 That's how thanks everyone for coming today. It's it's really wonderful to be here I was joking with my wife when I went out the door this morning that I might bring an extra set of clothes in case I had Any tomatoes or eggs hurled at me by by my colleagues who have been waiting for to take a shot for a while The book is is quite controversial It's part of the reason that I decided to write the book frankly was you know had been working in this field looking at China's Defense modernization for some time and and I realized that my assessment my views of what the United States should do were quite different Then most people I was interacting with certainly in the national security community And so I thought to myself you know well Maybe I have something unique here to say by the way There are there are several chairs up front if you guys if people want to join us here But so that's really the the origins of the book. I feel very strongly that Naval War College is at its best and in general You know our our academic environment is strongest when we have dissonant views when we have debates when we when we Argue in debate to make our policy better So I think that I'm part of writing the book was to bring a kind of different perspective a new way of thinking about it And by the way, I very much enjoy a debate and discussion, especially with such a knowledgeable group so by all means after I Finish showing some some pretty pictures. Let's let's engage in some some dynamic discussion Maybe you start off with some current events you see this picture here It's not a picture. It's actually a Chinese painting if you will not in the traditional style But any pilots in the room of course will Quickly gather that that is a very unusual way to operate aircraft certainly during peacetime You know and what is extremely disturbing you've probably guessed already that that this Graphic depicts actual set of events probably in August 2014 interaction between a Chinese interceptor and our own P8 surveillance aircraft so Part of my message here is and I think this audience knows it well is that this kind of interaction is going on If not every day it's going on quite frequently I think according to New York Times there were about five incidents like this in 2015 So it's quite troubling and I think we even if if such incidents generally are not in the headlines all the time We certainly as you know retirees practitioner strategists who think about these things We need to reflect deeply on the meaning of these events and certainly what it means for our national security Let me share one other piece of Related event ripped from the headlines and that is which I think puts a good context develops a context for this discussion is By the way, you can of course we can find China headlines no matter where we go practically on every page of the newspaper at this point That's what a big issue. We're dealing with today, but Reflect for a minute on the meaning of the president of Taiwan Maiying Joe and The president of China who they will meet for the first time ever in I think two days So that that is a really historic event It's actually quite in keeping with the kind of Reconciliations that I'm arguing for and we can talk more about the Taiwan situation I see a professor road here my good friend who's just back from a summer in Taiwan So I might just kick questions to grant over there, but These these are in some as we consider the Taiwan issue and if you think the Taiwan issue has been important to US China relations You are very correct in thinking that these are quite historic times for considering that relationship but let me push ahead here and We'll see if we can get around to Touch on a whole variety of issues because this relationship is complex now. I think this crowd Maybe we'll like this slide best of all This is this is most of how I spend my time just a little background here I I really since I came to work the Naval War College 15 years ago. I've been you know sort of in training as a naval analyst and I spent a lot of time looking at pictures like this and A key part of the China Institute that I helped set up a Key aspect of that is looking at what the Chinese are saying about their own naval development and trying to understand it and give Insights and I'm sending Basically one email a week down to Opnav and other places in the Navy sharing information like this That they wouldn't necessarily get from other means so and by the way I encourage all of you to come by and visit our Institute and you can see for yourself just you know You don't have to speak Chinese to understand a lot of this graphic by the way I point out, you know for example the Propulsor we think that's on their new Their the new SSN One other thing we're really worried about actually is this talks about the A the yj-18 missile it's quite an impressive missile it has a supersonic sprint vehicle and You probably know that we don't our submarines don't fire a supersonic ask him So you know I'm pointing out to people and it's part of our background here that that China has Gone ahead in a few areas of military development, and that's something to keep in mind Not all areas there are plenty areas where we're had even far ahead, you know submarine quieting for example But we want to keep that in mind as we as we consider this relationship, so The naval analyst at Naval War College decides to play as it were in the in the big strategic questions and indeed I thought after You know about 12 years of working in this area that I should you know I'll dip my toes in the on the big in the in the on the big questions, so It starts of course from a Where is this debate going in our country and here these are two books in particular that I see as the book ends of the debate and I'll say So if if this debate is of great interest to you, please Read these books. I advise you maybe even to read them more than once as I have Now this one by the way was written by my PhD advisor Aaron Friedberg Princeton and It's a very strong argument for why we should be extremely concerned about China and we have to take You know as we're mobilized for a kind of new Cold War that could become a hot war And Hugh White makes kind of the opposite argument in the China choice where he says no actually we We really need to concentrate on sharing power with China and that's the way to go Now you can understand from my title. I'm sure which way I lean in this debate but I fully understand you need to engage with both sides and I've done so and I'm quite well acquainted Both with Friedberg's thinking and and people who think like Friedberg and by the way in my you know Intellect you may wonder. Well, how is it as a student of Friedberg? You've you've challenged it and I would say in the intellectual tradition that I'm that I was brought up in You know that is quite an honor to your to your teacher if you challenge them so You know you get you can Make up your own mind on that Well, I'm still in touch with Professor Friedberg. We talk. Oh, sorry. Let's see. I don't want to mess this up here Press the wrong button Where's John here, I'm like I'm not good at these things Nine o'clock all right, I think we advanced too many though. Oh, no, that's good. Okay, so Um, what is unique about this book there are lots of china books, you know You probably have a shelf full already, you know as you go through the train station You might see for example a book by Henry Paulson, for example That's the one and in the train station the airports now It says it's the title of something like how to deal with China, you know more straightforward than mine, I guess But you know I'm frustrated by these kind of books because if you you read through them And you come to the end and you say okay Well, what do we do about it and there's very little there by the way Paulson's book very good I mean he met with Xi Jinping. He knows Hu Jintao I mean it's worth reading these books, but what to do about China, you know that that's the question And you kind of come to the end and you find these very anodyne descriptions, you know You know give China a seat at the table or you know try to be smart about China, you know, I Mean it's so vague that you can't really deal with those. I mean they're not that helpful in my view So in this book what I've tried to do is spell out very clearly What are the steps that need to be taken not just by the United States, but also by China in fact the idea is this As you can see is this cooperation spiral And these principles that kind of underlie the spirals are fairly I think intuitive to grasp But you know my general idea is I see what I see is a kind of escalation spiral That is, you know, we do something then they respond that we do something I want to reverse that spiral go in the opposite direction and look for ways that we can you know reach Cooperation, but I understand you can't just kind of leap into some great, you know grand bargain I don't think that is going to work we I got to build some trust first first and trust is sorely lacking the relationship So we require kind of small steps to start with that would Take us somewhere more significant One other thing I'll say is the sourcing in the book. I think it's I'm quite proud of we've done You know There's some hundreds of articles Chinese articles Chinese language articles cited in the book look at the footnotes for yourself and Define those hundreds of articles that I cited I had to go through thousands of articles Okay, so I mean it's a pretty a wide effort and by the way, you know when you look through the China books that are out there You'd be surprised how little How to put it that people are not doing their spade work the way they should be So part of the idea of the project is you know, we've got to take Chinese voices seriously We've got to see what they're saying because after all how can we think about compromising with them? If we don't fully understand their point of view, what are they proposing for example, and my book I try to kind of push the boundaries of knowledge on their Their outlook and I use a very wide Group of sources so now I put in a few extra slides here about the military balance because I feel like this group in particular would be very interested in military questions So although by you know, I have to say the book is mostly about diplomacy actually So maybe I'll dispense for the jacket if if you'll permit I'm an animated speaker, so I'll be sweating by the end All right, so now as we look at the military balance I don't really follow the the army side too carefully as you'd expect I work at Naval War College but there is a lot going on there and There's a famous professor a China specialist at Boston College named Robert Ross and he actually wrote a wonderful article where he called it He called it the geography of peace He said look China's a land power in the United States is sea power So they kind of respect each other's fears and everything that should be Should turn out fine, but of course, you know, we know that China although it has been doing a lot in this area, but they Of course, we see a lot in the air and naval realm as well And and one thing you can see if you come into our library and look at our Chinese sources You'll see that this kind of top gun culture Is very much in full flower in Beijing you get a little taste of it in this photograph, but So and of course the area that I spend the most time I spend a lot of time looking at Chinese undersea warfare And boy is there a lot going on I'll talk a little bit more about the military balance and and my assessment of the military balance We may disagree on a few things, but I mean it is a powerful part of my My thinking that is I come partly to the conclusion that one reason we should try to get along with China is that the How to put it war with China would would not be a cakewalk Far from it would be extremely destructive and our losses would be very high as with theirs So you know we need to be it forms a background for these diplomatic discussions, of course So you've heard a lot about the Chinese missile capabilities These of all China's military capabilities these probably get the most attention generally and and maybe some of you have seen this very disturbing graphic I don't actually know the origin of that graphic graphic, but what they're talking about of course is that revolutionary capability that my Colleague Andrew Erickson for example has done a lot of work on the so-called anti-ship ballistic missile And if you're following the that famous parade that took place in September the Chinese actually revealed yet another Missile of longer range same idea though, so You know this is I think a major threat that the that we're taking quite seriously now But Chinese military naval development goes way beyond that I mean they are playing around with these kind of expeditionary capabilities And you all know very well that there aren't too many navies in the world that can you know that are proficient with these kind of Amphibious capabilities for example And here's here's an example of kind of China You know beginning to in a kind of modest way to throw its weight around you know interesting that this was front page news on Global times that for the first time ever this was in let's see September 2014 The Chinese fleet had had entered the Persian Gulf in as a squadron so You know that that qualified as big news in China But just to share a little more of the kind of work we're doing in In our Institute for example here. I did some work for example on Chinese undersea sensors a kind of Chinese SOSIS system and We were able to reveal using dozens of sources that indeed a Chinese SOSIS system is definitely Exists and and is expanding so this is important so many keep our eyes on just a little more on the military balance here the as I read the Chinese discussions about undersea warfare, you know, they're very concerned about for example, you Know allegations of American submarines off their coasts watching them carefully and watching all their You know as they move in and out of port it's something they're very concerned about One area I've looked at a lot is mine warfare. Here's a kind of typical piece we see in our Institute where they're talking about Where this is a Professor from their submarine Academy and here he says, you know Actually mines are the most submarines are the most ideal method for laying mines and so forth So, you know, this is a major concern and I actually have a piece I just wrote up on the national interest where I discussed this interview for example But and I would emphasize that China, you know, some of its military development is not so glamorous, of course You know, I mean these are kind of work a day frigates And yet we know that in the military balance these, you know, I call this crossing they're crossing their teas and dotting their eyes, right? You need these, you know, sometimes these are the kind of vessels that make, you know, turn the tide And They're moving ahead in other areas, you know, this is an area they've been extremely weak. That is anti-submarine helicopters So we often say China this is China's the Achilles heel of their Navy and yet I see a lot going on here I think the next 10 years are going to be pretty interesting in this area And by the way, I just, you know, you may be interested that oh, and I published a report about I don't know six months ago kind of definitive type report about where China's at But neither of these two helicopters were even mentioned in the report So what I'm saying is that we need to round out the intelligence assessments with just, you know, reading Regular Chinese publications, for example, this is a cover story So you think we would want to be paying attention to that So, you know, I'm not I'm not trying to criticize this very hard job to get our hands around everything going on But we have to I'm going to skip this one Yes, yes, absolutely. Yeah, it is identical Undoubtedly undoubtedly, but that doesn't mean it's not a threat In fact, that may mean it's more of a threat, of course You know, those of you who know that helicopter know it's there's a reason they're copying it, right? It's a good helicopter Okay, well by the way, we sold them Blackhawks in 1980 So we shouldn't be surprised that they like the Blackhawk They like it a lot actually All right. Well, let's let's talk some about the what is the Tone of the discourse in the United States about What to do about China and here you see I think Admiral Harris's remarks Made big headlines and and we'll talk more about these These reef building effort that's ongoing Here's my colleague Jim Holmes. He's probably stood up here many times in front of you You know, it is a lot of concern and you see it in his writings Here's something from the Wall Street Journal Ratner, you know, let's counter Chinese aggression Here's one. I I can't say I like this kind of headline, but I I say that in particular because I I write a lot in the national interest So I've told their editors you guys got to rain it in a little bit But indeed, you know I think 10 years ago or 20 years ago We did not have seen this kind of headline, you know as a regular, you know It's not even shocking these days and part of that has to do with just, you know Sort of the profusion of bloggers and all this kind of thing that's going on But I do think there we have now become kind of accustomed to You know, it's fairly normal to talk about war with China Which is I find personally very very disturbing and was part of my motivation for writing the book Okay, now I want to share some insights from the Chinese discussions about where the relationship is at and please Forgive me for For dragging you through lots of slides here, but I I do think, you know When we'd say who is a China specialist after all it's important to To show our evidence, you know, why do we think the Chinese think certain Sorry, I'm just trying to check the time here with Okay, I don't want to drone on too long Now this is uh This is uh From 2013 it's a journal called Xi Jinping, which is sort of the Chinese version of the economist And uh, I was quite disturbed when I read his, you know, this uh, Chen Xicheng's appraisal of Chinese economic and trade relations, you know, the the tensions in US China trading in the trading relationship are intensifying daily basis And uh, you know, the US obviously rejects the idea of inviting China into the tpp That's in the news a lot. So You see these economic tensions you feel them in the United States, you know Actually was being discussed before we started Uh, they exist in China too. Uh, in fact, here's a Chinese general, uh at their National Defense University and you can see the kind of things he's saying, uh, you know, look at this for example I'll just read it in case anybody can't read it back there to serve the demands of the US market We have exploited our resources ruined our environment. Was that in our national interest? I mean it is kind of You know economic nationalism just a sense that that China has not been well served But moreover, you know that, you know, one cannot escape the conclusion that we confront a mighty opponent the United States. So, uh You know when a general a Chinese general is talking this way, um It's um It's quite disturbing and what i'm getting at here is this kind of you see it in the United States too That is a mixing of economic concerns with national security concerns And I think they are both kind of fusing and feeding on one another Uh And that's disturbing but let's turn More closely to what Chinese military people are saying and this is admiral who Uh, he had just retired when he gave this interview This is a couple years back, but I think it's I remember when I read it. I was sort of like, whoa Because I've been reading this for you know going on two decades I've been reading these sources and I've not found this tone before very uh You know you can read well, I'll just read this quickly says the United States is the fundamental anti chinese force may seek to precipitate precipitate a crisis Hoping that internal difficulties could fill facilitate foreign aggression or that foreign aggression could cause internal anxiety So you see they're kind of a fusing of concern about what's going externally in china, but also what's going internally in china And uh here this is even more disturbing. I think you're talking about building the legal basis for the use of of non peaceful means To resolve the rivalry over maritime rights, okay, non peaceful means that's That's a little bit subtle, but not too subtle, right? We know what that means Here's I watch a lot I watch a lot of chinese news You know anyone who mistakes china's good intentions for weakness or views china as a paper tiger He's absolutely wrong and and uh, so this is becoming more and more common And I think I would say just as our discourse has become much more hawkish. So has theirs Um, I think I'm in the interest of time. I'm just going to skip that one But now this is something quite disturbing. This is fairly recent about a year ago in a very important chinese journal And uh, this professor from uh peaking university says Actually Going to the asymmetric nature of the combat theater the chinese navy will undoubtedly possess a force structure advantage in the near seas That's quite new, okay in all the years i've been going to china and i'm on my way in a couple weeks I have not heard chinese analysts say these kind of like we have the advantage. We have the military advantage Okay, uh, and this is a high quality journal. So, you know, no, there are caveats on that too. Is it I don't want to Not trying to over hype this it's just that You you sense this, uh, there's greater confidence Here's now this, uh Strategist his name is jung jung wen mu. He's quite famous in china, but he uh He's kind of a hawk's hawk as it were in china and and so But he's saying You know look at what putin did in crimina. We can do the we the chinese we can do the same thing Uh, so it's quite disturbing and this article for example got a lot of play Um, i'm gonna skip that one too, but let's you know, just think about how these issues are portrayed this was from last spring when uh secretary carter went over to the shangri la dialogue and over to the philippines and and You know the headline in china on the news is the us is about to set up eight new bases in the philippines So, uh, again, you get the sense of a real hawkish uh, sensibility now in china um, and Now this i also found disturbing this is just a few this is in 2015 admiral yin. I actually met admiral yin about a year ago and uh He says something quite similar to that peaking university professor He says uh, if in the future there's a conflict between china and the us it will take place right on china's doorstep and to put it rather bluntly china doesn't fear any country if the fight's on our doorstep and you know As a military strategist you hear that and you say Well He's right. I mean in other words they have a huge, you know some some pretty important advantages if the fight is right on their doorstep um Back to military balance for a second now. This is a youtube video. You can go and watch it at home or on your device right here of a yj-18 hitting a Ship in a test it's pretty disturbing and Now we talked about some missiles earlier the anti-ship ballistic missile, but this is a cruise missile of course and you know Again, I think I mentioned that we don't have a supersonic cruise missile in the us navy We're working on one although actually I think the program was canceled. I think that was the l-rasin b You know, this is disturbing and and I find this you know The people I are the best experts are our students of course and I asked my students about this and they say Yeah, you know we're we're outsticked. So there's a lot of concern I'm not to say we have we have other capabilities, of course, but A submarine force for example, and here's a chinese analysis and you can find a lot of this kind of discussion saying Gosh the u.s. Submarine force is going to come down all the way down to 41 boats. In fact, I heard lower even And the chinese are tracking that carefully. So they you know know where our potentially where our weaknesses are um There's another kind of dramatic example of what how the chinese think about the problem and you can see here the Missile launchers over here This is the cover of a technical journal that we get at the institute And I actually the the guy who pointed out to me is back there martin sin. He's a great china expert in the back um It's kind of striking though how now they're so you know, they're very proud of this anti-ship ballistic missile it seems and So proud that they're putting it on the front of their Their journals and and of course the primary problem is how to track that fleet And I think they're working on that how to track our fleet that is you know in the interest of time I think I'm going to skip these two but all right I think I'm going to want to get Sip of water here, but I'm going to change directions a little bit here for this uh for this um Next part of the talk here and share with you some um now I laid out a real dark picture there, right? I mean there's a lot of tension on both sides of the pacific It sort of looks seems like both countries are are you know Girding in earnest for conflict um But I want to suggest that uh, we have to take a larger view of more balance view and see that china actually is doing a lot Uh a lot of good out there and we we want to make sure that that is considered in the ledger of how we think about these things Okay, not you know in fact no other country has built a purpose built hospital ship. Okay in the hospital ship um You know you can call it a kind of propaganda tool or whatever you want. Well, we do a lot of uh uh military medicine around the world and and I think a lot of good has been done so I don't think we should dismiss this a kind of capability And uh, there's much more to it The uh china has been very active with blue helmets. That is um peacekeeping going some real dangerous situations They've gotten people killed for example in lebanon and that's a pretty tough neighborhood as you know And more than that they're doing a lot of training of blue helmets, which is absolutely essential I mean that's everybody who studies blue helmets, you know UN peacekeeping knows that training is kind of the biggest problem. Well, they have the most advanced training center in the world Right outside beijing. It's it's very impressive. Um, and You know just to give you a good example and this picture is a little bit inaccurate, but Um, I've looked at china's what the china did during the ebola crisis Uh, that was last year, right? Remember we're reading those headlines You know seem like you know the end of the world or at least the end of west africa Right really scary stuff and we we sent a lot of people in what china also sent a lot of people In fact, right You know, I wouldn't want to put the measures the the effort side by side But china's effort was very impressive and quite on the scale with ours Um, and so this is a good thing, you know, this is what we want This is how we want china to behave in the world and indeed they're they're doing a lot in africa That's some of it bad, but a lot of it good actually Um, I got a whole chapter by the way in the book on On africa by the way, there's another chapter in the middle east and how us and china can cooperate in the middle east And I would just one more thing i'll say on that is There's not too many china books that have an entire chapter on the middle east, okay But here's one for it. Uh, so that's somewhat unique about it now Who's this guy? Maybe some of you are sitting in the room when this photograph was taken But that's that's wuxiang li the chief of the chinese navy and Uh, that was a big historic moment last year when he visited newport I happened to be in china at the time, so I didn't get to meet admiral wu But it was it's something that I've worked for actually really for more than a decade So I was very happy that it happened what i'm getting at though is the chinese navy, uh, you may have a lot of issues with them Of course we do and yet, you know, uh, they are reaching out there are You know participating in something like the international seapower symposium and if i'm not mistaken admiral greenert Who's stepping down of course just stepped down, but um If i'm not mistaken greenert went to china four times last year, okay That should give you an idea of the priority of kind of military engagement And the point is as we're reaching our hands across as greenert has done They are reaching back and I think we've got to keep that in mind As suspicious as we may be now i'll just show you a couple more examples I hope these i'll hand out advil after the talk because I know you people probably tired of looking at slides already but this This um, there are some very brave voices in china standing up saying wait a sec You know we don't we do not want to go to war with uncle sam um Here's an example another peaking university professor. He says Now in our country there's a belief that border questions can only be resolved through war and he goes on to say that's really stupid Uh, and he really takes issue with his colleagues. In fact, he relies on some research by, uh, boston Um base professor named fravel you may have heard of him He's very big in our field and he fravel wrote a book saying actually if you look at china's Behavior in various disputes. They're actually quite inclined to negotiate. He says in almost every case. They have negotiated successfully Uh, and he goes through all these cases here and explores them So anyway, this chinese professor is using fravel's work just as I do actually to say actually china's record here is pretty Pretty impressive on negotiating territorial issues So that should give us confidence. Here's another um, say dissident voice in china saying Calm down. We don't we can't let these issues lead us toward conflict. So sherry and hong he's quite famous. He says Said look that that island dispute that's not the sum total of china-japan relations. There's so much more to that Okay, so what i'm trying to tell you is there are a lot of reasonable voices in china too Uh many uh this kind of article is pretty common if you read the title here in english it says, uh Uh china u.s global strategic interest compatibility and their cooperation in the middle east Okay, and then he lays out all the chinese and american interests side by side And shows guess what there's a lot of things we agree on in the middle east of foremost among them, you know, both countries, uh are uh standing up against radical terrorist terrorist networks um And here's one more of this variety Another peaking university professor. You could see i spent some time peaking university. There really are one of the best universities in china, but here's um Wang yi jo somebody who has very interesting views and he says look china has not produced the public goods the in chinese He said gung gung champion But needs to China needs to do he's basically saying china needs to do good in the world Much more than it's doing and he actually At one point he calls china a lame colossus. Okay, so he's very critical and this is not a minor player I mean, this is one of the biggest players in chinese foreign policy standing up and saying we are not cutting the mustard We need to do better And by the way when he called china a lame colossus. He was talking about north korea He's saying this is our neighborhood. We can't even you know, we can't even run it effectively So there's a lot of chinese who want to reform chinese foreign policy and more positive ways. Okay now I'm kind of droning on and on here, but you're probably saying you promised some specific recommendations and yes I will I will give you some right now This is what you've all been waiting for All right. Well, you look at this picture. This is a very common kind of thing you see in china In fact, I'm going out to shanshi province in a couple weeks. That's china That's like sort of west virginia of china the coal country in other words and you got to wear a mask it's it's terrible, but You know the global warming question is not a minor one in us china relation In fact, you can argue the whole success of these negotiations coming up in paris depends entirely on us china relations That is, you know, can our leaders Come forward with some kind of plan hoping that the other countries india and brazil and so forth will Fall in line after the big two sign up So there is a chapter on the environment and global warming and I do consider this a very important issue In fact, so important that I would argue that we have to be very concerned that smaller issues Maybe even some some reefs and rocks discussion can inhibit cooperation on Uh global warming I in the book I present some evidence of that type in other words That is, you know, they take the attitude that we're trying to contain them in the south trying to see And they think that on the global warming front, we're also trying to contain them in other words using the global warming issue to You know try to create the limits on the chinese economy so forth. So you you have this line of thinking in china. I think it's very, uh deleterious and We have to work to mitigate that all right Well, you're saying what is the actual compromise and I can't go through every step here I'd like to but I can't time doesn't permit but The final step, you know, as it were the grand bargain I come to and I have one of these spirals in every chapter That is that I have 10 of them. This is this is one Uh, I say the united states has to embrace per capita emissions um Standard and we've actually come a long way toward embracing that so I don't think that it could be that hard for us But maybe a harder step is china has to then go into the treaty process That might happen, but and they have to accept intrusive verification Procedures, okay, that's tough. It's going to be hard, but I don't think it's crazy I mean if you read the new york times yesterday at a front cover article saying that china has information on the On their coal burning Is not correct. Okay, so of course, you know, they can say all this wonderful stuff about what they're doing global warming Do we believe it? Probably not and we shouldn't okay. We need to verify all right, so This is the kind of more a better way to go and I think but I don't think this is pie in the sky I think we could get there. All right now you Probably wondering about those rocks and reefs Because that has been dominating the headlines so Let me suggest a few thoughts on that about how to Reach some kind of compromise there And again, I'm in the q&a. Perhaps we can walk through the steps all the steps, but um Let me just share a couple China has been building a giant base on high non island to have a huge cave complex there, for example It's creating a lot of mistrust Couldn't they open it up to visits from the asian states to uh, you know in other words allow some more transparency and what they're doing down there Could we reduce our surveillance missions? I think we could in response And then could china clarify its u-shaped claim By the way, you see I've written all this stuff in chinese too. So the chinese readers can can grapple with this as well Yes, I think they actually some evidence. They're starting to clarify those claims. They need to clarify much further. Absolutely And then could we endorse China's claim not as the only claimant, but as one among several claimants. Yeah, we could do that and Could we support a bilateral negotiating framework? Yes, I think we could and we could talk about That for a while, but my own view, you know You don't need a phd in political science to know that a bilateral Discussion is a heck of a lot easier than a multilateral one and you wonder why things nothing's happening How come there are no actual proposals about how to solve the south china sea problem? Because everybody's saying it has to be a multilateral solution. Well, you'll be waiting for the next millennia. I think For a multilateral solution. It's not going to happen That's my view and and I think that's supported by scholarship Okay. Well, what about that tricky China-Japan relations And I do not believe we will have peace in the asia-pacific unless China and japan Find a way to reconcile, but I also don't think it's that going to be that hard I really don't my wife is from the middle east Look at the middle east, you know people are slaughtering each other every day. That's hard. Okay That's not happening in china-japan relations. Okay. This all happened a long time ago But it doesn't mean you can't ignore it. It doesn't mean you can put history aside I think history is very important. I would urge you to look at some of the new works that are kind of an objective nature Here's a great history by ron emitter He's at oxford, you know, take a look at that. If you don't know who john rabe is You should you got to learn about what happened in china during the war Google it or we can talk about in the q&a. It is a very fine german move not a chinese movie Not a japanese move a german movie about this guy who was in shanghai. I'm sorry in nanjing in 1937 check it out for yourself So so you're getting my my point of view My point of view is that you can't put history aside. You have to deal with it in a kind of frontal way And that's part of my spiral with china japan and us this this triangle Which is so difficult. I think we need a japanese prime minister to go to nanjing I call that a kind of villy brunt moment. Some of you may have remember that from your Cold war history. That was a huge moment And could china, you know, eventually through steps of compromise support japanese membership in the un security council. I think so I think that would be very good for everyone for china for japan and the us okay, um one last spiral i'll share with you and this is on this is my final chapter the this kind of Larger picture and I talk about you know How the united states could get more serious about cooperation with china if we kind of amend some of the legislation related we can talk about that And the holy grail I think for china would be Military budgeting transparency now, they're a long way from that But I show evidence in the book for example, they're discussing it in some of their military papers They're saying hey transparency is coming on acquisition military acquisitions We got to be like a normal country and share this information Okay, so china we know where china needs to go And I think they can get there if we keep pushing On that now, um, I'm almost done here. Let me check the time I know I've been talking your ears off and and there are probably some questions, but I'll grant me two or three more minutes, but I'm not a huge fan of the rebalance As you may have gathered You can read my argument in the final chapter of my book Uh, just I'll just underline a few points I think it vastly intensifies chinese anxieties You know, I'm somebody who reads the chinese press all the time and watch their news and it's you know, it's pretty disturbing The level of anxiety there is very high I'm a realist I care about the global balance of power But I don't think my own view rocks and reefs don't have a lot to do with that That's my view we could talk we could talk about things that do impact the global balance of power They're out there, but it's not about rocks and reefs Now Then they're there to me there are immense opportunity costs of these rising tensions And here i'm talking not just about global warming. I hinted at that. We'll look at the korean peninsula I mean China and the u.s. Need to cooperate on the korean peninsula and yet we're in this This kind of horrible blame game where, you know, china blames us endlessly for the tensions and we blame china for not, you know Getting it done And and there's been no progress Okay on that front and that that's a fail in u.s. China religion big fail and for global security, okay Of greater importance than reefs and rocks And there's no mechanism for controlling the rivalry you know, uh, I mean You know, we have had that sunny land summit that I think that was where we need to go a good start I could talk more about that but you know, there's no kind of Institutional way of dealing with the tensions that we're seeing cropping up everywhere. So it's pretty scary folks Looks like a cold war information This is my last slide I'm often asked I think folks in this room will know this book. Well, I'm glad about that. I'm actually working on Uh an article where I'll argue that this is the first book that students of us china relations should read It's sort of the as you guys know, it's it's the good the bad and the ugly It has the the very worst of cultural interactions between americans and chinese, but also the very best, okay But it teaches us that, you know, us china relations did not begin in in 1979 or 72 even We've been interacting for china with china for a very long time um But it was one other point here is that And you know, I'm often asked well, which side should go first in these spy roles and I My actually frank opinion doesn't really matter. I mean, you still just it's this interactive process, right? But I think the u.s. Should go first partly because it's stronger than china much stronger still But also, you know, it wasn't it wasn't chinese ships patrolling the the mississippi river for For a hundred years after 1854 it was it was american ships patrolling the The young's a river, okay, and if you don't think that that affects chinese perceptions Then then we need to take a trip to china together It powerfully impacts their perceptions about everything having to do with foreign policy and security Okay, so they'll all that history that weight of history So, you know, we need to have a sophisticated view of history and understand And I get it that those sailors were doing a lot of good out there, but read the book and and you see You understand, um, there there's a legacy here to deal with all right So that's that's what I have to say. I guess I'll One last question for you folks. This is a very unusual picture right here. It's small. I know but This is uh, chinese and american forces in not doing an exercise actually doing an operation a joint military operation So any guesses a suggestion where that happened it doesn't happen very often Good guess good guess we've done quite a few exercises with the chinese in the red sea counter piracy exercises But this is actually very far from the red sea It's a military operation These guys look serious, right? It's the real thing, uh, this is on patrol in hady after the earthquake Okay, but I I make it a question for you because you realize how rare it is and in my view in my approach in my book I'm advocating the the world needs china and the u.s. To work together On ebola on north korea on global On global warming on so many fronts and so many things challenges. We're not even aware of yet Okay That's my view. Uh, so that picture that that's what I wanted for the cover of the book But they didn't wouldn't grant that to me. But let me end there. Thank you so much. And if you have questions I'll be very interested to hear just your opinions or questions too Okay, my my colleague roger farne. Yeah, thanks for coming right In the instance at sea life agreement, which was a bilateral agreement and deliberately bilateral And then other countries came in behind and made their own separate agreements with the soviets Yeah, that that's a great point. Um They're had look there have been several stages of negotiations with the chinese about incidents at sea And I think in the american mind certainly you you've had You know fairly energetic effort and there are there is a forum that takes place every year One you guys help me out here. It's the uh, no Um I'm forgetting the exact name of it But it is kind of incidents at sea what we both sides get together and we report out What are the uh, you know the kind of incidents over the last year and there's some discussion but the frankly the view in um Washington on that is is very negative and and says that the chinese are not seriously They're not taking it seriously. Um, so that's a bit disturbing and I think many of us have argued that We need to go way beyond that. Um, I just in fact I have a piece of national interest right now if you go and look at it. Um, it was up a couple of days ago And and there I was it was going through some chinese analyses of the ink sea agreement and and what it was saying it was kind of disturbing it was saying that even after the ink sea agreement and that was 1973 think, uh 1972 so the even after that there were still a lot of pretty pretty dangerous incidents in in uh, like that they were reviewing actually specifically that 1988 incident the bumping incident and in uh In the black sea so You know, I I think that yeah Yeah, yeah, and I should say I mean I I give our uh navy chief and and the chinese navy chief a lot of credit because they they came up with this, um Cues uh, that is a code for unplanned encounters at sea that was just signed in in uh, I'd say, um, November 2014 at the summit In beijing when obama was there. So I mean that's a good start There's there's some effort to expand that to include aircraft And as well also to include non-military vessels, you know, I'm talking about coast guards and so forth. So so there are some approaches underway and by the way, you know most Uh people who have interacted with the chinese navy do think that they you know, they take professionalism pretty seriously so, you know in that sense We may be um encouraged. I mean, I know there have been a lot of uh negative incidents as well, but um But just just if you look at the piece I just wrote on that and I'll forward it to anybody who'd like to look at it One thing that chinese are concluding in their own analyses is how Even during the lake hold war after the ink sea that you still had a um, a very high level of professionalism on both sides that Enabled a very difficult situation like that 1988 incident in the black sea and yet in still It was managed in a way by by very professional officers so that the incident took place Nobody was hurt You know, there wasn't severe damage done and yet, you know, both sides got their point across, you know As a way of messaging. Let's put it out. So one of the greatest advantages, of course, is that there's a navy to navy agreement And uh in one of their incidents took place The navies got together either in washington or moscow To to deal with it. Yeah, and and the state department none of the public polls got into it at all strictly a navy to navy professional Yeah, that um, that's a great advantage. Yeah, well, I'll say I've said it before I'll say it again One um strategic asset that the united states has here is that the chinese navy admires the united states navy intensely I mean when you see their naval officers come to newport, for example, I mean, they look like, you know, kids in a candy store I mean, they're so excited. So I think that we can kind of leverage that admiration To uh, if we take an attitude of like, you know, I don't you know, this will sound condescending But it'll almost like, uh, you know younger brother or something, you know You kind of bring them along and realize that they're an up-and-coming navy They want to be professional. They want to learn So, uh, you know, there's a lot of inhibitions about you know, if we teach them this or that But if we take an attitude of of um, as we're, you know, kind of coaching Then I think that will help us to build a much stronger relationship. So I'm in favor of a pretty robust engagement with the chinese navy peter In that regard is there any prospect of having the chinese participate in the war college classes the ncc It seemed to be Yes, you know that it's a great point and and I really appreciate that question because it's something that I've worked Quite a bit on and been frankly very frustrated with and and part of it is frustration with the chinese side because The chinese side had put up a lot of barriers Uh, to the effect of for example, if we have a if we have a taiwan student here, then they say they're not going to play So that tends to be kind of the roadblock but getting your point and and In my view we need we don't need one chinese student. We need 10 I mean in the frankly the same way we we don't need one indian student. We need 10. I mean in other words, there are certain Global navies that are you know, as we're cut above that are are really going to be of seminal importance And we should put our focus on that and I'll tell you when I go outside of newport And I tell audiences that we have a lot of students here, but we don't have any chinese students They're shocked. They can't believe that we're we're doing that So I do believe we got to revisit that Continuously and try to get to a point where we do have chinese officers here We had a russian officer here and you know, I do some work on russia So i'm often comparing the two situations and but this russian officer was was superb I know he got a tremendous amount out of it and he was an advocate for u.s. russian relations to a high degree and really helped the colleges to Start to work together and so forth. Of course, it's it's you know, a lot of that progress is lost now, but We will really benefit from those people on the inside and and guess what when they come to newport They can't help but leave, you know, quite pro-american, right? We know that Because people are friendly and they like the atmosphere Yes Well, you know a part of it frankly, I think is kind of a cultural disposition, you know I mean it's it just has a ring to it, you know that that and and you know, I'll say I think the united states has played the A bit cynically here and said well, there are a lot of little countries worried about china. We're gonna kind of make we're gonna carry their water and and All those little countries interest need to be supported and and that will be the only way, you know You know, in other words, we don't want vietnam and philippines to negotiate with China if if brunai is left out, you know, you have this kind of attitude that is that asian, you know asian, of course should be the kind of The lead as it were for trying to reach some kind of negotiated solution and I should say they have pushed of what's called the code of conduct Okay, but if you look at the progress of the code of conduct, especially how it's discussed in the chinese side I see it as a very I don't think it's going anywhere and I don't think it's particularly helpful really So what we need are we don't need people to say I will not, you know approach this ship or I will not, you know Act in this way. I don't think that's going to work. What this is really a territorial issue Where baselines need to be drawn people need to pull out the maps. I mean the example I often use is To invoke the name of Richard Holbrook Maybe some of you recall when he was given the bulk in problem. He said, okay, I'm going to take all these people you know the croats the serbs the the You know Bosnia, I'm going to put them in a room We'll lock them in and I'm going to bring pizza occasionally and with a bunch of maps and negotiators or mediators and By golly, you know in in three weeks. We're going to have an agreement That's the kind of To me that's the kind of hard-headed diplomacy With maps and so forth that that is absolutely needed and now china Has may has signaled many times that they're interested in in negotiating these things And and like I said, there's quite a long record of successful negotiation Including like they negotiated a good part of the maritime border with vietnam, for example, and that's been reasonably successful So, you know, I think there's very good reason to believe that those negotiations would turn out well I mean just to give you an example China went into Negotiations with with tejikistan You know tejik who's ever heard of tejikistan? It's a little tiny country and and kyrgyzstan also said complex set of negotiations over over not about rocks and reefs but about, you know Villages, you know pastor, you know Places where people farm and so forth Important really important stuff, you know to people's livelihoods and yet they came out of those negotiations very successfully It took a while, but when they came out You know, I think it's I think you can look at all kinds of accounts and realize that these little countries did just fine You know, in other words, china realized if you go around and you know Push people around constantly you're going to get a very negative result So I think they're quite eager actually china is to put this behind them By the way, most people don't know this but that u-shaped line I don't have a I apologize and bring a good map that u-shaped line wasn't dreamed up by the communists It was dreamed up by the their predecessors the republican government. So in the 30s To me that's that provides a way out A way that they can not lose face when they say this line is stupid And let's let's come to agreements. Let's you know, get the oil and gas out and the fish and so forth And let's engage in some environmental protection But I think we can if you look at the details of this dispute this You know, we can solve this Sir That's a very interesting question. I'm glad you brought it up Actually, maybe I'll inflict on you the See if I can I did put the rest of my spirals in here. So you see they're here Now my approach on north korea is quite unconventional You say my approach generally is unconventional but north korea is it I I felt like it was one of the most interesting chapters because I really had a different approach You you said is Is north korea, uh, what did you say a satellite satellite? I wish it was It's not but I wish it was um If they were a satellite of north korea, I don't think that they would play these games and uh Would I don't think they would have nuclear weapons actually so the problem I think is that they have um The chinese kind of you could say with the russians They sort of pulled the rug out from under the north koreans They used to give them a lot of support and be very friendly all of a sudden in the early 90s They were like, you know, you're on your own. We got other things to do Uh, fine, you know, they realized, you know, how they're called a spade a spade that is this this uh rogue regime Was left to its own device as well. Now you have a situation where you know I think the north koreans concluded, you know in the early 90s that they're only uh, or Sorry in the early 2000s that their only way to survive as a regime was to build nuclear weapons. So as abhorrent as we May find their regime That is the approach so actually what I advocate for is actually kind of along the lines that you said that I think Instead of what we've been our diplomacy has been aimed at separating china and north korea. We've been trying to We want china to put sanctions on Uh, we want them to halt their trade, you know try to screw tighten the screws on north korea I actually think that policy is very dangerous. I think the more you drive a crazy person into the corner The more likely are to lash out much more aggressively and indeed, you know, we have seen some very aggressive behavior over the last few years So I want to see a step by step. I actually want to see a closeening of the uh, and in fact the latest news is uh Kim Jong-un may actually go to beijing and a lot of people in washington are going to howl about that They're going to say oh my god. Look what they're doing I think it's a good thing I want I want china to control north korea because china does not want them to have nuclear weapons Okay, so they're let china again. We can let china solve this problem. So how do I see this playing out? Propose a kind of um, you know early set of steps that are easy Some mill to mill engagement we can we can talk about uh the korean war with china I think we should do some of that history I say china should propose a four-power Patrol because the the maritime conflicts are very acute But generally I am looking for uh A freeze on north korean nuclear weapons that is monitored by china. Okay, not by the ia ea By china they have the capability most important. They have the interest They want it more than anyone beijing is so close to north korea. Do you realize? I mean and and if you read in their publication, they're extremely concerned about north korean nuclear weapons If if china could get north korea to freeze their weapons program Could we initiate diplomatic relations with north korea? I think we could Okay to try to bring them out of isolation a little bit So you know I think there are some kind of paradoxical ways of dealing with a korean problem But uh further we've tried isolation and it is not working. They're building Working very hard on their nuclear arsenal and I consider the situation extremely dicey We have to work together with china on this china cannot do it alone and we can't do it alone We know that so we got to work together. We're kind of stuck. It's like two prisoners chained together on this sir, this is perhaps a naive question Where is this kim is You know, he seemed like a loose cannon as it were. Yeah. Yeah And how independent is he? I mean how much can he stir the pot without more rational force of even within korea Constraining if he decides that he wants to take out san francisco hell or high water Like some of these icis things going after plane. I mean if he pulled that off In other words, can he start world war three type of thing in korea? I don't have a doubt in my mind that he could start world war three You know, I I've told people, you know, everybody's paying attention to the south china sea situation But it the situation on korean peninsula is much more dangerous I mean in a space of hours of millions tens of millions of people could be dead including in peijing and tokyo And sol and pyeonghyeon. I mean it could all go up very quickly Yeah, i'm afraid that's the case so we have to be extremely careful with this and it's going to take some Careful and very creative diplomacy. I'm not saying that we don't need deterrence as well Of course we do but if you look at just look at the numbers folks between south korea and north korea And you actually could see why north korea wants nuclear weapons so badly because south korea is extremely powerful You know their economy is something. I don't know what the numbers are something like a hundred times now The gnp of of north korea. They're superior in every metric. So, you know Nuclear weapons are their very last card. So we have this very paradoxical situation Where the only way to denuclearize the peninsula is actually to Safeguard the national security of Of north korea. I know it sounds weird, but that is the only way forward I think now by the way one step. I didn't talk about and this is very strange and here you're going to say Well, that guy's really lost his marble But think about this. What if what if china actually had troops in north korea? They did right they were there for a while. They pulled out in the mid 1950s I actually found out why that was the case. Why did they pull them out? They pulled them out because um, well part of it was economic, but part of it was The kim was very worried that the chinese troops would play a role in You know in the future of the regime in north korea Okay, so they pulled them out because they they wanted to show they were not going to interfere in pyongyang politics Uh, I got that from a very serious historian of north korea. So um, but that's again this paradox I want china to hold them closer. So I would like to see a read I want they have a treaty with north korea. I would like them to put troops back in north korea Because the message to pyongyang is china is not going to let them fold not going to let south korea take over We're not going to let the u.s. You know run amok whatever That allows the circumstances where they can denuclearize they will not denuclearize unless they get a security guarantee more or less from china And china should oversee the denuclearization process and china has a very serious interest in doing so So, um, you know, I know it all sounds weird It is it is one it's kind of like one of the strangest chapters But I feel like it's quite creative and maybe make some proposals don't I mean just following up on that Allow me to make sense from your when you present it that way that if you also put Kind of a tripwire force From the prc in north korea right that also tie North korea's hands in some of their provocations with the south korea Absolutely china would tie their hands and not allow them to do some things that could cause their folks that are there To be kept to come to blows exactly and and I think that's Yeah, I mean I first came up with is actually I don't know I you know Like I said, I studied russia in the past. I thought you know well versed on the cold war and so forth and part of the I remember from the cold war in europe that part of the idea was us troops would be everywhere throughout europe and they would have nuclear weapons too and and They were all kind of tripwires and that would But we were kind of all let's say the western europeans were We're kind of raining us in we were raining them in and same on the Even in the war stop pack. So And that led to a much more stable situation I think then what we have now what we have now is very unstable and getting back to what the gentleman said here Where you have one kind of we don't know even how stable he is that is mentally even and You know, we know he's knocking people off within the regime And so like I said, you don't want to push somebody like that in the corner and china is extremely anxious to rain him in So we watch this account carefully when he goes if he goes to bejing Will that lead to some kind of change? But for example trade has been increasing between north korea and china I regard that as a good thing We want them to trade we want them to be more secure We want them to act more like a province to go back to the question There's a guy a very famous korea specialist named victor cha and he says, you know He's got a pounds his fist and says North korea is becoming a province of china And my response is good, you know province of china is not going to have nuclear weapons Professor rote I think this You know weighing of spirals of strategic trust versus spirals of strategic distrust. This is a this is a great debate and I think Coming together of a president She or as they call themselves mr. Ma and mr. She Yes, exactly And so I think that Next year, maybe it would be possible to have Chinese students here in core college I mean, this is uh, you know a big question if there is some kind of thought I think the big question there is that ma Really things have become much more stable since 2008 since he came into His administration from the previous 12 years between 96 and 2008. I think we're very unstable But we're what did have an administration change again in january with the with the independence party collected in but the the uh, the dialogue will already be a precedent for this president president or Mr. Mr. Or Mr. The miss as the Maybe a woman. Yes. Yes So yeah, anyway, just in terms of this analysis that all of these spirals take something to break to make it move forward So it's yes. Yes Yes, I've been I mean, it's it's really uh, it's really historic what we're seeing Yeah, that's a good point. I didn't I didn't even make the connection back to uh, could impact nwc Of course, those of you who've been to our graduation anytime Anytime really would have noted that the only military officer From a foreign entity that is not wearing uniform is a taiwan officer, right? And that you know, that is a signal a very clear signal of our commitment to you know, the one china principle. So Yes, I I think you know, this is this is going to be interesting times On taiwan, you know, I'm somebody who Look, I think the taiwan issue is of seminal importance. I purposely made it the third chapter of the book You know, not it wasn't just somewhere off in the uh In the end of the book. I mean this is of huge importance if you when kissinger Was over there and and nixon, you know, they want to talk about other things like vietnam But they by golly they talked to taiwan most of the time folks And some big compromises were made in order to facilitate the us-china relations. So Um, you know, I think this is going to remain big I've told the military leaders who always you know, asking about china asking me about it and I say look You know, there's a lot of rocks and reefs out there In the western pacific, but one of those rocks has you know 25 million people on it. It's a really important rock out there, right? Pay attention. Okay taiwan has not been in the headlines, right? We've read nothing about it, right for the last Seven or eight years. That's good That's a good thing. Okay that and and by the way, if you look at the uh tourists going across the strait, it's remarkable Uh, I don't have the figures on right on the top of my head, but milk literally millions of tourists are going It's a huge boost to the taiwan economy. I mean, I'm not saying there aren't negative aspects to this too There are some of course, you know every sort of close relationship has positive negative aspects, but I have said that peace has been breaking out in the taiwan strait In in a pretty dynamic way and we should pay attention to that and acknowledge that and and that's a good thing So it's not all just, uh, you know, crazy kooks in north korea and and uh, you know Building airstrips in the south trying to see there's some good news out there too. We ought to acknowledge that sir Professor, what are the long-range strategic impacts of those sand islands? We'll be seeing down the line from this all right Thanks, uh, that I think that is a question of the day and uh, we're the freedom and navigation patrol. I think, uh You know, we've seen a pretty I think good response from the united states to that development now There's kind of a debate playing out and I myself have been engaged in a fair amount of debating about the significance of those New facilities You know my my general view is that Uh, is that they are not of great significance that Well, look You know I think you folks above all will understand this but um, if you go back and read mahan or or think about the early days of The college, uh, what was their obsession their obsession was the panamanic canal and this and the caribbean and preventing encroachments on you know, not our territory, but our close. Let's call them maritime approaches Okay, and that's exactly how china views south china. See that is um You know a lot of people say well, they view it as their sovereignty. I don't don't agree with that. I think they Um, they just feel very strongly, you know a very strong concern With this area. So the what are those bases about that is a? A reminder to all their neighbors that they're a big powerful country It's a it's a message to their own people that china not going to be pushed around Uh more than anything if did anybody watch When I was at grad soon, I used to watch that show, uh, sopranos a lot It's about the italian mob, you know, there was this guy toni and he you know big big portly gentleman who would you know take his cut That's kind of how I see china in the south china sea a big portly power that Once it's cut now how big is the cut uh in any given, you know oil or fish fishing enterprise, you know Is it does it want 90 percent? Well, that may be tough or does it want, you know 10 or 20 percent? Sure, sure, there's all you know everybody wants their Absolutely, and they do I mean unquestionably our headlines are dominated by people saying, you know, china's pushing us around all the time but look I a lot of that tension you're gonna feel that tension because You know china is growing up Guess what when the united states became a world power and in a great power and went across the continent and so forth We also ruffle a lot of feathers At the times the canadians were very nervous and the mexicans lost, you know half of mexico over it, so you know in other words There's going to be people being nervous and you know You know there's going to be a lot of related tensions But in my view we is we have to think about this rationally and think about what is Reasonable is it reasonable that china has a great power is going to take extreme interest in what goes on in south china? See absolutely But that does not mean that china is about to You know either take all the resources and say these are 100 chinese and nobody else gets anything else I mean for example, we talk about you know this word aggression is thrown around all the time now in the south china see Has china in the last 30 years? Well the last 20 or 30 years? Gone up and kicked another power off a reef No, I mean that Arguably that would be aggression, but we haven't seen anything like that They're just building airstrips on the rocks they already had but they have not endeavored to like and by the way out of the whatever 47 reasonably sized features out there china owns like seven Okay, so there's sort of 20 owned by uh not owned but occupied by uh, vietnam vietnam as the most 25 i think Philippines has like seven or eight, you know what i'm saying is you know at the point where china starts, you know Shoveling off or somebody off a rock here and off there. I guess at that point we can call them You know really aggressive. I still don't know whether it rises to a threat to the united states Um, but that would be of course troubling, but they have not done that and by and large, you know if you look My view is a lot of this is for their domestic consumption that is they are trying to look tough and folks if you if you think You know american leaders need to look tough all the time Yeah, they do you know go watch a presidential debate in china. It's not that different, you know We're a big powerful country, you know, we've got to parade our ships around and you know Make sure that they have an idea of what's going on But there are you know, there are serious reasons why people would want airstrips there besides just pushing your neighbors around I mean in other words, you know The sea lanes the accidents happen and so forth a lot of fishermen out there and so forth So I do not view this as a major threat the united states I don't even view it as a major threat to japan for example I mean, what if china were somebody I got the question the other day I was up at bu at a great form up there and M&M professor there said well, what if they try to close the south china sea to the japanese that'll you know be the japanese economy will Shrivel up and die You know, I don't see that China is extremely dependent on those sea lanes too and japan has the capability Let's do many countries to cut down those sea lanes as well So china china has had the ability for for probably more than a decade to shut that sea lane if they want to there are there There are that powerful But japan also has the capability to do that, you know, japan has a Reasonably sized submarine force it wouldn't take more than at most four or five submarines go down there and shoot everything up in sight You think there would be a lot of merchant traffic across the south china sea in other words What this begins to look like folks is like nuclear strategy Okay, is a critical maritime artery if china tries to close it Japan will close it I mean and by the way, japan has a nice helper in the form of the united states to make sure that japan doesn't you know starve and And wilt and so forth. So China is not likely to press that button not at all It is extremely dependent on those sea lanes and and and look at the record Do we see china just casually stopping ships all the time? No they've messed around with a few surveillance vessels and Vessels exploring for oil and so forth that they've done occasionally, but you have not seen You know some kind of as I like to joke, you know the chinese is going to set up a toll barrier and only let people through who You know hand them a red envelope. No, absolutely not. There's nothing no evidence to suggest that Okay, yes, sir at the back there A few That's a great a very interesting question Well, I guess I would put it this way And you know, you'll you'll note that I'm somebody who thinks history is really important but You know, I think it helps to look at this sweep of history at the decades of History and if you look at where china was, you know 30 years ago We look at china where it was 100 years ago by the way 100 years ago there were a fair amount of us troops hanging around beijing and tinge in and all that right after the by in fact go go up to providence in the middle of the square you see a monument to the A box of rebellion marines and there were a fair amount of marines involved and you can go to the museum you can see paintings of the US marines scaling the walls of beijing. Okay, it's pretty it's pretty interesting stuff. Look at John I'll tell you we got whole piles of that stuff Look China's come a long way. They want to be treated Not like just another country, but as a great power Okay, and that involves a certain approach More or less what i'm trying to say is you have the united states has to treat them as an equal And we're not you know, we're not terribly good at that. We're not really used to that We've we've been we've been having negotiations with china for decades and Most of those negotiations have been like, you know, we're going to do it this way and so You know china I think is trying to make it clear that that's not going to wash anymore now for the little countries, you know call them The smaller countries around they're they're going to be some tough. It's a tough road ahead Okay, you got you're living next to you know a gigantic country with all kinds of nationalism with a not a particularly very stable political system It's it's going to involve some challenges and and accommodation But I do think we can get there I mean let's not forget china hasn't used force in 30 years And I don't think they're that really eager to do that either because they know if they were to kick around vietnam or You know philippines even that would have tremendous cost for china Tremendous chinese diplomacy and so forth. So they're not so eager And I think they're looking to compromise But you want to you know to to be a little bit right here you want we need to grant them face Okay, this philippines tribunal issue right the law of the sea tribunal Does that grant china face? Absolutely not right that's like rubbing their nose in it Right. I mean that is probably the most humiliating thing happening to chinese diplomacy in the last 10 years What kind of reaction do we expect from that? Very hostile And that's what we're getting at folks. So I mean we need to change our approach a little bit Uh, you know in the direction of kind of a more win-win situation. There's no alternative really. I mean, uh Look at the conflict scenarios. They're just too dark to contemplate. So, uh You know, I think people look seriously the military balance And at chinese diplomacy realize that We need to seek for uh, you know diplomatic solutions So I guess, uh, let me show you ended there. Thanks for coming everyone. I'm i'm just here. So