 We'll be discussing today where we have been and where we are heading, but I think it's only appropriate before we start to acknowledge someone in the audience who was there when it started, who was working in the embassy in 1960 helping to make the alliance. Mr. Albert Seligman, Albert, if you're I think back here, why don't you stand up because you've done good. The alliance is still strong and we're absolutely delighted to have him and to have so many people who have throughout the years helped to build the alliance. Let's move right on to our program now and we're going to have all four speakers speak one after the other both on the past and the future and then we'll open it up for our Q&A session and we'll start with Professor Kitayoka from the University of Tokyo. Professor please. How many minutes? About seven minutes. Okay. There's a trap door at ten minutes that makes you disappear into the bowels of the willards. Thank you Ralph. It's a really great pleasure for me to be here to speak about security relations. I cannot get into the topic without touching up on the history before the security treaty namely 150 years ago some 70 Japanese people stayed in this hotel. They came to exchange the instrument of ratification with the Japan, U.S. Commerce and Navigation Treaty. Since from that time to up to the end of the Russo-Japanese war the relationship between two countries was excellent, very good. Some people say that it was because Japan was a good student to the United States, Japan United States was a very good teacher. It's part of the truth but more importantly I believe that it was made possible by the commitment to the same kind of policy value and doctrine which is an open door doctrine. Open door at that time meant more business based on the rules. That provides the equal opportunity to every country, everyone. And also it meant the opposition against the division of China which was underway mainly by Russian Empire. So we were on the same side and Japan was assisted very much not only by the United States but also by the United States very much at the war time with Russia. But after that Japan's commitment to the open door doctrine became ambiguous. We continued to make a commitment to that but sometimes Japan violated the doctrine. And then finally after 1931 when Japan ventured into a military expansion Japan moved from the side of the respectful law to a rule by force and then it went on to Pearl Harbor and the war between two countries. So what I'd like to stress is on which principles we are behaving. That's a very important part of our relationship. In 1945 a new era started between two countries. What I'd like to point out is that unlike Germany Japan was not divided geographically but Japan was in a way divided into two camps. One was pro-capitalist, pro-west, pro-American and the other was a more neutrality oriented pro-socialism and pacifist. I mean those people who didn't want to touch upon or discuss anything related to military affairs. Of course the former was dominant but it was very difficult because that part was encouraged by Article 9 of the Constitution. From that time after six, seven years of occupation Japan regained independence in 1951 but of course this treaty was very much one sided. In this treaty the essence was only one article which provides that Japan grants and the US accepts the right to dispose forces, land forces, sea forces, air forces in and about Japan and those forces can be utilized to contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security in East Asia and also the security of Japan. That can be or might be used. It's not obligatory on the part of the United States to defend Japan and also it was those forces can be used to put down the internal disturbances. This was not equal to it at all. So that's why those successors to Yoshida, Yoshida was the architecture of the security treaty, those people who replaced Yoshida tried to change it. It took place in 1954 when Yoshida was replaced by Hatoyama. It is as if we are in a kind of deja vu. The grandson of Yoshida was replaced by the grandson of Hatoyama and then the data tried to change the security relationship. Actually, in 1955, Foreign Minister Shigei Mitsu visited the United States in August and met with John Foster Dallas, Secretary of State and he proposed to make it more equal. His proposal included proposal of the withdrawal of American land forces within six years from Japan and also all the rest within another six years. So all together all the military forces should go in 12 years. It was rejected by Dallas sharply. He said that could Japan come to help the United States Army if military, if Guam was attacked by some foreign country. Foreign Minister Shigei Mitsu said yes and Dallas sharply said I could not understand your interpretation of the Constitution. Actually, this is the basis of the difficult relations between those two countries. Originally Article 9 prohibits the military forces in Japan and then beyond this Article 9, Japanese government created the interpretation that Japan could have some military forces but only for purely defensive purpose. In other words, they cannot be used beyond that. That was why it was so difficult to go into the reciprocal relationship between those two countries. That's why it was so one-sided in the first original treaty. When Mr. Kishi, Nobuki Kishi became the prime minister in February 1957, he soon found it was not sustainable on this basis and then he determined with a close consultation with Ambassador MacArthur who had a strong support from President Eisenhower to go to the revision of the Security Treaty in which he tried to insert some clothes on prior consultation in which the United States was obliged to make a prior consultation to Japan when there is a major shift, major change in the deployment of the forces and also its equipment. Also, when the United States is going to get into the military operation initiated from Japan, they have to make some prior consultations. Actually, I'm a chair of the team to investigate into the secret related to this. I do not have the freedom to speak about that but anyhow, certainly I can say that those people on the American side and Japanese side have worked very closely and very hard to try to overcome the difficulty and to fulfill the gap between those two people's mindset. And then I'm not thinking that we should blame those people for the secrecy about it. Anyhow, the Kishi's success in the new treaty was a very, very important event in it which was followed by also by another successful statecraft by Prime Minister Sato and also President Nixon. So since then there have been ups and downs in the Security Treaty but actually we have not gone too much beyond that. And also the ideas that Mr. Kishi had envisioned had not been perfectly fulfilled. How to make our relations more equal and more tougher? I'd like to remind you that the importance of the commitment is not only on the security issues but also to the values. In the second article two of the Security Treaty is written that we have to strengthen our system in political and economic freedom. This is exactly what we are facing even now. The growing, rapidly growing influence of China, particularly its military power, has been a source of concern on our side. And I'm not particularly pessimistic about the future of China, but we hope to have low abiding, good citizens of the international community. I hope that China will be one of those countries. And until then we need a solid security relationship between Japan and the United States. So therefore the commitment between two governments are very needed and also that we have to remember our commitment to the values and we have to remember the importance of our national powers with which we can contribute to the peace and security and prosperity in East Asia. I have to stop here. Thank you. Dr. Perry. Well, Japan has been asked to reflect on the history of the U.S.-Japan alliance. 50 years is a long time and a lot has happened in that time. So in the limited time I will have I must be very selective and I've decided to focus my framing comments on that slice of the history that occurred during the 1990s because I had relevant personal experience during that period and because I think those experiences offer important insights in the challenge the alliance faces today. When I became Secretary of Defense in 1994 I perceived two major issues in U.S.-Japan relations. We had a long-term issue of how to adapt the alliance to important changes in circumstances and we had a long-simmering issue concerning U.S. forces based on Okinawa. Shortly after I became Secretary that simmering issue came to a boil when an Okinawan girl was raped by a Marine. Immediately after that tragedy occurred I made an unscheduled trip to Japan to apologize for the American crime and while in Japan I ordered an immediate change in the command oversight of American forces in Okinawa and then jointly with the Japanese Defense Agency and the Foreign Ministry established an action committee on base realignment. While we were working to resolve that issue I had detailed discussions with Assistant Secretary Joe Nye on the dramatic changes in circumstances of forming the alliance several decades earlier, particularly of the remarkable growth of Japan's economy, the maturing of its democracy, the growing capability of Japanese self-defense forces and the ending of the Cold War. The result of those discussions was that I asked Secretary Nye to begin a dialogue with the Japanese counterparts to reach a common understanding of how the basis for the U.S.-Japan alliance had changed since the time we created the alliance and to prepare a roadmap of how the alliance should evolve in the future. Joe prepared a white paper which I thought at the time was a brilliant piece of work. Indeed I think that it is still valid today. It recognized that the U.S.-Japan alliance was the basis of security and stability in the entire Asia-Pacific region and the key to the unprecedented economic growth and increasing prosperity enjoyed by the citizens of that region. And it laid out a plan for the renewal and rejuvenation of the treaty. Joe's white paper had three concrete results. It led to a recognition by both nations of the overriding importance of the U.S.-Japan alliance. It led to the American President and the Japanese Prime Minister renewing the treaty in 1996. And it serves as a touchstone for the ongoing discussions on Okinawan-based realignment. That is, both sides recognized that the alliance was so important that we simply had to find a compromise solution to the difficult problems of base alignment. On base realignment I saw that the Americans could not simply reject the Japanese concerns as unimportant but had to identify with those concerns and try to find a way to accommodate them. My Japanese counterpart had to identify with the extent to which Americans perceived that the Okinawan bases were critical to maintaining the security and stability of the region. As a result, we did reach a compromise solution that was acceptable to both sides. I left office in 1997, but with a little more than a year after I left, a new crisis emerged with North Korea. And President Clinton asked me to come back temporarily to craft a new policy for dealing with North Korea. I recognized from the beginning that the North Korean problem could not be more important to the United States than it was to South Korea and to Japan. And that North Korea had a history of playing off one country against the other. So my first task was to request the Japanese and South Korean governments to appoint an official to work with me in preparing the new policy. The Japanese government appointed Deputy Foreign Minister Yoko Kato, who proved to be a tower of strength in the months ahead. The three of us worked for four months to arrive at a policy that we believe served the needs of all three of our countries and then got the approval of our leaders for this policy. The resulting policy is sometimes called the Perry policy. But I want to state clearly that such a name mischaracterizes the extent to which it resulted from a truly joint effort. Indeed, it might just well have been called the Kato policy. Yoko Kato. So what lessons can we learn today from the three efforts that I have described? The Okonohan base realignment was never brought to a conclusion and the issue is still simmering today. I believe that the compromise solution we worked out in 1995 was a good one, but it's probably not optimum today. What is valid today is the basis on which we arrived at our solution, namely that the alliance still is of overriding importance and should still drive both sides to seek a compromise that is acceptable to both sides. On the North Korean policy we crafted in 1999, I still believe that it could have led to a satisfactory resolution of the North Korean nuclear problem. But the following administration, when it came to office in 2001, broke off discussions with North Korea so we can never know for sure. In the meantime, the specific recommendations of the North Korean policy report have been overtaken by time, with the formation of the Six-Party talks and with the subsequent nuclear tests of North Korea. But still valid is the imperative for the three allies to work together to arrive at a common perception of the problem and a common negotiating strategy. And the understanding that any successful strategy with North Korea must be based on a diplomatic approach that includes a serious element of coercion. We had more successes on the third issue I've discussed, the U.S.-Japan Treaty. It was in fact renewed and rejuvenated, but of course that was 14 years ago. Today we have a new world in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as new administrations in our two countries, so it is time again to consider how to rejuvenate the treaty. But in this consideration, one should understand that one thing remains constant. The U.S.-Japan alliance is still the key to security, stability, and prosperity in the region. Thank you. Thank you, Bill. When we started this process 16 years ago, two of the mainstays, the superstars in the room at the first meeting were Rich Armagedge and Yukio Okamoto. And they have been with us for almost every meeting since then, giving us the same sort of guidance and message. So we're absolutely delighted to have both of them with us now to talk more about the future. And then we start with you, Rich, if I can, please. Thank you, Ralph. First of all, let me add my voice to those who've expressed appreciation and gratitude for the activities of the MSDF, particularly the Indian Ocean. That mission has come to a close, but I think we ought to acknowledge that many of our Japanese colleagues did some very hard and dangerous work for which the international community, not the United States as much, we have oilers. We can take care of ourselves for which the international community has expressed gratitude, and I want to express appreciation as well. So look around the room and see Al Seligman and Tom Hubbard and Evans and Torkle, Jim Kelly, and others, fellows whom I've worked together with for 30 years on U.S.-Japan relations. I'm reminded of a story. It seems a lady came into her doctor, and after an examination, the doctor said to her, Madam, I have some bad news. You've got a week to live. She said, oh, my God, have you got any recommendations? Is there anything I can do? And he said, well, the only thing I can suggest is you marry a specialist on U.S.-Japan security. She said, oh, well, that helped me live longer. He said, no, but a week will seem like forever. Look, I'm going to talk a little bit about where we've been as well, but in recent times, look, all of us in this room, I believe, almost without exception are somewhat guilty for the situation we now find ourselves in. All of us, I think, weren't realizing that the Minshu Party and most of us in this room actually speak a different language. When we talk about deterrence, I think everyone in this room knows what deterrence is, but I'm not sure that, and it's not a fault, but it's just the fact that the D.J.P. didn't understand, have the same concept of deterrence. We didn't pick up on this. We didn't catch it. We didn't get it. We all read the manifesto before the election. We understood what was in it. I think all of us, at least on the American side, were shocked to find that a political party might actually do what they said in their platform. I mean, it would be such a surprise here if our politicians did that. We also, all of us, I think, have obviously become too complacent. We didn't spread our network broadly enough to make sure that everyone, Americans and Japanese understood, may not have agreed with them, at least understood the same language that we, what we meant when we talked in terms of security and deterrence and extended deterrence and nuclear deterrent, et cetera. This, this language, I think evidence, the difference in language and difference in thought process evidenced itself most clearly when we heard the talk from the new government about the desire for equality, which is fantastic. I think every American said, that's wonderful. We will no longer have a Japan that's in terms of their defense spending to GDP will be in number 143 in the world. Maybe they'll pick up the pace a little bit, but of course, what was meant by the DJP is they wanted more quality in the decision making. I would have thought that a 10-year discussion to find a replacement facility for Denma would have indicated that Japan was hardly a puppy dog in the relation. These were 10 arduous years of negotiations, but be it as it may, we are where we are. And I think the Bush administration, which I was apart, many of us here were apart, has to take some of the blame, particularly for the latter two years, because particularly on the question of Korea, we really didn't do a very good job. We didn't share with our Japanese friends as we should, and had we had up to that point, we were drifting away from a policy of denuclearization to actually one of counterproliferation without ever announcing it. And I think this allowed the beginnings of some questions to creep in, even among our very close friends on the Japanese side. And that's our bad, as we say here. Now, where are we today? Well, the Japanese public has spoken and as Kurt indicated today, we of course respect that decision. The irony here is the United States for years and years has had a desire for real, genuine two-party democracy. We got it. And so we're going to live with it, as Kurt said at lunch. And we're going to deal with it. We're going to work with it. And we respect it. But it is a fact that our alliance has been adrift for at least four months. Probably will be adrift in some fashion or another until a decision is reached on Futenma replacement, Hanoko or something else, and may actually go in or pass the decision may actually go past the upper House election. I personally am a little skeptical that we'll get a May decision, it might have to wait till till July and the upper House election. So clearly, temporarily, the alliance is in second place behind politics in Japan. And as I think that's a fact, it's not a I'm not being prejudicial, I'm just pointing out a fact. And you got to put this in a little context. Is the Hanoko or Futenma replacement facility, is this the big deal that many are trying to make it? Well, it's perhaps a bigger deal when you put it into the following context. For the United States, a decision to delay Futenma is obviously a sovereign right of the government of Japan, no question about it. But the backdrop had to do with the Prime Minister going to China and talking about an East Asian community, which may or may not have included the United States at the time. There were some questions about whether it did or did not. I think there was a small bit of misunderstanding, not a large one, but a small bit of misunderstanding between the Prime Minister and our President at the meeting, otherwise good meeting in Tokyo. There is there was a specter of the Japanese Liberation Army descending on Beijing recently. And the same gentleman who led that descent on Beijing have not been to Washington for 10 years. So there's a backdrop to this that makes questions come up in people's mind. And finally, none of us have a true understanding, and we're trying to gain it, of the real hearts of the leaders of the Minshu Party. We know some of them we don't know enough about enough of them. So this is the backdrop that makes Futenma an even larger issue that it might be otherwise. And it's quite clear, and I think others have said it, we can't, the United States, the Americans in this room can't want this relationship more than our Japanese friends do. We can't. That's just a fact. Now, where should we go? Well, we probably ought to take a real deep breath and relax a little bit. We're going to have an alliance after whatever decision is made on Futenma. I'm personally pessimistic that it will be a positive decision about moving to Hanoko, and I don't think difficult decisions get better by waiting. At least that's what my parents always taught me. But that's my personal view. I may be proven wrong. But I think that's where we are. Therefore, for the Americans in the room working closely with our Japanese colleagues, we better have a plan B, and that's going to be very heavily influenced by military needs so we can protect and project our alliance responsibilities. Second, I think that there will be a bit of a need to regain a little bit of trust. I'm not suggesting at all that there's been a tear or a rip or a rent in this trust, but there are some questions that have entered into many minds on the importance, how important the alliance is viewed in Japan. So we can work on that a bit, but we really need to work on reassuring the region. There are no countries, as far as I'm familiar with the possible exception of China, who hasn't come into the Gaima show with some suggestions that we really need to repair this relationship with the United States and get on with business, because it's a great deal of nervousness. Notwithstanding whatever decision comes out of our friends in Tokyo on a futenmer replacement, we need to make sure we're together, I think, are working in the region to reassure them. Now, how do we do this? Well, I would suggest a number of ways, and I'm not the founder of Wisdom on this by any stretch of the imagination, but it seems to me that maybe the US and Japan are working together on peacekeeping, training, et cetera. So we're better able to be peacekeepers if our governments decide it might be a good signal to the region and has benefits to both of us. I would think that something like a joint MSDF, US Navy, medical civic action program, dental civic action program in some of the island nations and some of the islands of Indonesia, et cetera, is something that would be widely respected by those countries, widely needed by many of the countries, and I think something that would again reassure our friends and have some practical humanitarian benefits. It seems to me that anti-piracy, more activities by Japan, Djibouti and Somalia might be a very good way to sort of get back in the game a little bit if the government in Tokyo would want to do that. And maybe finally, something that I think is personally very special to Mr. Hatayama, and that is the developing relationship with India that Japan has. He has a personal affection. He's visited India many, many times. We're so proud in the United States of our having developed a good relationship with India. Japan is working hard. I mean, since they took a large group of business from there, the Japanese are all, the Indians are all about Japan these days. So maybe some activities together working with the Indians or something that might help us to get back on the bicycle again, and start riding again. And these are not an exhaustive list, but I think we need to start thinking of things we can do together, as I say, to get back on that bicycle and ride. So thank you very much, Ralph. Thank you very much. Yukio? Thank you, Ralph. Sorry, I will have to read out from my speaking memo because my biological translation machine does not work fast enough to tell you all the things I want to tell you. Today we are celebrating not just the signing of the treaty, but the whole Japan-US alliance, the linchpin of the security of Japan, of the East Asia, and more recently, the entire West Pacific and India Ocean. Thanks to the vision and hard work of several generations of political leaders, government of shows, and common citizens, it has endured and flourished. This alliance was forged 50 years ago under political and economic conditions, vastly different from today. 50 years ago, an expansionist and nuclear-armed Soviet Union confronted us across the Sea of Japan and everywhere in the world. The PRC, another agent of global communist revolution, was recovering from the famine and chaos of Mao Zedong's great leap forward. The Berlin Wall had not yet been built. South Korea and Taiwan were under military rule. They would be joined by the Philippines of half a decade later. One month after the treaty was signed, Air Force surgeon Maurice Fulnoy was killed in South Vietnam as one of the first victims. His name is in the very first line on the wall of the Vietnam War Memorial here in Washington. And I wonder, yes, according to your recommendation, which in Japan 50 years ago, as the new security treaty was signed, the National Diet Building was surrounded by 300,000 demonstrators and protesters. Look at the very different world we have today. The Soviet Union imploded into fragments. The remaining bits of the Berlin Wall are now sold to tourists as souvenirs. Europe is now a giant union. China has risen to a global power in terms of military strength, economy, and world politics. South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines are passionate democratic societies. And a remarkable number of the world population now lives in countries where they choose their own leaders in free and open elections. East Asia has joined Europe and North America as a center of world wealth and stability. And since the current economic crisis began, has become the main engine of world's economic growth. After its domestic upheaval in 1960, Japan settled under the alliance onto a long-term, tranquil growth path, becoming a very mature state of the world in every respect. And now, the security treaty is supported by amazing 76% of the total population. If you, this regard, don't know, it's almost a unanimous supporter within a democratic society. Throughout these five decades of instability and transformation, the Japanese Security Treaty has been the guarantor of stability and peace in East Asia. The alliance has been providing, as a public good, the base conditions necessary for the extraordinary development of the region. The Japanese alliance has succeeded in its mission, not by seeking to dominate the region, but by seeking to be a status quo preservation force, deterring and deflecting those powers who would seek to rearrange the political and economic boundaries of East Asia through force. Military alliances are based, of course, on cold calculations of national interest, of balances of power, and of tons of steel and TNT. However, an alliance like ours cannot endure unless it is based also upon human feelings. I have felt this strongly over the past few weeks as a confusion between Japan and the United States over the relocation of Temma base in Okinawa has deepened. I won't mention further. I have very strong personal feelings about it, but in order to save time, I just leave the frustration to my neighbor sitting next to me. I, however, the, I'll just say this. The recent turmoil began when the election campaign promises of the DPJ fanned the emotions of Okinawa people, leading them to believe that the base can be transferred outside the prefecture without much realistic prospect. Now, Temma has become the most painful issue between the two countries, but I will dare say this. In terms of the alliance essence, Temma is not a fundamental problem. If, for example, the Japanese government cannot accept the home porting of the nuclear propelled aircraft carrier at Yokosuka, that is a serious fracturing of the alliance. If Prime Minister Hatoyama seeks the withdrawal of the Marines from Okinawa to Guam, this is a serious matter for the alliance, but no such things are happening or will happen. Temma is not something to bring about a divorce between the two countries. The good news is that the DPJ now realizes, albeit too late, that they made a mistake. I don't know if this will be any consolation to you, but they are trying to salvage the situation. In my eyes, it is almost amazing to see the government, which is essentially based upon labor unions and the less privileged classes, normally destined to carry out the leftist agenda, is actually struggling to solve this issue with a minimal impact on the alliance. Our urgent aim should be to, as quickly as possible, section off the Temma issue and shut the curtain on the development of further instability. We must look beyond. We have to re-establish our natural mutual trust fast and soon. There are topics that urgently needed to be addressed. Resetting the relationship back to where it was six months ago, fine. What else is there that Japan must do? During the 1980s, long years through the era, we raised the level of the alliance through the introduction of new vessels and airplanes to the basis of Yokosuka and Misawa, fortified roles and missions between the two nations, negotiated weapons technology transfer and participation in SDI and so forth. We took a joy in the evolution of the alliance. Those are the days of the people which mentioned at the outset. It was an era when we believed that the road ahead would lead Japan, would lead to Japan eventually becoming an ally like the United Kingdom or Canada. However, in subsequent years, it became clear that there exists very difficult limitations on Japan. As we painfully experienced through 1990 operation Desert Shield or in the current OEF in Afghanistan, Japan has been unable to send SDF into, quote, dangerous areas, unquote, where there are high probabilities of casualties. It will take quite a while for Japan to cross that river to become a true member of the risk-sharing international community. What should we do in the meantime then? Very soon, under the DPJ, Japan has to find new framework of peaceful deployment of our forces, somewhere in between battlefields and money. Fight against poverty, CO2 emissions, disaster reliefs, economic assistance to countries with security problems, pandemics, joint research on energy and resources. There are many positive fields Japan and the United States must work together to enhance the welfare of the world. We must bear no efforts to increase the cooperation in these so-called soft issues. But still, the core of the alliance is the hard security. The withdrawal of JMSD vessels from the Indian Ocean, I believe was a clear mistake. The soft agenda, while it is utterly important, cannot be a substitute for fulfilling one's global obligations in the hard security matters. We need to see a first case, even a small step, by the DPJ government contributing to peace and security for the first time, not through money, not through pacifism. We need a positive case for the alliance for the DPJ to change its course. Having said that, we Japan must not forget that what is most important is the strengthening of Japan's own defense capabilities and a very close military to military cooperation between the two countries. Notwithstanding the positive developments of the world in the last 50 years, we have a situation in North Asia where threats are increasing rather than decreasing due to North Korea and China. My time is limited, so I will just conclude by saying something about China's blue water naval expansionism, which I believe to be the more important of the two. Currently, China is aiming to possess the complete maritime supremacy in the west of the so-called first island chain, which starts from the Japanese mainland of Kyushu through Okinawa islands, Taiwan and the Philippines. China has declared the parasols, the Spratlys, Ucklesfield Bank, Taiwan, Pung Ho, and Japan's Senkaku, all territories of China. All these islands inside the first island chain were integrated into Chinese territory by their domestic law of 1992. Furthermore, in between the first island chain and the second island chain, which goes down from Yokosuka through Israel and through Iwo Jima, Guam and the Marianas, China is trying to develop and access denial capability against U.S. naval forces. The traditional priority for China between the two island chains was to develop the ability to attack Taiwan from the east. However, the priority nowadays is on securing maritime interest and natural resources. These are the reasons why China is deploying 69 submarines, including nine nuclear powered, in a phase of against Japan's modest 16 conventional powered submarines. To this China will be adding aircraft carriers. Ignoring this maritime buildup and hoping that the Chinese navy can be restrained by paying courtesy calls to Beijing is to be too trusting. In response to the changed circumstances in the aftermath of the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, Japan and the United States revitalized the alliance through the 1996 joint declaration whereby Japan-U.S. security cooperation has expanded to a global theater of cooperation. It is ironic that having taken the step in the last decade, we find ourselves confronted with the situation where after the first decade of the 21st century, the rapid rise of China is bringing back the focal point of our alliance to the security treaties conventional role of preserving the peace and security of the Far East. In a manner that redoubles again the significance of alliance, we have no time to spare for squabbling. Thank you. Thank you, Yukio. Thank you to all four speakers for being very concise and yet very insightful.