 So, again, thank you all for coming. My name is Marie Hebert. I work on the Southeast Asia program, the chair here at CSIS that's organizing this conference. It's a real delight to see so many of you here. I have the honor of moderating the next panel, which focuses on the legal issues and concerns in the South China Sea. We have a very distinguished panel that really can represent a lot of the different perspectives that are out there internationally and locally in the South China Sea. The first speaker will be John Norton Moore, who is on my far left. He is best known, I think, as the U.S. ambassador on the law of the sea when the U.S. was participating in the Unclose, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea negotiations. Before that, he'd been chair of the National Security Council in the White House that worked on interagency with determining U.S. positions on the law of the sea. Currently, Professor Norton Moore is at the University of Virginia Law School and is also director of the University Center for National Security Law and the Center for Oceans Law and Policy. Please, Professor Moore. Thank you. My thanks and congratulations to CSIS and the Southeast Asia Studies Program for running these very important conferences on an issue really of great strategic importance for global stability for the whole world. I'm going to, in the 10 minutes allocated, deal with only two points. The first is going to be a very complicated one, trying to give you a sense of the range of the legal issues and the complexity, the enormous complexity of the legal issues involved. And the second is to move from that to a suggestion as to how this matter might be more effectively resolved. Now, I'm going to, in the 10 minutes, only deal with three out of six major sets of legal issues, again, giving you a sense of the complexity here. The first of those relates to the fact that there are many islands in the area that are disputed. For the most part, these small islands and islets were simply neglected until recent years, and the result is that there is very unclear ownership in many of these islands. We're talking about features that probably number over 100. The island questions are not governed by the law of the sea. They are governed by general international law. There's an enormous amount of complexity in how one determines sovereignty claims to land areas such as islands, but to sum it up, in part, you might say it's a matter of comparative, effective occupation through time. The second aggregate set of legal issues are many differing issues as to what the more than 200 oceans features in the area actually generate in relation to resource and other jurisdiction. And this is a very complicated set of issues that will require me to talk now about at least eight sub-issues. For the starting point is that simply the mainland territory of the claimants and other areas from China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, and also Indonesia generate 200 nautical mile economic zones and potentially even broader continental margins going beyond that, that hugely overlap most of the area of the South China Sea. We then come to the question of fully submerged reefs. They have no jurisdiction of their own or resource jurisdiction. They are simply part of the continental shelf. We then come to low tide elevations as the third of these. And if these are above water at low tide, they can be used as base points if you have land territory within 12 nautical miles. The fourth feature are simply known as rocks. That is features that are above water at high tide but are not capable of human habitation nor do they have an economic life of their own. Such features would get a 12 nautical mile territorial sea and potentially a 24 nautical mile contiguous or enforcement zone. The next category are full islands. What we say in the law of the sea in underrun clause is their article 121.3 islands. That is they are above water at high tide and they do either have the ability to sustain human habitation or they have an economic life of their own. These features are entitled to full 200 nautical mile economic zones and or continental margins, continental shelf going even beyond those areas. So just think about this for a moment. Over 100 or 200 features in this area potentially many of them generating these gigantic 200 nautical mile arcs of circle. Put that on top of the 200 nautical mile circles and arcs that are being generated from land territory and you begin to get a little bit of the complexity here as to what we're talking about. Then we put on top of that artificial islands, construction that takes place on any of these features and the answer there is very simple. They have no additional oceans, LOS meaning other than the meaning of the underlying feature. So that if you build these for example on submerged reefs you get absolutely no more than a submerged reef has. If you build them on a rock which is not entitled to full island status you get 12 nautical miles of territorial sea. Now let's come to the Chinese 910 dashed line the area sometimes called the cows tongue over the South China Sea. This one possibly since there's a great deal of ambiguity involved may simply designate for the Chinese that they believe that they have rights to certain islands within this area. That would be one feature presumably that would be looked at in relation to overall island determination questions under international law. If however it signals some kind of oceans claim beyond that it is in my judgment blatantly illegal and completely without beaning. Yes there are historic claims over small bays. There are no historic claims over major seas and major oceans. It would be basically something completely counter to the community common interest and even where you have them they have to be recognized and they have to be historically based. The claim here is a relatively new one from a minimum of 1947 and to my knowledge has zero recognition by any other state in the world. So the answer is it is a complicating factor and it is something with zero legal effect. Finally aid is aid is happily has not been instituted in this area and hopefully will not be because there is no right to control aircraft beyond the territorial sea. Aircraft are fully engaged with navigational freedom as are ships on the ocean surface. Now we come to the third set of issues that complicate everything. Think about all of these overlapping claims and now we have to resolve them in relation to resolving boundary disputes. The law of the sea treaty deals with those under articles 1574 and 83 for the territorial sea the economic zone and the continental shelf and basically it asks parties to not do this aggressively but to seek to work cooperatively with other countries and to do it in a cooperative fashion. But think of the hundreds of potential of such zones. That's a little bit about the complexity which leads me to a story a story about the importance of not overlooking the obvious it is one in which Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson were camping one evening in their tent under the stars and Holmes nudges Watson in the middle of the night and says Watson look at all those stars what do you deduce a sleepy Watson looks up and says well there must be you know the billions of stars maybe there's some other planets maybe there's life somewhere and Holmes looks at him disdainfully and says Watson you idiot someone stole our tent. Well the point about not overlooking the obvious is I want to suggest to you that the South China Sea disputes are enormously complex to try to do this solely through bilateral negotiation and my judgment would be a formula for looking at hundreds of years and likely a variety of serious confrontation before that. So I would recommend that the solution to this needs to be a combination of working through ASEAN with side bilateral negotiations as we did during the law of the sea negotiations and the idea basically is to try to work out a joint regime for management of resources and likely simply a freezing of the sovereignty claims and certainly a stopping of military activities and then you could proceed functionally let's reach agreement among the groups on adipyrocy on environmental protection then we go to fish perhaps in sharing and then we go to oil and gas sharing but I believe also and when we have time in the discussion period I will try to get at this why this is strongly in the interest of China as well as all the other members of the ASEAN group and I would also very much hope that someone will ask me a question about the importance of the United States adhering to the law of the sea treaty and why we are being hurt and effectiveness in dealing with this problem by not being a member. Thank you. Thank you Professor Moore. Our next speaker is Dr. J. Patong Kabal who is the Associate Professor at the University of the Philippines College of Law and also Director of the Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea of the University of Philippines Law Center. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks to CSIS for inviting me here. This is also my first time at this particular conference. Let me begin by taking off from Mr. Moore's flagging the complexities of this case. Since it is very, very complicated there are many issues that you actually have to deal with in looking at the South China Sea disputes. For example there are issues about the object of the dispute itself, Spratly Islands. Is this going to be treated as one entire mass, one group or is it going to be disaggregated into individual islands? For now the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia have basically been looking at it as separate islands and features. On the other hand China in various statements appears to treat it as one whole solid mass. This really is the one reason why there is an issue that arises about the validity of acquisition of marine space. So for example Second Pharma Shoal, Half Moon Shoal and James Shoal which are very far from any land features. These are being claimed under the title of sovereignty. That leads to the second type of issue that's the legitimacy of the title itself. China's nine dash line claim as most people may have heard about it. This has been described as being based on historic facts, officially by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China. And one article by Judge Gao of the ITLOS together with Bingbing Jia basically states it very clearly as a quote, historic title provides the basis for China's possession of certain historic rights in addition to rights granted under UNQOS. So in addition to UNQOS, a historic title is being claimed to be the basis of additional rights. And this is justified on the basis of ancient possession supposedly by Chinese fishermen and seafarers of old. None of the other claimants of course recognize this kind of title whether it pertains to land or sea within this area of the nine dash line. None accept this idea of ancient possession being continuous. And have basically, they have basically repudiated China's claim to the sea and instead recognize UNQOS. In the same manner, at the same time, they have basically also abandoned their own non-UNQOS based claims and have undertaken the process of aligning themselves with UNQOS. Third type of legal issue would be over the maritime entitlements as pointed out by Mr. Moore. Is it an island? Is it a rock? Now is it a reef? Is it a low tide elevation, et cetera? Another issue would be the marine resources over which are regulated on the basis of UNQOS. Here we're talking about whether certain areas, certain parts of South China should be considered as a common pool or should be subject to some kind of exclusive access or jurisdiction. And basically UNQOS tries to make sense of that kind of system. This gives rise to resource disputes which may deal with either the right to the natural resources themselves, such as fisheries or petroleum, or just the right to use the marine space, including the air above it, not the resource. Also this is related, for example, to issues about access or control of the airspace. Another issue that could be raised is resource uses other than those regulated by UNQOS. And here we're talking especially about military uses of the sea. This is not regulated by UNQOS, but it is part of the South China Sea disputes. And then there are other issues that are regulated in other treaties or conventions such as environmental treaties, civil aviation laws, space law perhaps, humanitarian law, telecommunications laws, et cetera. All of these other uses could be taking place within the South China Sea. And lastly, because of the reclamation issues, the reclamation activities as well as the deployment of the oil regal steer, this I think gives rise to a new type of issue. And that is about the legality of unilateral action, spending, resolution of the disputes. This is entirely new in my view. Now with all of these legal complexities, what does the case of the Philippines versus China actually deal with? Now first, let me start with the disclaimer. I am not part of the legal team and I'm an academic, not a cheerleader. This case could be the forerunner of future legal actions that attempt to incrementally address the South China Sea disputes. They are premised on one, the separation of the traditionally interlocked issues of terrestrial sovereignty and maritime jurisdiction. Prior jurisprudence all deal with these two in an interlocked manner. The second premise is that it can be possible to determine coastal state rights and jurisdictions spending resolution by the parties through the identification of entitlements without however undertaking the next logical step of delimitation. Now the Philippine case is very complicated as well. It has multiple claims, at least 13 in the notification and statement of claim that has been released to the public. But this has been supplemented by amendments on account of various incidents that took place after the statement and notification claim was transmitted. So you're probably looking at anywhere between 13 to maybe 20 different claims. And although the memorial itself has still not been released, the oral arguments indicate that pretty soon you might get a glimpse of exactly what these issues are because the tribunal says that they expect the transcript of the oral arguments to be available. Now out of all of those issues it appears that the Philippines however has directly presented only the following types of disputes for in the arbitration. One is the object of the dispute. The Philippines has characterized the Spratly Islands as basically divisible and each island in rock is subject to acquisition and is capable of generating entitlements. The second type of issue is the legitimacy of title, but only in so far as it pertains to China's claims on the basis of historic title rights over the waters of the South China Sea. It does not extend to the basis of title over the land features. This includes also issues of sovereignty and possession of these islands. Now another type of issue that is included in the case is the maritime entitlements of course. The features occupied by China particularly vis-a-vis the Philippine mainland archipelagic coast they are being brought to the tribunal for arbitration. Now the purpose really of the arbitration is to have those Chinese occupied features declared illegal and essentially to ask China to move out of those features. And this is sought on the basis that only the Philippines can have an exclusive economic zone or continental shelf in that area which will entitle it to determine which structures can or cannot be put out. Now this will this naturally will lead to a demotion basically of China's current possessions to either rocks only which generate only 12 nautical miles and particularly the arbitration case refers to fire across and quarter on Johnson South and Scarborough reefs. Or it's either that or the rest will be artificial islands with no entitlements at all particularly mischief reef, Gavin, McKenna and Sue B. Reeves. Now the control of marine resources marine resource uses regulated by own clause but particularly fishing and petroleum disputes and and the interference of China's of China in Philippine activities in this area are also brought before the tribunal. Now clearly there are certain types issues that are not in the arbitration. So this include the the issue of title as it pertains to the land features. Since sovereignty over the land features is beyond the scope of the clause and it has been expressly excluded from the arbitration. Disputes over resource uses other than those regulated by own clause such as military activities have also not been placed in issue and this I think is because of the reservation clause of China and disputes concerning endangered species and destructive practices environmental damage appear to have been partially only partially subchumed or partially submitted to the tribunal because they the entry point for those kinds of discussions in in the case is through the fisheries and living resources jurisdiction. Now these gaps are important because without sovereignty over the land features being decided the status of adjacent waters at the very least within 12 nautical miles of that feature will remain undetermined and therefore there will be continuing areas already in us for flashpoints of incidents in the future. Such areas also happen to be shallower waters where most of the fisheries and other resource exploitation activities take place and therefore the case may not be able to provide enough practical relief for certain claims concerning access to resources and control of these activities. Military activities not being covered by own clause will continue to be a source of tension especially since most claimant states use their militaries to support civilian activities on their possessions. The key here to is to keep in mind the difference between the issues of principle such as purely legal issues like the legitimacy of the 9 dash line and the issues of relief or remedies that may be available. Sometimes these things may be linked and sometimes they may not. Now definitely the entire region as well as probably the rest of the world is awaiting the decision of the tribunal with bated breath and the number of external observers allowed into the hearing on oral arguments despite it being supposedly a closed door session indicate great interest on how the case plays out and how the Philippines justifies its position which with much of the region already moving into legal alignment with own clause with respect to and its system of maritime jurisdictions and China apparently resisting it as it seeks to expand and protect its maritime interests in South China Sea. The case certainly could provide on a major new avenue for exploring how the disputes may be managed and resolved in the future. It won't solve everything let me say that very clearly but it might try to simplify some parts of these dispute. Thank you very much. Thank you Jay. Our next speaker is Dr. Singh Ho Yee who is a professor of international law and a chief expert at Wuhan University's Institute of Boundary and Ocean Studies and the Institute of International Law. Dr. Singh Ho Yee has a Juris Doctor degree from Columbia University. Thank you and it's a pleasure to be here and as my jet lag is setting in I guess you have to bear with me. I would like to say something about the tribunal's jurisdiction over the South China Sea arbitration and then I would also like to make some comments on the facility construction by China in some of the features and then I would like to comment on the United States posture in these things recently. I think everyone will have great trouble in summarizing all the issues relating to the jurisdiction over this arbitration as you have already heard from the previous speakers. I have myself published a paper 77 pages in the Chinese International Law and if you like to get the details that's where you can get okay it's all free 77 pages. Now let me see how I can do this in a clean and nice way and in a few minutes. Maybe we should go to this you know convention first. The convention as you have heard from our ambassador and our you know professor from the Philippines that it deals with the law of the sea and as such it does not deal with territorial matters of course and in part 15 on dispute settlement it says that the parties shall have the right to choose you know the peaceful means of their own choice if that choice does not work then there will be compulsory means of settlement you know the court and arbitration as to default one but then all this is subject to many exceptions under section 3 article 297 and 298 under 298 you states can make an optional declaration to accept you know disputes relating to the application and interpretation of articles 15 74 and 83 about delimitation and also those cases involving historic title and historic base and some other things like military activities and law enforcement and on signature and ratification the Philippines made you know an understanding which is not so easy to understand and in 2006 China made a declaration accepting all the disputes that can be accepted so we can see that anything relating to delimitation will be out right anything relating to territorial sovereignty of course is always out because it's never in right so when the Philippines file this case it tried to you know fragment a big dispute having a territory component and delimitation component into what it claims as entitlement disputes and then something about activities after that of course this way of fragmenting the dispute is you know a very cunning way of getting to you know a basis for the jurisdiction of the tribunal of course good lawyers will be able to see through that and the important thing here is as we have heard from Ambassador Moore Professor Moore is that the South China Sea is really complex and you can see that the geographical situation as well as the claims that have been made by the parties you know such that we have a delimitation geographical framework and we also have a delimitation situation this will turn many of those what appear to be freestanding claims into a bit you know delimitation dispute I will skip the part about you know territorial matters because it has been mentioned China's claim is that you know many of these features they are part of an archipelago and should be considered as you know a unit for entitlement purposes and for delimitation purposes this we can skip and on delimitation you know we understand that the definition and status of small features will never become a problem unless there's a delimitation issue here this has been you know recognized very well by one of the arbitrators professor soons are speaking as academic commentator in 1990 with Barbara Kwiorkowska just what they said the definition of rocks and their entitlement to maritime spaces like the definition entitlement islands in general forms and inherent part of maritime delimitation between states blah blah we can skip that okay and then in 2011 they said again in fact with a single exception of old kinectorism the issue of eventual application of article 121 piazza 3 does not arise in practice unless in the context of specific maritime delimitations so in my view all the issues relating to you know defeat the definition and status of features and their entitlement will all be so soon into this big you know dispute on delimitation which China has accepted therefore definitely out of the jurisdiction of the tribunal and then there are some other things that are dependent upon the resolution of territorial matters or delimitation matters and they're also out of this you know jurisdiction of the tribunal now I would like to come back to the point about how many minutes for thank I would like to come back to what professor more has already said about nine dash line as we can see article 298 piazza article 298 said that disputes relating to historic titles are also out then the question will be the claims relating to nine dash line will be you know claims relating to historic titles and of course many arguments and can be made and in my view those are good enough to present a jurisdictional objection to take the case out of the tribunal's jurisdiction also I'm not here you know I'm not ready anyway to deal with the substance of the matters but I can quote from you in an entry in the max plan in psychopedia public international law the author there observes that there is in principle no reason why a historical sorry a historic title could not be involved in order to acquire sovereignty over a wider belt of territory C or even special sovereign rights falling short of full territorial sovereignty beyond the territory C and that historic rights acquired in the past may still have a role to play in the delimitation of maritime boundaries between states whose coasts are opposite or adjacent to each other meaning either the claims are historic title claims or they can be you know part of relevant circumstances in the delimitation and therefore they are all out the jurisdiction of the tribunal okay this is what I would like to say about the jurisdiction of tribunal now I would like to move very quickly to facility construction I think you have already heard this morning that many speakers basically take the features as separate from the rest so they're just low tide elevations but as you know we have already heard China consider these to be part of an archipelago and therefore they are actually land territory you know at least they can be base point potentially anyway potentially so construction on these features may not be artificial island you know building they are just you know facility constructions in my view and if you take a look at things this way then these features you know definitely will have a 12 mile zone of territory C and also more if you reckon them for in in title purposes with the rest as a unit okay of course ultimately whether these claims will be made out at the end of the day well you know we are not sure but as a commentator okay but of course the Chinese government is quite sure that they are so so I think this position have to be taken into consideration in you know dealing with the situation and size have been considered to be an issue I'd like to say that what a China the Chinese government has been doing are basically response measures to what have been going on with the activities by the other people and also the military exercises as the United States government has taught in the air services arbitration you know countermeasures have to be stronger than the original thing in order to make you know the countermeasures effective and then you can also take a look someone has asked a question about economics every year five trillion dollars of international trade goes through that and you know for China it would like to provide public goods to ensure the safety and security of that amount of trade but also its own you know interest in it about 60 to 80% you know involve China so I think the activities there are by no means out of proportion to the situation okay and then as to what I would like to to say about the United States posture if you will pardon me for one more minute okay I would like to say that what a US has been doing is not consistent with this position that it's neutral it's basically acting like a gangster boss trying to help the you know the little buddies you know settled their scores with other people I think the US need to reconsider all this and then I also would like to say that you know the US of course is a great promoter of the rule of law when it takes actions has to make a decision based on clearly convincing legal grants and also clearly convincing evidence and what the US is not doing basically pushing the envelope and in my view it's basically abusing its claim right now to the navigation of freedom and this is very dangerous and I think to prevent state responsibility and order it may need to seek better legal advice on this point and then just now we have heard about Udi bus bus that is and all that I think that we have to call we have to recall mr. Stimson to service again if you remember the Stimson Doctrine you know that they will not recognize any territorial change by the user force if you take a look at the South China Sea Islands you will know that for many many years they were considered to be China's and then you have this line and then when France tried to take a few of them the US government at that time over the Philippines were asked and the answer was that we had nothing to do with these you know features okay so the US is very clear that you know the Philippines you know occupation of these things it's in violation of international law with this in mind mr. Stimson would not be very very happy with the Udi bus that is kind of position that's against any rule of law and order and of course against what another US statesman you know its achievement you know the mr. Kellogg Kellogg beyond part of Paris in 1928 and I would like to recall these two great statements to service thank you thank you dr. Yi so our next speaker is dr. Pham Lan zoom from the she's the dean of the international law faculty in Vietnam and also the acting director general of the diplomatic academy of Vietnam and dr. zoom has studied in various places Moscow at the Fletcher school and also in Vietnam dr. zoom thank you chef was a very impressive presentation and introduction and I was tied up worried when I am the final the last panelist I'm afraid that I will not be left with anything to speak but then I realized that when you have two lawyers you have three different opinions so I will have quite a lot of things to speak about so the first point here is about the complexity I just mentioned it very briefly six parties involved in the dispute overlapping sovereignty claims overlapping maritime claims and in addition uncradiified position of all parties on the legal regimes of the features in the region and the uncertainty of the UShip line claim now coming to the UShip line uncertainty the problem is that China even though insist on the historic rights has never ever clarified its legal basis for its claim so we are wondering whether it is a line claiming sovereignty over the future and maritime during generated from that feature whether it is a line of national maritime boundary or whether it is a historic title and you may know that in the publication entitled limit in the sea published by the state department of the US all the legal arguments have been very thoroughly explored and it is quite clear that it is very difficult for China to fight any legal grounds under these possible options for its UShip line claim so basically because of all of this there is a gray area of dispute in the South China Sea where the existence of dispute is undeniable but the extent is not clear yet it is difficult for the parties even to define the disputed area however it doesn't mean that international law in general and the law of the sea cannot tell rights from wrong and that's why my message session is that we should increase the awareness of the legal aspects among public opinion now DOC we have been observed the uncompliance with DOC through the recent development in the South China Sea but interestingly China in the position paper submitted to the tribunal accepted the legal character of DOC which is quite debatable among international lawyers and when people tend to argue with the argument of China I try to look at the other perspective and I have a question why good ASEAN member states agree to change the DOC from a legal instrument into a from the political instrument into a legal document and and if that is the choice then a question may be raised whether the party has to modify the text of DOC in order to make it a legal document. COC has been negotiated between ASEAN and China for quite a long time and expected to be a legal document however up to now there has been no significant outcome and among scholars it has been widely discussed about the possibility of ASEAN member states concluding a COC among themselves first and then possible later participations of none ASEAN states not limited to China only that is also a question that I would like to raise here now this one settlement of dispute in South China Sea and the first the most preferable is negotiation my later negotiation has been conducted between China and the Philippines between China and Vietnam up to now Vietnam and China has established working groups on maritime delimitation outside Tan Ken Bay working groups on joint development on less sensitive issues and we have conducted already seven rounds of negotiation the outcome is quite limited and the differences are broad however at the final round of negotiation on joint development the two parties concluded a tentative agreement to conduct joint survey in an area of 302 320 square kilometers this is not a joint development project it is only served as an information collecting stacked for further negotiation now I'm going back to the Philippine China case China even though refused to appear before the tribunal however seven days before a week before the deadline of submission of counter memorial it has submitted its position paper and Vietnam also submitted position paper as an interested third party the first hearing conducted last week and then there was an additional hearing finished the 13th of July and decision on restriction is expected to be to be to be given in six months I think so the two main question have already addressed by the previous panelists is legal regimes of features in South China Sea and legality of the U-shaped line claimed by China I will not repeat the Philippines or the Philippines sorry I didn't I will not repeat the Philippine arguments on that but here's the China arguments on that my colleague has just stipulated now I would like to draw your attention to our personal perspective from my point of view maritime delimitation cannot exist if there is no overlapping area there should be overlapping area based on lawful claims by states so state cannot insist to delimit maritime areas with other states if there is no lawful maritime claims so from my point of view the lawfulness of claims is a prayer delimitation issue not a delimitation issue that is the first point and most important second if for some reasons which I don't think likely to happen as the tribunal will fight it doesn't have jurisdiction in the U-shaped line issue then I think the tribunal will fight it useful to say that because the U-shaped line claim is too vague and has never been clarified so that cannot be considered as an existing claim but just a claim in the very early formation stage which cannot be considered as a claim now going to the I will skip this one how much time do I have three minutes okay thanks land reclamation land reclamation and construction actually there has been many articles written by Kantail and other scholars on the differences between what have been done by the Philippine Vietnamese and Taiwan and what has been done by China the fact that China did massively in the 18th latest months means that it doesn't comply with the obligation under DOC to keep status quo whereas other countries did mostly before 2002 before the entering into force of the DOC now there has been a very interesting article written by Ashley Roche on the regular regimes of the features and I would like to draw your attention to the fact that none of the seven features that has been constructed by China fall under the island and article 212 paragraph 2 four of those okay four of those features are considered to be low tide elevation four of those are considered to be sub two of those are considered to be submerged so the very important thing is that even those China said that it doesn't have intention to change the legal nature of that features the most important thing is that who has the right to install artificial island in that and who has the jurisdiction over the construction of that artificial island it is not clear whether China is entitled to that it is debated still so basically I have two minutes adiz adiz is not prohibited by international law there has been state practice on the establishment of adiz and including Canada the US Japan and other countries in 2013 China did declare adiz in East China Sea however it has been protected objected by many countries because it requires the on the aircraft that not heading to and not departing from China to submit information and it also requires military aircraft to submit information and it is applied over disputed area is a South China Sea if the establishment of adiz comes into existence that it would complicate it and and and establish the disputed to a greater extent I think that you beat your time by 39 seconds thank you so we're going to follow the format that we do here at CSIS usually and that's open it up for questions if you have a question raise your hand and please wait for the microphone identify yourself and please ask a question and if you're giving a speech make it pretty short so we're going to try to ask people who haven't had a chance to ask questions yet so I'll do the gentleman here next to Ernie sir I'm Paul here recently of the National Intelligence Council I'd like to invite each of the panelists to address the issue that Bonnie Glazer raised in the last session about the feasibility of an approach to the disputes based on the Udi Posadettis principle where everyone just keeps what they had and goes on with their lives and how feasible is that and how receptive do you think the various claimants would be to it particularly is it within the realm of consideration for China Ian thanks my name's Ian story I'm from the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore my question is to Jay Jay in April the Permanent Court of Arbitration decided to bifurcate the proceedings the first step being to examine whether they have jurisdiction over the case and the second part is to look at the merits of the case my understanding is that this decision will lengthen the proceedings by 6 to 12 months that means it is entirely conceivable that a decision by the court will be made after President Aquino leaves office now that raises certain political possibilities for instance former Vice President Binay has suggested he would be willing to do a deal with China do you think there's any possibility at all that a post Aquino administration would withdraw from this case thanks so I guess we'll let at this moment we'll let the as the panelists answer these two questions first thank you thank you for the post edus question because that gives us an opportunity really to go back to the big picture of what is the best way to try to resolve these questions we had an enormously complex set of negotiations with over 120 countries with a huge range of issues and oceans matter in the law of the sea the only way that was put together it could never have been done through bilateral negotiations nor would that have been in the interest of most of the states involved it was only done through a multilateral process but simultaneously pursuing individual issues bilaterally as you begin to to narrow the kinds of issues remaining on the the multilateral framework I strongly believe that is the way to resolve this and going forward Dr. Jalal who had been an ambassador from Indonesia is the individual that led for Indonesia the creation of these ASEAN talks some years ago I personally believe he should have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for this this is an enormously important strategic question for the whole world and I believe those are the multilateral framework it should be an ASEAN framework in relation to negotiating the resources within the area etc. and so I like your Udi Posadettis notion consistent perhaps with some some adjustments around the margins coming out of bilateral negotiations as part of that but it does seem to me that for many of these features that there's never really been any very clear claim by anyone the notion of freezing sovereignty claims precisely as they were frozen in the Antarctic Treaty would make a great deal of sense so I do believe that the way to go is the overall ASEAN effort to go back to that not inconsistent with simultaneously having the parties work in bilateral negotiations on individual parts of the issue and then I think you move forward functionally on the easy issues first like agreement on combating piracy in the area and then perhaps protecting the environment in the area and then moving forward on the resource issues but trying to leave alone the thing that is just so difficult for countries politically which are the sovereignty issues and I believe that this is strongly in the interest of China to go that way right now it is harming relations with its ASEAN neighbors it is to some extent enhancing a sort of militarization of this by something that I think as a one who has taught in China at one point and was has run two conferences in my ocean center with China I consider myself a friend of China and I think it is making an enormous mistake to more assertively seek to be moving forward on this as opposed to trying to to work with the ASEAN neighbors in working it out I also believe the route that their own will take forever it will not enable China to get to the point of effectively harvesting the fish and the oil and gas and I believe China will do extremely well in these kinds of multilateral negotiations in terms of the share of the resources that China would get in the negotiations and finally and perhaps most importantly I don't think that there is really appropriate understanding in the assertiveness of the Chinese position and the ambiguity in relation to the nine ten-dash line what that's potentially doing to an enormously important Chinese interest which is navigational freedom China is the number one trading country just about in the world navigational freedom and getting those resources in in being able to protect that navigational freedom is extremely important for China and making an ambiguous claim that that leads to the potential of being misinterpreted as claiming ocean space despite saying simultaneously oh we protect navigational freedom is strongly not in the interest of China and if other nations around the world copied that for individual areas and strates China would be in a very difficult situation think of the straits of Malacca for example in relation to that thank you in answer to the question on the autopositive that is Yuri's feasibility or is it acceptable I think that the trends in what the smaller claimant countries have been doing the past couple of years indicate that this is their preferred resolution of the case in the sense that they have basically especially Philippines and Vietnam for example they have basically agreed impliedly to just live with it with with it with the situation right now where each one is in their respective possessions however if I put my law professor hat on I would also find out that to see what the posidious is basically been applied to land territory and that is on the assumption that land territory can be post actually possessed the seas have never really been considered a subject to possession because presence in the sea has always been transitory you cannot keep everyone out unlike if you're on land so in a way with these with the posidious might work as for the island features but not necessarily for the rest of the South China Sea where maritime jurisdictions are involved and are actually in dispute and I mentioned earlier that the territorial seas around these island spots these islands they are actually contain the most valuable portions basically of the South China Sea in terms of resources and so I suspect that even if this were applied you'd still continue to have disputes over access to those resources so in a way you still need something else in addition to put the posidious to resolve the problem and just a brief answer to Ian's question a new administration will this this is the possibility of withdrawal from the case well it is very difficult of course to forecast how the winds of politics will change after the elections but I think that due to public interest in the issue it will be very difficult for any subsequent administration to simply stop and withdraw from this case it's more likely that they will just allow it to continue to its conclusion and probably the faster the better so that they can then consider what foreign policy they will have with China after that case has basically blown over thank you as I have already recall Mr. Kellogg and Mr. Stimson to service I don't think personally you know who did was that this will work okay and because who did was that is it's it's something it's not as far as I can understand it's not just about a temporary situation but you know if you take it as apply in Africa in in Latin America it's for it's permanent for the future I don't think that will work and as to China's position I don't think China has you know yielding an inch you know from the statements you you have you can see that China has always you know in in relation to their arbitration China has reiterated the condemnation of what the Philippines did so I think this will not work as to you know during negotiations what will happen again you know as a commentator it's very difficult to put it you know anything you know can come if the government agreed you know to to to some kind of you know arrangement okay I agree with professor more that it would be very difficult to settle all these disputes just by negotiation but if you take a look at the record of China's negotiation from you know with the neighboring states it's quite good so you will never know you know I guess unless we are in a rush to do many things then there's no reason why don't we just do some more negotiation in fact as relating to this particular case the Philippines and China never really engage in any substantive negotiations relating to the matter it's all about how to control the crisis only you know so I'm I don't think we should completely lose hope in negotiation personally I have made a suggestion that perhaps conciliation conciliation can can help I hope you know this issue can be considered by by the government and consolation as to I would like to point out one point one factor relating to the features we have been talking about this low tide elevation or that without giving any details but I can tell you that Gavin we've it's only 13 miles from type typing down from it to upper so without the you know baselines being set out and 13 miles it's almost immediately within 12 miles and this will immediately you know give rise to you know the possibility that this can be a base point and then another 12 miles out so I think it's not very good for us to talk about things you know in a superficial way without consideration of the details finally I would like to say that of course just now I said something about what the United States government's been doing of course what I'm trying to say is that the US should be more progressive in its own you know involvement in the South China Sea and that could help that could help of course China could also do better you know so maybe I have argued that both China and the United States they should consider further how to become great leader states in the world I published articles in 2004 about topics like this and I argue that we should have all the major players as well as the whole world to be more progressive co-progressive and you know co-progressiveness is you know the next destination after coexistence cooperation and then we go to co- progressiveness we are all you know preoccupied with moral advancement to some extent at an appropriate speed I guess since we are human beings we have to do that thank you thank you I also have some comments as related to as related to you see Pertilium oh tipos it is principle I think that it will not applied for for maritime boundary first there has not been maritime boundary to be respected second most of the maritime boundary has been eliminated eliminated very recently after the love the sea convention entrance to force which is only in the 90s as related to the negotiation my point of view is that negotiation is always the first peaceful means to be tried and in addition a country has to go through negotiation because it is one of the requirement for the countries in case it wants to use judicial mechanism that is provided in the love the sea convention so like I said we'd ask people that hadn't asked so this gentleman here please keep them short we have about four minutes left okay Steve Winters consultant I'd like to direct this to Mr. Lee yee to get it back to the so-called nine dashed line maybe I've been watching too much CCTV but there's this whole theme that they bring there that Hainan is like the southern southern Chinese and the maritime Chinese as opposed to the mainland Chinese and it's just a new part of China they've sort of discovered and then you have the issue of the artificial city which is in the district of Hainan which is right there in the in the South China Sea so all of this seems to indicate a much more grand plan or a meaning behind nine-dash land could you comment on that so back there I think you my name's no home for the issue for China-American studies I would like to invite all the panelists to briefly comment on the value and the role of compulsory dispute certain mechanisms in the reality in the South China Sea and the Philippines has been endorsed by taking the lead in initiating the first case in terms of international arbitration so but if we compare in reality the pre arbitration and the post arbitration status goal or changing status in South China Sea which might lead people to question whether this whole process arbitration will be actually serving as a political gain of international law thank you so what maybe we'll take those two questions I don't know maybe we'll go in reverse order dr. Zoom do you have a response to any of these questions or you could I know but we have we have a congressman waiting to give a speech here in three minutes okay so if you want to pass and come back to you okay okay I won't try to address the question raised by we all have to we can let everybody speak but please be short as related to the effectiveness of the judicial mechanism under a lot of the convention I think that has been said a lot about the compulsory mechanism however from my point of view the fact that the convention allows country to make declaration on the limit of jurisdiction significantly limits the scope of the issues that country can unilaterally bring to the courts and and and ask quicker countries in the dispute we always look for something objective based on law a law based mechanism so that is our my personal approach I do see some more activities you know as in a line as you have suggested but I don't see any grand vision or that behind this as far as I can tell it's you know just some more activities to explore and exploit the resources you know on those features and around and behind the line last line I guess what you would like to see remains to be seen okay thank you yes on the relationship between the arbitration and the politics the politics in the South China Sea I think it cannot be avoided there is a relationship even the Philippines basically from the Philippine perspective arbitration was resorted to because of a deadlock basically in negotiations in diplomatic relations over these features so there is that connection whether this can result in other gains or whether it can lead somewhere after that betration is finished well that really remains to be seen we need to basically appreciate whether it actually will change behaviors on the part of the parties and that's something we have to wait for thank you doctor you and I have worked together on a number of international issues and I have great respect for him but I cannot let stand the suggestion somehow that the United States is the one pushing the envelope in the South China Sea the United States is doing nothing more in the South China Sea in protecting navigation than it does in every single ocean and sea in the world which is to do something that has been accepted by over 164 countries in the world in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea it is protection of navigational freedom it is China Dr. Yi to the contrary that is taking a very aggressive and assertive stand in relation to for example warning ships and others concerning coming close to artificial islands which do not for the most part even generate anything if they're built on submerged facilities other than a 500 meter safety zone so this is extremely important and I believe that what the United States is doing in protecting navigational freedom is precisely China's interest as well that we share that national interest along with the community in the world as a whole finally just very briefly as a matter of technical international law these areas that Dr. Yi is talking about do not meet archipelagic status on your article four of the Law of the Sea Convention among other reasons because they do not meet the nine to one water to land ratio that is required by the convention and Dr. Yi if your concept of the historic claims as to where they're permitted around the edges on on demarcation issues for example or on sovereignty island disputes if that's what China intends in relation to the nine dash lines why don't you simply say so that it has nothing to do with claims over water areas as such he wants a little time to respond also just very quickly of course I have you know enjoy living and working in the United States for many many years almost 15 years before I went back to China so I in I like the United States no problem about that but I also think the United States state as a great promoter of the rule of law can do better and as Professor Moore said that the USA is trying to protect the navigational freedom and I don't think that that's you know a fair and square kind of you know pursue at this moment because there's never been any problem with navigational freedom in the South China Sea and I guess this is already can be considered to be a historic right for all states you know in the South China Sea to do navigational freedom but now goodness and navigational freedom does not include what the United States has been doing basically pushing the envelope getting very very close to the Chinese carrier getting very very close to the you know some may say artificial islands but to China it's a real island and it's building facilities I tried to say earlier that when the United States position a better base it's you know measures on a clearly convincing kind of legal position and also clearly convincing evidence thank you 30 seconds 30 seconds so from seven features the South China Sea only one features is within three nautical miles from the feature occupied by China the other six remaining features are not within the 12 nautical miles of any features two of them are within a 12 nautical miles of the features occupied by Vietnam okay we have to stop sorry sorry we're gonna have to stop so please what we're gonna do is transition now before I just gonna announce that representative Forbes is gonna come and give a one of the keynote speeches before we have lunch so we'd like we're gonna have our panel leave and then they're gonna transition we're gonna transition immediately into the speech so please don't run away pleat but before we do that please join me in thanking our panelists for a very interesting discussion and it looks like we're gonna have some more debate next year this ladies and gentlemen if I could if I could ask you to take your seats please thank you very much for your consideration we we're very fortunate to have a gentleman here from from the house of representatives representative Randy Forbes Republican Virginia who in our estimation has probably been the member of the house and that's in I would say in both parties who's been most focused on Asia and the US rebalance he's been very thoughtful very engaged in in that concept that idea since he arrived in Congress in 2001 he is the chairman of the House Armed Services seapower projection forces subcommittee and he's responsible for the research development acquisition and sustainment of Navy and Marine Corps programs as well as the Air Force bomber and tanker fleets in that role you know Congressman Forbes is also the co-chair of the China caucus on the hill so this is a gentleman who's thought a lot about America's future in Asia thought a lot about the geopolitical ramifications and economic implications of this issue that we're talking about today the South China Sea so I hope you'll join me in welcoming Congressman Randy Forbes Ernie thank you so much and let me just thank all of you for being here and thank CSIS for this incredible conference I was looking at this extraordinary lineup of presenters that you have and you have across the spectrum some of the best experts that you could get to talk about this topic it reminded me somewhat of a Disney ride because you can kind of pull a lever back and you can take a big aerial view with some of the presenters or you can push the lever forward and go down on the weeds and some of the details and so at the end of the conference it should have been a little bit of something for everybody and because of that and because of this extraordinary talent that that I know that you had here I really did wrestle with what I might offer you this afternoon in the moments that I would have realizing that I'd be speaking in the shadow of so many experts for whom I have enormous respect and when all was said and done I decided what I would try to do is to give you some thoughts from the perspective of the United States legislator hoping that what I can do is to open avenues of thought for you and if I succeed probably at the end of my talk all of you will be mad with me as we raise those thoughts but let me begin with you know one of the things that I see when we're talking about South China Sea when we're talking about the Asia Pacific area there's so much tiptoeing around as we have those discussions and sometimes we don't like to cut to the chase and really say what the heart of things are and you know I'm just at that point in time in my life where I don't have to be politically correct anymore and I don't have to do those kind of things and as Ernie said I spend a lot of time thinking about these issues writing about these issues listening to people about these issues and so let me just begin with what is probably obvious which is simply that most members of Congress when you say a South China Sea conference they take that as code for a China conference because even though there's a lot of other things to discuss let's you know face facts that you know the issue of US-China relationships is the big elephant in the room and it's kind of hard to peer around it and see anything else unless you talk about that head-on and the second thing is today when it comes to China it's different than it was even a decade ago there's no lack of opinionated individuals always willing to share their thoughts with legislators and policymakers and I put them in three categories I want to tell you that at the beginning I put your presenters in three categories I put everybody that comes before my committee everybody that comes in my office to talk about the Asia Pacific area China in three categories and rather than put a label in the three categories let me give you the example of the three categories when I was in law school the first day that I was in law school my contracts professor walked in brilliant guy and we had about 120 people in the room he walks in the room and he doesn't say hi he doesn't say welcome to the University of Virginia any of that kind of stuff he immediately calls on one of the students and asked them to stand up and we are all of course thinking how horrible it was for that student that he happened to know who she was she stands up and he begins to ask her questions about the case when she's finished he doesn't say thank you he doesn't say anything else he calls somebody else by name within 10 minutes we realize he is memorized everybody's name in that room and he continues asking questions at the end of the day we're all just thinking this a brilliant guy tell us what the ultimate answer is and he doesn't do it he simply closes his book and says okay next class we're gonna study this case this case in this case and we go through a whole semester like that and I get so many people that come into my office and they feel strongly both ways you know they can outline this part of the issue and then they say but you know there's this counter issue over here and I appreciate that but that's that professorial category I put them in now that's the second year I was in law school I was hired by the city of Chesapeake where I live to come do some work for them over the Christmas break and they wanted me to research a school that was going to be built and tell them whether they could build a school there and so I did the research and I walk into the city attorney's office and I began to do that professorial thing I said well I think you got a problem with this utility line and so I immediately start telling him the problems and then the pluses and he rolls back in his chair and he said this true story he said Randy you're the smartest guy I've ever met he said we didn't hire you to be a law school professor he said we hired you to make a decision you've got to take all these facts you got to make a decision then you've got to be accountable for that decision and there's some people some legislators that at the end of the day they've got to take all those pluses and minuses they've got to then come up and say this is the policy this is what we're going to do when I put those people in a category and then there's a third category and that's the group of people who work for somebody else or work under somebody else and that person has made a decision and they're the advocates and they're out selling that position no matter what now it's not that one of those categories are better or worse than the other but you got to understand which category people are in and so today what I want to do is to say that no matter what else they're selling or they're they're talking about after I've listened to these people whether it's coming before my committee or in my office I want to just cut to the chase and this is what I want to get to and what I want to ask them I would tell you that if you can ask and answer these questions today at this conference you would have done an incredibly successful thing for the conference and here's the question always ask them after I have listened to them whatever the requisite amount of time is that I need to do to be polite and do that I ask them when it comes to China what is our strategy and then the second thing I ask are we winning or losing and then the third is what are the metrics that you use to measure that by now last week I was with a brilliant young man who spent much of his life studying the Asia Pacific area he came into my office brilliant and I listened to him for several minutes and I ask him those questions and then he gave me the answer I so often get well when it comes to you as China relations it's not about winning or losing and you know I hear people come before my committee and you go back look at the transcripts pull any hearing you want and watch as we ask them what's the strategy are we winning are we losing what's the metrics and the first thing they'll do if they're in a hearing is this the first thing they will do is change the question and if you are able to hold them back and say no no that's not what I ask you what's the strategy the next thing they do instead of giving you the strategy is they give you a to-do list of things they're doing and I'll say that's a to-do list that's not a strategy tell me the strategy and they won't tell you the strategy if they come into my office after they've told me whatever they want to tell me I looked at them and I asked them the same question what's the strategy Ernie what's the strategy and here's what they will do they will pause sometimes with the faint sigh as if to say well you just don't understand this is too complex and if I try to explain the strategy to you you could never understand it they don't tell you that but that's the feeling and so what I would say to you today in this conference ask any presenter ask them wherever you see them I do it's not that I'm trying to put them on a spot I really want to find out what's the strategy are we winning or losing and what's the metrics that you use to measure that by and then let me give you this corollary question from the brilliant young guy in my office who said it's really not about winning or losing and here's the next question that I would ask you do the American people have the right to expect their government to have a winning strategy in the South China Sea or vis-a-vis China and if not do they at least have the right to expect that any strategy their government has regarding China at least has winning as its goal and I would suggest to you that no matter what anybody says our friends in China today feel they have a strategy and they do and they feel that they have a winning strategy or at least their goal is to win now when I talk about when you can define when however you want to I'm not talking about military victories I'm not talking about that you have a zero some game I'm talking about simply a definition of what when is and and I don't see that and after all the presentations have been made today and all the panelists have left or taken their seats in the audience can we ask and answer these corollary questions the first one I would throw out there are many just limited amount of time are we winning the rhetorical battle I know people don't like for me even to raise this but we talk about and Ernie mentioned the pivot to the Asia Pacific area I remember when the the pivot to the Asia Pacific area came out and it wasn't long before they were retrenching back and we better not say pivot that may be too strong let's use another word let's use the word rebalance maybe that's a little bit better then the second thing I would say to you we wrote some pieces about this you know it's almost taboo to even talk about competition with China it's like if we somehow the other pretend that there is no competition there won't be any competition let me just tell you there is competition and it's okay competition's not bad doesn't mean we're enemies it just means that we have a competition and we need to put that on the table I will tell you when the United States Navy comes out and says it's a bridge too far to even talk about China being a competitor I think oh my gosh how in the world would anybody expect that we would honor our tree relationships if they can censor what we even say that you can't even put it on the table and talk about some of these issues the other thing that I would say on the rhetoric as to whether we're winning or losing I hear people oftentimes talk about the importance for US strategy to have freedom of navigation well there's a big difference between freedom of navigation which is traveling across the surface of the water and freedom of the seas and we need to make sure we're talking about freedom of the seas because freedom of the seas is what's under the water on the water and above the water and at the same thing I hear some of my colleagues sometime talk about concern about these man-made islands well they're not man-made islands they're artificial formations but that's a big difference from a legal context as we start using that rhetoric and then let me just throw this out when we have a treaty partner like Taiwan and we will look to that partner and say you can't even travel to the United States under a visit you have to call it a transit that's there and you can't even come to DC then I question this are we winning the rhetorical battle or not and of course you all know air see battle concept that was we invested so much in and push so much and all of a sudden pulled the wording and said no no maybe we can't talk about that now some would say you just don't understand this is just how you have to treat other nations so give me the list of things that our friends in China have changed their rhetoric on because we expected them to do that and I'll tell you that list is a very short list second thing I would ask is how is our strategy doing regarding the illegal territorial claims that I know that we're hearing talked about and you know one of the things that we're seeing today is the use of a controlled friction China will use a controlled friction they move someplace then we say well look the behavior has changed it really hasn't as part of the strategy you use control friction to gain something and then what you have is like a check valve it's not going to go below that anymore and when you look at these artificial territorial claims what we hear is well everybody's doing let me put it in comparison probably already heard the statistics China's had 2,000 acres of these compared to five acres from all other claimants combined and then we ask this how are the trend lines moving Ray the balance of military power and I will tell you those curve lines are closing those gaps are closing but the big concern that I have is what we're seeing in these so-called gray areas where China has amassed a lot of strength in their Coast Guard operations they now have enough Coast Guard ships that are 68 short of our entire Navy and one of our hearings not too long ago I actually put a picture up between tugboat 25 and one of the Navy amphibious ships same ship one was painted gray one was painted white and orange we really don't have a good strategy or a good answer for that at this particular point in time and I could go on trade we probably don't want to even look at that and talk about it but I want to say this to you while we have all of those I want to pose these challenges for you today and then I want to tell you the good things if you were to ask any cross section of Americans today outside of this room go across America you pick the cross section ask any of them if China is in competition with the United States today and overwhelmingly they would say yes then you pick any cross section of Americans you want and ask them who they think is winning and I'll tell you they would say China and then I ask you to do this leave here and go over to any of the congressional office buildings you want and pick out 10 offices and they could be any 10 you want you can selectively pick them out or or randomly pick them out and walk in and ask one of the members of congress what is the United States strategy regarding China and watch what you get as an answer then I ask you to go to the Pentagon and pick any 10 offices you want in there and walk in and say what's our strategy with China and I guarantee you'll get 10 different answers if you get an answer at all same thing with 10 agency officials and then finally I can tell you with their allies because they're in my office almost every other week and you pick any five of them and say what's your strategy with China and they'll say we don't know and I want you to say I want to say this I know that I sound like I've been overly harsh may be expecting too much out of what we need to be doing on a strategy but I want to tell you there's some really good things going first of all the mere fact that the administration recognized the need for a pivot or rebalance or whatever you want to call it to the Asia Pacific area that was a major thing that was important to do and sometimes just sitting directions are important the second thing is we have an enormously talented group of staffers and personnel working across the government across congress and agencies that are so smart doing such good jobs today that I am just enormously impressed with that fourth thing is the United States has an incredible ability to build coalitions that many other countries don't have and I have not yet seen China be able to put together that kind of coalition building and coalition building is important for the directions of the future the fifth thing is we do innovation still better than anybody in the world sometime when you take a snapshot and you believe that maybe some other country is winning you just wait long enough and you see that the culture and where we are in this country still does an incredible job on creating innovation I'm not talking about technology I'm talking about concepts and operational things that we say I think it's important where we've seen the administration go and congress go with TPA and TPP because trade is going to be an enormously important thing in that whole Asia Pacific areas we look over the next decade I think it's important we have the commitment in the NDAA to train and equip our partners if that provision survives the conference and I think it will I'm excited because I see the CNO's commitment to a whole new genre of strategic thinkers in the Navy and one of the things that we've been concerned about is just what I said a lack of strategy well he's changing that and you're seeing these billets come out and you're seeing the push to get strategic thinking back I think that's important I think it's important to see general Dumford's comments and statements that he don't want to build yesterday's military he wants to build tomorrow's military and I think that's a crucial thing for us to see and then I think it's vitally important to see conferences like this Ernie mentioned the China caucus over a decade ago Ike Skelton and on a trip to Congress I mean to China we realized that China knew a whole lot more about us than we knew about them and we established the China caucus so either by inspiration or jealousy or competition or whatever else it was we wanted to create that marketplace of ideas to throw those ideas out on the table and to explore them because we knew that it was too important for us not to get that right and then I want to just close by telling you this we created that caucus not so we could recreate my contract classroom where we could just come in and toss out ideas and say that's good on this side and that's good on that side our purpose was because we knew how much depended upon legislators and policymakers finding and implementing one a winning strategy for the entire Asia Pacific area and two upon developing the metrics to monitor that strategy so we could adjust it and constantly measure it but last I want to leave you with this question and it's simply what drives many of us why is this so important it's not just because we were in American Jersey and want to be for victory or a win it's because I fundamentally believe we're right not on everything but on what matters most and what matters most is that when the world scales are ultimately weighed the end product will be a order that says this it's not enough to be the biggest country and to see everybody else as smaller countries we need to be the biggest country but then look and say but the rule of law is bigger than all of us put together and we want to make sure that it stays bigger than the sum of our component parts thank you for playing a role in that thank you for letting me join you and be with you today thank you congressman forbs he conscious he very kindly agreed to take some questions so csis rules please identify yourself and your affiliation and and let's keep it to questions uh or as as my colleague Murray said you know very short observations backed by a question so let me start here the lady in the hat please thank you I am a virginian well wonderful welcome thank you so much my name is Rita Herona Adkins I am a freelance journalist a quick question sir sure uh rhetorically you have mentioned winning as sort of like the core of the U.S. policy as well as also the U.S. population or American people's expectation uh there is also another rhetoric called cooperation and some perhaps believe that that's probably the core to rebalancing rebalancing sort of an equality on a cooperative basis what do you think do you think that the rhetoric of winning would be a winning kind of rhetoric regarding China I think the incorrect statement is to think that they're mutually exclusive let me give you a perfect example I come from Virginia as you know I have a good friend of mine Bobby Scott Bobby is a Democrat I'm a Republican but the two of us come together and work on issues all the time I have enormous uh respect for Bobby treat him like an equal he has enormous respect for me you'd never see Bobby cut me off in debate I'd never cut him off in debate um winning which is what I think I should do I'm going to tell you my constituents don't want me to come up here and put strategies together that lose but winning sometime can be for both of us winning I don't view winning as a zero sum game where the only way I win is if Bobby loses and he doesn't the same way in fact Bobby will always phrase it like this our constituents think winning is when pragmatically we can come together what I think is this though I think it's tough for me to go to the American people and say oh yeah we're going to create all these strategies but we're doing it the way I see in so many sports events today just because we're going to give a participation trophy out to everybody just because you're in there and I just think that that's the wrong method for us you know I hope that if we do the right things on winning strategy we win for the Chinese we win for allies we win for that entire region and I firmly believe that's the case but I think at some point in time when you develop these strategies if we don't have some metric to measure them how do you know if they're working or not how do you know if they're doing what you want so I think the problem we have is not using a word winning I think it's when you view winning as being the other side has to lose in some way and I don't think that at all I just think that we can develop winning strategies whether it's economics with health care with all kinds of things that are going to push the region forward but also help both sides come out better than they would have otherwise. Let's go Peter here at the head table. Thank you my name is Peter Jennings believe it or not I'm from Australia Mr. Forbes what's your metric for achieving success with America's allies in the Asia Pacific and what do you think the allies should be doing to assist at this point? Well I appear first of all good question and and I think that your country is an excellent one to measure about I think because I think the metric that I would use is are we reaching things that are going to help both of our mutual defenses both of our economies so when we look down and we sit down together and if I were to talk to your ambassador or your prime minister or as we would look and the question I would ask them what's most important to you in that region they wouldn't tell me another military platform they would tell me trade you know trade is is important so if I'm looking at that and I'm thinking how am I going to create this bond with one of my allies obviously it's specific to the ally but on on a case with Australia it would be making sure that trade's coming out well between the two of us also though making sure that we're looking together and matching our strategy I think it's I don't think a strategy is very valuable if I have it locked up in a safe somewhere in a building and my my people working for me don't know it and my partners and friends and allies don't know it and and I've had people from your countries which what your strategy because we'd like to come along beside you for defensive operation for example whether you buy diesel submarines or you don't buy diesel submarines those kind of things are vital important so if I'm looking at those metrics I start by saying what is my strategy and then the second thing is how do I measure whether I'm winning or losing in your particular situation when I stray the way I would measure that our strategy to be to make sure both of our defenses are growing together complementing one another helping bring stability in that region two we're promoting the rule of law and that we're settling disputes not by muscle but by by some rule of law or international norm and the third thing is how are we creating that trade that's bonding us together and helping both sides grow economically I come back to the question that you raise it never means I don't I can't think of a situation where I mean Australia loses and the United States wins I think my metric of victory is that both of us are winning and moving in that thank you Ernie congressman my name is John Brand and I'm with the Asia Foundation here in Washington um a panelist in the prior session said uh he hoped someone would ask him the question about it uh why it would be important for the United States to adhere to unclaws and no one took the bait but in light of your comments I was curious if you thought the US adhering to unclaws would that be a representative of a contribution to a winning strategy for the United States in the South China Sea and elsewhere yeah you know I I really can't say that in this regard um when when you look at anything um and you you don't look at it holistically it is hard for me to create a strategy that actually works so when I'm talking about strategies that work I can't talk about one particular aspect you know relationships we have with one particular country another country that's not the end all to the overall strategy that we have but I think so many times what I'm hearing people uh look at when they're talking about this the Asia Pacific area as a whole is we need to recognize that there are different ways to accomplish different goals my concern is not how we necessarily implement that strategy that's an important part but the first thing I think is the overall arching uh theme that I tried to mention is what is the strategy overall first and then I think you could have a number of different ways to get to that strategy and to implement it um congressman my name is Chan Chung Tui from diplomatic academy of Vietnam so my short question is what should be the winning strategy for U.S. in upcoming six years thank you is the South China Sea um it is as relates to our relationship with Vietnam did you say no I I mean the winning strategy for U.S. uh relating to your South China Sea issue I'm I'm sorry I just uh can can you I'm sorry oh a winning strategy for South China Sea um the South China Sea's got is got a host of things in it I think first of all for the United States the winning strategy I think would be is that we cease this constant movement to have territorial claims made by strength as opposed to going through the rule of law I think secondly as we continue to have trade that is um normalized uh among the countries in the Asia Pacific area I think that's a huge victory in a winning strategy for us I feel very comfortable with our ability to compete I feel very comfortable with Australia's ability to compete with many of the other countries in there you can pick them Japan Australia Vietnam whatever as long as we have that opportunity to do the trade that's there I think the other thing is I think we need to constantly be uh de-escalating this continual push because I think anytime you have a strategy where the Japanese have to scramble planes more than they have at any time since the Cold War I don't think that's a particularly winning strategy for anybody in the Asia Pacific area and so I think as we get that de-escalated down I think that's going to be a more beneficial uh strategy for us I think the other thing from the United States we have to have a presence there and it's going to be a strong presence and I think that means um that we have to increase our naval presence there because I think that's a very calming influence I don't think it's an escalating influence that's there also training and equipping uh we got a provision indicated training in quipper allies I think that's a very important a part of that as well yes good afternoon sir I'm Ronaldo from the Philippines Ronaldo Castro my question has something to do with the future of the strategic rebalancing to Asia after 2011 you know we know for a fact that you'll have an election next year so what will be the future of this uh effort by the United States to assert its presence in the Asia Pacific region I think it's going to continue I don't think this is a democratic republic thing I don't think it's going to be specific to this administration I one of the things first of all I compliment the administration for recognize that and talking about this shift but I think the shift was going to come anyway I I don't even know if it was a rebalance or pivot I think it we never left the Asia Pacific area I think this is really more of a focus on how we address it and I don't think it's good I think whichever um presidential candidate ultimately wins and you have different administration I still see um our role in the Asia Pacific area as being strong and we have to make that commitment and and here's part of the reason it's not just making stability in that area but the economic reality if that's just huge I mean you know basically you're looking at probably two-thirds of the trade in the world is going to come through there for the next 10 years you look at major militaries that are going to be housed in that area you look at um you know I'm looking at a half billion middle class consumers that are going to be in that area now and in just a few years it could be as many as three billion I mean not all of that's going to make it so it's a priority I don't care who the presidential candidate is and who ultimately wins the election Lauren Hershey retired attorney I'm also a virginian but originally in Ohio and so I have to decide you've got all of it Lauren yeah yes uh two questions one there is a joint uh a building project with India of uh aircraft carriers could you comment on that generally from your perspective uh the good the bad the indifferent uh second question I'm not sure if I understood whether you addressed it I did study law of the sea with professor John Norton Moore about 20 years ago I was an adult he was more of an adult than me and uh we've signed it but we've never ratified it should President Obama or the next president submit it to the senate and get action on it in your opinion yeah you know the law of the sea we have a number of concerns and problems I can tell you even within congress I don't I don't know that there is a um consensus in congress that you could get that would support the law of the sea tree right now because there's some provisions in there aren't that that um that some members of congress don't support some that I have some concern with um but I think one of the things that we can do though is whether their law of the sea tree is actually signed up there are provisions in there that we can comply with and we can utilize and I think that's the important thing for us in creating that norm that's there but I I think you'd have very difficult time right now be it this president next president trying to get that treaty um executed by members congress gosh Bill's got his notes and everything there you know there's pages of this stuff congressman thank you very much for your speech um I want to put you to actually the administration does have a strategy and it's a very good and clever strategy I would say the aim of the strategy is to make China play by the rules and I would say that a combination of freedom of navigation missions being undertaken at the moment in parallel with what's taking place in the Hague with the Philippines case which will also clarify the law the idea of building burden sharing relationships getting Japan and Australia to help other countries the Philippines and Vietnam India getting involved that's clearly part of a diplomatic effort and I would say in the sense that China has not occupied any new territory since 1994 in the South China Sea uh Scarborough Shoal uh accepted uh but that's not it's a pretty big exception okay but okay but they haven't built anything on there they've simply got ships sailing around it they could go home any time um that it you know the situation isn't as bad as people think and the question was what do you think about that do you agree do you agree it's actually a it's a good and clever Bill obviously obviously Bill I you know if as we sit down here there's some really good things that are going on uh and and I tried to give just a smattering of those couldn't cover them all um I think though if you go through the transcripts you go through the hearings you go through listening um I just disagree that the strategy is out there for this reason a strategy to be valid to me we need to be able to articulate it and to say what it is and again we need the metrics to measure if we're winning or losing and I think what I see more of are to-do list that doesn't mean they're negative that doesn't mean they don't do things I'm just saying that one of the things that we've got to do better is to have that strategy that we can articulate and come sitting my hearings and try to get the administration to verbalize what that strategy is and you'll see the challenges that we undertake ladies and gentlemen please join me in thanking congressman thank you all very much for what you're doing