration's not opposed to engagement with the North in some dialogue, some discussions, but is deeply and rightly skeptical that the North Koreans will do any serious discussions about nuclear issues. And I suspect that there will be sort of, they'll be talking across purposes on that one. On Taiwan, Bonnie's right. Xi Jinping will have to raise Taiwan arms sales. He's got constituencies that will insist on it. I hope and believe, I guess, that the administration will not just sort of blow past the Taiwan discussion, but will reiterate, and it's important that he hears this from the president, our commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act, and the importance of Beijing taking steps to reassure all of the people on Taiwan. Because the temptation for Xi will be to interpret the victory of Maiyingzhou as a victory for Beijing, and I think it will be important, even if briefly for the president and Secretary of State, to point out how important it is for Taiwan and China to make progress based on the views of everybody on Taiwan. And not just dismiss this election as sort of problem solved, let's move on. Taiwan Relations Act and then our support for democracy in Taiwan, those are two really important things. Of course, the president will have to and should reaffirm our commitment to the three communiques and one China policy. There's a whole mantra, basically. And we can't sort of blow by those and assume we don't have to say them. It's important for Xi Jinping to hear the whole package. On the North Korea piece, if I could just add that I think that at this particular juncture that the Chinese are less urgent about returning to the Six-Party Talks, although that's ultimately their goal, then they are about signaling that this is not the time for any country to take any actions that might destabilize North Korea, that we should be doing what we can to try and promote stability and ensure that the succession goes forward smoothly. And I think that the United States is gonna be signaling that China has a role to play in ensuring that North Korea does not take any more provocations in this coming year. And so I agree with you, this is not going to be a productive conversation. I think we're looking at this issue somewhat differently, but I think the Chinese are very worried about possible destabilizing actions that other countries could take against North Korea. And I think that we're worried about North Korea taking provocations. And specifically, I think the worry is on our side that North Korea will test a nuclear weapon in 2012. And if it's a uranium-based weapon, that's very bad, because it shows their enrichment is an advance to the point where they can crank out basically one a year. And if it's plutonium-based, that's probably bad because they've done two tests, and if the third test is more successful because the past two have been mixed, or if it demonstrates some capability for weaponization, these are all thresholds. So it's not just sort of, I think the U.S. concern or Japan or Korea's concern is not just that North Korea would destabilize the atmosphere, although it certainly would be bad in an election year for the president, but really that North Korea, while we're all debating this, is moving forward on developing a weaponizable, deliverable nuclear weapon. And there's no urgency about that in Beijing at all. It's all about making sure the succession is smooth. So it's not going to be an easy conversation and if nothing else, both sides will stay through positions. Sorry, did you just say that it's likely that they will test in 2014? I didn't say it's likely. I mean, I personally think it's likely. I don't know if that's the administration's position, but I think they're concerned because of several factors. One is the North Korean propaganda line publicly for several years has been that 2012 will be the year they are a nuclear weapon state. The other is even an unclassified testimony, you hear the administration explaining that North Korea is advancing down the path towards deliverable nuclear weapons capability, meaning able to mount it on a missile. And so nobody knows what Kim Jong-un will actually do, but there is a pattern and a game plan to developing and marrying ballistic missiles on nuclear weapons capability and that hasn't stopped, that's chugging along. And so we're looking at different things in China right now. We're worried about that moving forward. China's worried about avoiding any instability. We also worry about that and we're, I think, increasingly talking past each other on North Korea now, which is not solvable in one visit. I think there's a broad expectation that North Korea will do something in 2012 and the disagreement in the community about whether it's going to be a nuclear test or whether it's going to be missile tests and other long range missile tests. I think that there's broad expectation that there will be some action taken with some people believing that it will be more extreme and others believing that it will be less worrisome. That's pretty somber note to end on. Maybe we should go back to date night on Valentine's Day. Folks, thanks again for coming. Please get in contact with myself or Andrew Schwartz if any of these experts or any of our experts can be of help to you and your reporting. And thank our experts for joining us. Thanks again. Thank you.