 Good afternoon everyone. My name is Andrew Scobel. I'm a distinguished fellow or grey-haired fellow on the China program at USIP along with my esteemed colleague, Dr. Carla Freeman and it's a pleasure to say a few introductory remarks for an old friend Dr. Sui Xiang Zhao at the University of Denver. I've known for decades and he's one of the most you know, one of the best-informed, most astute analysts and scholars of Chinese politics and Chinese foreign policy and even though officially we don't do book talks at USIP, you know, he's going to be talking about his latest book which as you can see I've marked up. I'm actually writing a review. It'll be a positive review you know, but that's because it's such a fabulous book and I would say it's one of the most important books written on Chinese foreign policy in in recent decades certainly in the last decade because it not only you know uses incredible rich array of primary and secondary sources but it also frames Chinese foreign policymaking in in big picture terms and interprets it across eras and I think that's that's one of the strengths, one of the tremendous strengths of this book. Not to say there aren't other great books out there, but they tend to be more focused on specific issues. So a broader big picture approach and yet with appropriate detail and nuance. So you know the dragon roars back. It really it highlights the importance of leaders. Leaders matter and I think that's that's the you know don't take my word for it but you know make sure you listen attentively to the discussion that follows and be sure to read this book. It will you'll be very glad you did. Over to you Conor. Thank you so much Andrew for that wonderful introduction to a great event. We're thrilled to have Professor Zhao here today. Let me just say quickly a few words about USIP if you're not familiar with the US Institute of Peace. It was established in 1984 by Congress as a place federally funded place to study peace and we work on a fostering peace around the world. We have a China program that looks at opportunities to work constructively with China, but also to address challenges that China's rise creates around the world for countries and the United States. We as Andrew Scobell said, we don't do book talks, but we do talk a lot about China and so we're very very happy that we can do a little bit of both today. Andrew Scobell of course is one of the US's leading experts on Chinese foreign and security policy and I'll just say he's a great colleague whose prolific writings keep me moving and try to keep up with him. So it's great. Let me take a moment just to say a few more thank yous. First of all, I want to thank the USIP events team for putting this event together. Also colleagues, Kemi Adilawari and also Allison McFarland who took a lot of time out of some really busy schedules traveling and doing research to put this together. And I also want to thank CICE because this is a joint the first ever joint USIP JHU event and not only are they lending some brain power to the event in the form of Professor Bolman. I also want to thank Andrew Murtha who really wanted to be here today for his support and the support of his CICE China Research Center. We also want to thank the CICE students and staff who have come to this event and may be attending online and students, we have a chance for you to sit down with Professor Zhao, thanks to his generous generosity in giving some time after the event. But we invite all of you to enjoy a small reception following our approximately hour-long discussion. And of course, I want to thank Suaixiang for coming all the way from Denver and joining us today. So I am moderating, so I have the honor of introducing both Professor Bolman and Professor Zhao. Professor Bolman is the Jill McGovern and Stephen Muller assistant professor of China Studies and International Affairs at Johns Hopkins CICE, where he also directs the Pacific Community Initiative. And David's research looks at economic and political development in China and its implications for US-China relations. And he's already himself published a fantastic book on that involves leadership. Incentivized Development in China, Leaders, Governance and Growth in China's Counties published by Cambridge in 2016. And that looked at the political foundations of economic growth in China. Look, doing some really rich empirical research at the county level in China. So looking forward to his comments very much today. Before joining CICE, David was an economist at the World Bank and also had a postdoc at Harvard's Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. You all know, I think Professor Zhao already. He is the professor and director of the Center for China-US Cooperation at the Joseph Corble School of International Studies at the University of Denver and a founding editor of the incredibly valuable Journal of Contemporary China. It's not just a quarterly, I think it's actually published five times a year. Six times a year. Sorry, I'm behind the times. And it is a repository of some really cutting-edge research on China, domestic politics, economy and international policy. I won't go through all of Dr. Zhao's honors, but he is a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and on the Board of Governors of the U.S. Committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific. And he also is a has relations, an honorary ginger professor at Beidat, Renmin University and almost all of the top universities in China, it seems. His PhD is in political science from the University of California in San Diego. But mostly I want to say that he has just, he's just written an extraordinary number of books and every time I think after my decades of trying to understand China that I've arrived at some unique or novel insight, I realized that probably 20 years ago Professor Zhao already addressed that issue. And so I just have to go and buy or take out of the library one of his wonderful books. So without further ado, let me let him give his talk and then we'll ask Professor Bolman to discuss it briefly and then we'll turn the mics over and also take some questions from over the over the internet from people who are watching virtually. So thank you very much. Thank you, Connor, for the invitation and also for the wonderful introduction and also thank you for all the team at USIP for putting this together. Andrew has not seen you for some such a long time. Really an opportunity, honor to see you again and Professor Bolman, last time in Canada. So thank you for reading to my comments on my book. So with that, okay. The book tries to trace the trajectory of China rise and the forces behind its rise. The first question people normally ask, why you wrote this book? So my answer to these questions are this screen can see empirically and also theoretically. Empirically I've been teaching a class on Chinese foreign policy. But I have not found a single book which could cover the all 70 plus years of PRC history. Those books are what I call unidimensional or static meaning that study by natural relationships between China and the certain countries regions and also during a certain period. So a book provides the whole 70 plus years of history has been somehow not there. Theoretically scholars have used most often two theories to understand China's rise. One is what I call structural realist theories, which emphasizes on the relative power. When China's relative power rises, its ambition expands. That's what your book also talked about. And a rise in China would inevitably challenge the US dominance and also try to redefine its interest in the relationships with neighbors. And this theory has been used mostly to explain the recent rise of China. But if we look back the history of 70 years, I find it's not sufficient because when China's relative power was weak during most time, China was very, very confrontational and fought six wars, including the war with the most powerful nation on earth, the US, and the war with the Soviet Union, with India. And Deng Xiaoping moderated Chinese foreign policy. But China's relative power did not change that much. And his successors, Xiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, continued the moderate foreign policy. But China was rising, its relative power rising dramatically. And Xi Jinping came to office. He shifted Deng Xiaoping's no-profile foreign policy. But China's national power did not rise that much. In fact, in the last 10 years, we have seen the slowdown of China's economy. And China's relative power has not been that powerful. So structural realist theory cannot explain that well. Another theory used most often is so-called regime type theory, which attributes China's confrontational or aggressive behavior to its authoritarian regime. But China's authoritarian regime has not changed that much. In the last 70 years, but China's foreign policy has shifted from time to time. So that theory could not explain that well either. So my book develops what Andrew mentioned, that leadership-centered framework argues that leaders matter in all political systems, but matter much more in authoritarian to authoritarian system, instead of in China's dangerous system where the emphasis is so-called hierarchy. Discipline, in Chinese word, democratic centralism. In that case, leaders have a tremendous power to make foreign policy decisions to chart new causes if they wish for China's foreign policy. But the problems I find in my research is that not every Chinese leader has used that power to chart new causes. In fact, by official account, there are five generations of Chinese leadership, led by Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and Xi Jinping. The next three, one is Zhao Ziyang, one is Hua Guofeng, one is Zhao Ziyang, and one is Hu Xiaobang. So I put all eight together to distinguish them into three types of leaders. One is so-called transformational leaders. These leaders have new visions and political wisdoms to navigate the power jungle of PRC and also mobilize domestic, intuitional, ideational sources, and strategically respond to international environment, even try to shape international environment. So three leaders among the eight are transformational Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, and Xi Jinping. Mao Zedong had so-called revolutionary foreign policy in my book. In the Chinese official language, he met China independent, stand up. Deng Xiaoping had a developmental foreign policy who met China rich, and Xi Jinping now called his own China's foreign policy big power foreign policy to make China strong. The second type is so-called transactional leaders. These people did not make much changes, they stayed on course, but they survived power. Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao are two typical transactional leaders. They succeeded Deng Xiaoping's foreign policy, continued Deng Xiaoping's foreign policy direction, and survived two terms in office. And third, I call them failed leaders. They might have new visions, but who cares? They lost power in the power jungle. And Hua Guofeng, Hu Yaobang, and Zhao Ziyang are these type of failed leaders. So my book, this is a framework in my book, transactional leaders, transformational leaders at top. They have new visions and they held powers in fact all three lifetimes, either with personal, cosmetic authority, all with office authority. Then they constructed ideational environments. Here I'm talking about they use historical memories and also nationalist inspirations to support advance their foreign policy agenda. And also they restructured policy making intuitions to facilitate their policy making and implementation. And in the meantime, on the other side, the international side, they exploited external environment. Here, when I talk international environment, I'm talking about distribution of power and also the order, international order, talking about regimes, roles, norms, intuitions, they do that. My book, in fact, documented, focused on the three transformational leaders. How they, what were their new visions and how they navigated in the political environment and also mobilized resources domestically and internationally. So I have here all three leaders, most visions and most power manipulation and intuitional reconstructs and how he mobilized ideational sources and international sources. The, my conclusion to Mao was Mao Zedong's revolutionary foreign policy. The question I asked if Mao's foreign policy, revolutionary foreign policy defensive or offensive. So what I argued in my book is that radically it was offensive, militant, but his priority was to defend the border and regime security in response to what he perceived as hostile, falling, in fact, U.S. and imperialist powers. I have a chapter talking about how to try to keep the wolf off the border instead of fighting overseas, although he had some kind of actions in the world to support the insurgencies, but it's still for his regime's security. And so China's foreign policy most time was essentially reactive, rather than proactive, although it was revolutionary. Then I tried to see how Ding Xiaoping's developmental foreign policies, visions, Mao emphasized war and revolution. Ding Xiaoping tries to shift to emphasize peace and development, use foreign policy to create so-called peaceful international and regional environment for economic modernization. And also I tried to see how he was a pragmatic strongman. Mao's crusader in my book talked about how he was a consensus builder. He ratified a decision if he delegates the authorities to the bureaucrats. If they reach consensus, he ratified that automatically. He steps in only if they cannot reach consensus. That's his leadership style. And also Ding Xiaoping, how Mao Zedong and him both emphasized so essential of humiliation, but he re-structured, constructed the narrative emphasize if China was underdeveloped, it will be beaten. So we have to develop in order to redeem the essential of humiliation. Different narratives and his nationalism was more affirmative and pragmatic rather than some assertive type. And his international resources or essential responses was more kind of no profile. In fact, during his term, he had two major decisions. One was to normalize relationship with the US. And another was no profile after end of Cold War. Both worked out beautifully for China's economic development. And so the argument for him was China during his time was a moderate rising power. They tried to build the image of a peace-neving and responsible power. And tried to assure international stability. China rise was an opportunity instead of a threat. That's what Ding Xiaoping's following policy. So Xi Jinping now has changed entirely. His vision was the China dream. Rejuvenation. Weida Fuxin, the Chinese talk about China dream includes both national dream and military strong military dream. And his power consolidation and intuitional reconstruction is also very dramatic, very different, recentionalized power have top-level design. And his historical, he used historical memories are also very different. Mao and Ding emphasized central humiliation. Although he still talked about central humiliation, but he moved more to the other side of the coin of Chinese history, talking about the glorious imperial China. And tried to return China to those glorious positions, very different. And also his nationalist expression also very different is very assertive. Instead of emphasizing upon a positive, inclusive us, he tried to target evil and negative others, that is Western evil, liberal ideas and evil powers. And he now, his following policy orientation internationally is much more confrontational and emphasizing fighting spread and try to organize so-called anti-German coalition Russia, Iran, North Korea, those countries. And he has emphasized, I mean, redefined China's relationships with neighbors and try to challenge the international order. So the question here for Xi Jinping is his power is, his following policy is more offensive or defensive. I don't know how I can answer this question at this point, but I would argue that his following policy is over-riched for sure. And his China dream has put China in a very difficult position international arena, so many enemies. And in fact, now we have some that said back, I was in Beijing last week. Just when Belwyn wrote, you can see those photos, only 25 head of states instead of 30, 40 in the first, second forum. So you can see China's following policy on him, although he tries to restore China's great glory, but I don't know how much he can successful. That's what the conclusion is here. So that I'll stop here. Well, thank you so much for that wonderful introduction to a really rich book. I have to admit, I have only read sections because it's very detailed and worth a very careful read. But over to David for Professor Bowman for his comments. Great. Thank you so much. And I have read the whole thing. Oh, thank you for comments. But I thank you so much to USIP for inviting me here. And thank you to Dr. Freeman for especially inviting me here. And especially great. Thanks, Professor Jow for writing this tour to force and allowing me to read it. So I only have, I think, five to seven minutes. That's what I've been the time and given. So I will try to make sure I stick to that, therefore stick to my notes. I'll briefly provide my takeaways from the book, major takeaways and why I think it's so important. And then I'm going to raise two broad conceptual questions that I think are important to address that came up in my mind at many points in the book. So the book, as we just heard, takes this leader-centered framework to describe this sweeping history of PRC foreign policy. Right. So Professor Jow argues that structure matters. It does not that structure doesn't matter, but it only matters in the sense that it impacts foreign policy when it's acted upon by China's leaders using their own ideational lenses, using their own decision making processes that they've created and using their own perceptions about the current desirability of international norms. This framework, as we just saw, helps explain the shift from a revolutionary foreign policy under Xi to a developmental foreign policy under Deng to a big power foreign policy under Xi. Sorry, did I say Xi at the beginning? Mao is clearly what I was going for there. And the book also shows how, in a really interesting way, how China's transformational leaders intentionally manipulate nationalism and public sentiment and restructure foreign policy institutions, as well, I think, in how this is sort of indogenous, how those restructurings then reshape and constrain their own foreign policy in a really interesting way. And this helps to explain the stride and turn in Chinese nationalism after 2008. It explains the emergence of Xi as the chairman of everything, more recently. And then the book then analyzes how leaders have exploited the international environment. Then in particular, in concluding with Xi, talks about how China has become a revisionist stakeholder. And I know Professor Jow already has an article about this, which I've read and assigned to classes, but reading it in the context of the book gives it so much more depth and I think originality in how it complements the rest of the argument. So that was great. And then the book ends by looking to the future and sadly in a very pessimistic way, not that I disagree, but I think it's pessimistic for several reasons. One, pessimistic about conflict. You conclude that Xi Jinping doesn't listen to anyone in the institutional structures he's created. He harbors these deep grievances against the West in particular. And he has seemingly delusions of grandeur almost in terms of interpreting China's own power. It's not a recipe for disaster, basically. And then it's also pessimistic in thinking about the prospects for global governance and global leadership. Really in concluding that China and the US are both beset by deep internal challenges. And neither one is really capable of taking on a global leadership position. So I completely agree with the pessimism, but it does end on a very pessimistic note. So this book is really excellent for students, policymakers, scholars alike. I'm looking forward to assigning it to my classes for students. You can assign the whole book, of course, but the way the book is written, and I really encourage you to read it, the individual chapters really stand independently. So you can assign a chapter on nationalism. You can assign a chapter on China's core interests. You can assign a chapter on revision of stakeholders or on institutionalization under Xi. So that is really important and makes it really accessible to students in classrooms. For policymakers, to really objective account of these deep changes in a really accessible way with a lot of really, really deep information and very informative. It helps us interpret Chinese foreign policy. We can interpret things through this lens. The framework provided looking at today's policies and even looking forward and helping to predict. Extremely useful for policymakers. And for scholars, as was already highlighted by Professor Schoepel at the beginning, right? I mean, this is the most up-to-date account we have now of foreign policy in the PRC. It incorporates Xi, but doesn't do so in some idiosyncratics. Xi is new in a different way. It incorporates him by enhancing understanding of past PRC foreign policy as well. So, extremely valuable book tour de force. And I recommend it to all of you. So my two broad questions based in part on things that I've researched and just things that came up a bunch in the book to me. The first one is thinking about the role of US policy. I know we're here at USIP. We have the State Department right here, so it's tough to avoid. But thanks to Carla, a couple of years ago I had the opportunity to write an article about the economic security dilemma in US-China relations. And of course, you could think not an economic, just the military security dilemma as well. But this dynamic of reactions and defensive behavior that's interpreted as offensive behavior and how each side reacts to the other. And so I wonder to what extent Xi has been responding to the US. You talk in the book about the party promoting the idea that diminishing West is trying to constrain China and won't let China rise. And that was a big theme in the 90s as well, but didn't maybe get as much traction until under Xi. And I wonder if there are US policies that could have been different that would have led to a different interpretation under Xi. So that's one question on this feedback process. I know the book is about Chinese foreign policy, not US foreign policy. I think insofar as US foreign policy comes up in the book, you have a pretty strong critique of the early Obama years and the sort of weakness of that policy. But after that, are there policies that could have shifted? Was there a way to be more accommodating of China and IMF voting chair reforms, the AAIB or in the pivot or anything else that would have changed policy or not? Maybe this was all written just by Xi. So that was one broad question. My second broad question, which I guess is really two questions, sorry, is really what is a transformational leader and in what ways is Xi transformational? So as Carla highlighted, I've done some work at the county level on leaders. I'm really interested in leadership. I think it's very clear from all sorts of qualitative and quantitative accounts that leaders matter a lot. But I think we still don't know how they matter. It's very complicated at times, right? We don't know how much it matters based on individual personalities and that sort of level of agency versus the structure of domestic politics and domestic institutions. So I guess the question then is, in Xi's case, if another leader had been selected by the party at that juncture after the global financial crisis, when we already saw this aggressive turn in Chinese foreign policy, would they have been constrained in doing many of the same things that Xi has done? So that's one level of the question. The other is, in what ways is Xi transformational? When I was a student under Mike Lampton 15 years ago, that's when I first came across the James McGregor Burns framework of transformational versus transactional. And he brought it up as explaining this transition from Mao as a transformational leader who had charismatic leadership and the ability to inspire followers to Deng, who we argued was very transactional in his ability to work within the party system, right? To make things happen. Now you're using the term somewhat differently and that's of course fine. You're using it as transforming foreign policy, which indeed Xi is doing. But then I guess my question is whether Xi himself has this effective charisma, has ideological ideas that inspire. You know, we see a ton of attention to Xi Jinping thought. We know people who are being forced to learn Xi Jinping thought, but is there anything there that inspires followers? To me, it seems like Xi's reliance on institutional change shows that he's a very transactional leader actually. And I wonder if this itself limits his strength in several domains. So I look generally more at central local relations in China and economic relations and I had the opportunity actually to write an article for your journal several years ago when we met in Banff, right? Which was looking at policy implementation under Xi at the provincial level. And I tried to argue with a co-author that policy implementation still wasn't very good. There were a lot of constraints and sort of how people actually chose to follow Xi even when his own people were put in power. And so in foreign policy, I guess the question that is, could Xi really oversee a massive about face in Chinese foreign policy? You know, in the US of course, we talk about the only Nixon could have gone to China. I wonder if only Mao could have received him, right? I mean, could Xi, she's done a lot of major changes that you document, but they've all been in sort of this assertive constrained nationalism direction. And I wonder if he's powerful enough to have the opposite response. Thank you. That was fantastic, I think. And I hope you found those comments useful and the questions very stimulating. Would you like to take any of those questions? Yeah, I can just very briefly. Xi's attitudes and Xi's policy toward the US, in fact, as you mentioned, she came to power after the financial crisis, 2009 to 2010. At that point, the nationalist confident of the Chinese elite, Chinese people was very, very high. So Xi wrote on that tie, thought that's China time arrived, and US was doomed. US was in trouble, declining. So that's how at that time, eventually he talked about the fundamental change on scene in a century, in which East is in rise, the West is in declining, especially economically. So he became so confident now China could deal with US in China terms. And that's how he reinterpreted so-called the big power, the new model of big power relationship with three principles, and no conflict, mutual respect, and win-win. Here the key was mutual respect. Each other's call, national interest, which is defined in my own mind as a bottom line of national survival. And they cannot compromise. They cannot negotiate on South China Sea, on Taiwan issue debate, all those issues. And in 2015, Juan Carlos, people talk about China overtook US economically and even technology, everything. He believed in all those things. So he was a very confrontational in a relationship with the United States during that period. But I think he changed when Trump came to office to launch a trade war, everything. Then he suddenly realized China still to a great extent, depending on the US technology, everything. But he had no way to back up. So he continued these confrontational attitudes and also part of the US. But I think since then, it deep inside, it was very insecure and felt the US is a very big threat to China. But he continued these confrontational posture. And China has since then in a big trouble. That's why now when US put the Oliver branch, he took that at this point. But I don't know how far this relationship can go because he has awakened America. Sponic moment, I think. That's what I told Chinese friend. You awakened America, America will fight. So you have to be ready. That's why I'm very pessimistic in that case because he is a dictator and these type of things are there. So during that ship, I think, I just, I'm writing an article. The title is Talk the Talk, Walk the Walk. Although they talk to each other, but the policy different. The second question you talk about if Xi Jinping is a transformational personality as agent, given all the structure, all those things, he's certainly agent, but he has his own visions and to restore China to the ancient Gloria power position. So a lot of things will not happen without Xi Jinping. So clearly one by one road. And even the artificial lands built in South China Sea. I talked to friends in China, they said when Hu Jintao was in power, a lot of people proposed to him to build those artificial islands. Hu Jintao said, no, no, we cannot do that to productive. And would be in some kind of trouble for neighboring countries on the US. 2013, just one year when Xi Jinping came to office, same people proposed to him. He's a great idea. He built that. So without Xi Jinping will not see all those kinds of initiatives from that perspective, his transformation or his own vision, whatever people talk to him, fit in vision. He'll go for it. If without Xi Jinping, Putin and China's relationship will not be that type of close at this time. He really, he's my generation. I think he's deep heart. He has that kind of admire to Russia, to Russian culture, Russian power. Putin's a strong man leadership. So these type of things, I think, makes him transformational for sure. Well, thank you both for a great start to this conversation today. I'm just gonna ask one question. I had several, David, you phrased one of my questions much better than I would. So I'm glad you got that out there. But I guess the question that I'll choose amongst those I have, and I do have many, because your book is so stimulating, is you mentioned a number of visionary leaders. That's another category, including you include Paul Guofeng, which I kind of like, but also of course, Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang. Why do they fail in the Chinese system? And do you see another visionary leader emerging in the Chinese system based on your study? Visionary leaders, they have a vision, for sure. But only with visions in the Chinese system is not enough, and you have to manipulate, you have to navigate the power. In fact, when you said that, I saw another particular distance in China. I worked with them in the 90s, the 80s. All these people have a new vision, including those with Zhao Ziyang, those people. If they were in a democratic system, not in the United States, they could be a very successful politicians and run elections and also gain followers. But the Chinese system, visions are not enough. If you cannot survive or gain power, you're either put in jail or you just do nothing. So in that case, Zhao Ziyang, I think he had vision. Hu Yaobang, they had visions, but they were overshadowed by Deng Xiaoping, his vision, and by the political system, which did not allow them to prevail in their visions. So in that case, visionary leaders, China is not short of visionary leaders. Just short of those leaders with vision and also political wisdoms to survive. So in that context, I don't know if we can see a new visionary leader emerges at this moment. And Xi Jinping, he's a visionary leader for sure. And he has tried to suppress whoever has different visions from him, whoever those people in jail. And he tries to stay in power forever, just like Mao Zedong. So I don't know if there's a new visionary leader who can emerge at a time so. Well, with that sanguine assessment, let me thank the audience for joining us, both online and here in the room. And I invite you to ask questions. And I think there is a mic that we can pass around. We have some online questions. Thank you. Thank you, Lindy. Yeah, so how might the rise of China and its great power competition with the U.S. impact the Middle East? I'm not a specialist, but from what my limited knowledge about the China's relationship with the Middle East, China has certainly tried to become global power, including an influence in the Middle East. And the mediation role between Saudis and Israel is something China has tried to do. And but I don't know how much they can do at this time. And it's very biased on the Hamas Israel conflict. Israel conflict. I was in Beijing last week. I was at the Chongyang Financial Institute. They have like this type of setting, forum, three people, me and Wu Xiaoqiu from the U.S. and a Russian guy. He came for one by one when wrote the audience, keep asking this kind of China's attitude about Hamas. I mean, they used the Chinese family that not Hamas Israel as a Palestine Israel. And the Wu Xiaoqiu, the China side person keep correcting people. It's not, Palestine is Hamas. So you can see the Chinese confusion here. So I don't know how much they can really play a role there. They are in a very kind of dedicated position on the Middle East at this time. David, do you want to respond to a question? No, that's okay. Another question that we have is on Xi's vision for China's role in its periphery. Something that you touch on and you've written extensively on in many other writings and a topic of great interest to me personally. What do you see Xi thinking about for the future, perhaps, for its periphery? I think in Xi's mind, the Tianxia, the all-on-the-haven type of idea for China's role in the so-called periphery. When China talking periphery, they have, she has a new term called the Dazhou Bien, greater periphery, not only South Asia and North Asia and South Asia, but also the West Asia and the Pacific, Oceanian Pacific. And that's for his China dream to become a global power, that's the pathway that China could become. Just like United States goes from North America, North America, South America to become a big power. So South America is America's, the U.S. backyard. So the periphery, so-called the Asia Pacific, they will not use Indo-Pacific. Asia Pacific is the backyard for China to be dominant. They always use the Zhu Dao that area to control the agenda setting in that area. But China, the most concerned China has is the U.S. in the Asia Pacific. U.S. has been there for, since World War II, has so many allies, partners. So Xi Jinping ideally would want to drive America out of this neighborhood, but I don't think he can do that. He also understands that, I think, at this moment. So he has to deal with the reality of, he has to deal with U.S. for his so-called great power and dream in the Pacific, Asian Pacific. Thank you. Any more questions? Yes, over there. And if you could identify yourself, that would be wonderful. Thanks. Hello. I'm with IRI. I'm a program officer. My name is Anne. Nice to meet you. Curious about what you think about Xi's long arm in rejecting criticism against the CCP. This is reflected in the work of United Front Department, the work that they do and overseas pulsing and all the other tactics that he had. Do you think this was needed timely in Xi's when he was in power? Or do you think he could have taken a different direction in being more of a friendly and diplomatic country? I mean, she's using United Front in overseas. Basically, the tactics he has to control the narrative of anything against the CCP? Yeah. All Chinese Communist Party leaders have used those type of Party propaganda, United Front intuitions. But Xi Jinping has enlarged, he has a very enlarged diplomacy, meaning including more intuitions into his diplomatic activities. So other than the state agencies, foreign ministry, all those commerce ministry and also military diplomacy, he has empowered the party agencies, United Front Department, Central DSR Department and also Central propaganda department to use them to, the way he used them, distinguish them from the state's diplomacy is that these agencies work on the long-term objectives of the Communist Party. State diplomacy works on daily operation of diplomacy. So that's what you talk about, try to, he thought tell China stories and also try to crack those wrong images of China to stop criticism of a Communist Party, common regime and Chinese foreign policy. That's how he used those agencies and then they put them forefront and in the U.S. and Western countries, now people talk about the China operational, an influence operation and alarmed these countries, but those agencies are still very active. Although, I will argue that this kind of alarm of course is justifiable, but it's over alarmed because these agencies, they operate primarily domestic, in a domestic front. You try to work with so-called those non-party, non-cops party, INIs, partners and domestic control. Internationally, I don't know how successful they are at this moment. Thank you for your question. I can take another one. I have a, I'm gonna, just because of the question, I have another one that I had written down that I'm gonna ask. Mao Zedong talked about power coming out of the barrel of the gun or a gun and Deng Xiaoping clearly saw economic development as the source of China's power and what do you see Xi Jinping seeing the source of China's power as where does power come from for Xi? Xi, Deng Xiaoping emphasized the legitimacy of the current party based upon economic performance and Mao Zedong used coercive power and Xi Jinping, I think, has returned to Mao's time using coercive power because he's so insecure. The security, just like you are now on the Sunshine China, everything on the security, justification, in his mind, security even more important in his overall policy making spectrum and if there's conflict between security here we are talking about regime security mostly. Of course, also national security but regime security is a top, top consideration in his mind. So there is a conflict between regime security and economic development, for example. He will choose economic security over everything and even regime security and domestic stability. He will sacrifice even stability for regime security. That's what we see today in China. I was in China. It's really not only seven in state, it's unstable. My, this trip, I was in China for five days last week, met a lot of former colleagues. The most I heard, I was so shocked, was complaining. Personally complaining and also talk about the possible unrest in China. So he is, because the fiscal situation in the local level, everything you talk about, local level is so unstable. But for him, who cares? Just my power. Whoever talked about that put in jail. That's his approach at this time. So it's a very pessimistic, also domestic, I think. Well, if I can ask a question, a follow-up question on that rather than a comment, but obviously books take a little while to come out and there's been a lot of important development since the book came out. And I think in particular, you talk a lot about nationalism and national pride and patriotism. And I think the end of zero COVID, it seems to me, and the economic downturn has shattered a lot of that patriotism. So I wonder on that side is how the relationship between Xi and this sort of assertive patriotism has shifted. And I also wonder, I mean today, Li Shang-Fu is out, right? And Qin Gang, we know these top defense minister, foreign minister have been pushed out. So we're talking about institutionalization under Xi and loyalty. Does that indicate a shift in Xi's foreign policy institutionalization? First of all, talking about nationalism. The first 10 years of Xi's reign generated a new generation of Chinese nationals. These are young people. They grew up during, it's called patriotic education and China's economic boom rise. So not like my generation had many memory of China's weakness for these people. They only saw China's pride, China's rise and also brand washed by those patriotic education. The party never made mistakes. Did not know anything about the grinding forward or the even cultural evolution. All we remember was the success of the China's economic development. And also they could not, in that case, they could not tolerate any criticism of the Communist Party and regime. In that context, the Zhe's COVID is a turning point to these so-called little pinks, Xiaofeng Hong, these people because certainly they realized their knives were so vulnerable. And especially during the pandemic, those years the Chinese economy suffered so much, they could not find jobs. The youth unemployment is so high. And so their nationalist feelings, I think, were heard during those several years. And a lot of them have a Chinese called Tang Ping. Knife flat. When I say knife flat, meaning they either just do nothing, all going abroad, try to get out of China as much, they run wrong out of China and these people. But despite this, last week was my first time to go back to China. I try to talk to people how they feel about this. But still the propaganda has been so successful, even though they suffered not several years. But they thought America is even in much worse shape. That's what I try to understand these people. So in that context, the successful information control and the propaganda, how much these people will turn their feeling of the nationalist confidence into angry or discontent against Xi's regime. I don't know how much these people will go that far. That's what I want to understand myself at this point. Instead of, in terms of Nisan Fu, Qing Gang, these type of purges by Xi Jinping, I think this is a very, very strong sign of the trouble of Xi's regimes at this moment. He could not trust anyone and he eliminated all those potential rival factions, everything, now new factions are emerging with his own people. And these people, I think, except Qing Gang's case, Nisan Fu and all those military journals, they were purged both because they are called Liang Mian Ren, two faces of people. In front of Xi, they told him how loyal we are to you and also we are capable to do what you ask us to do. But behind him, they will talk about totally different things, totally different things. So these are definitely not political rivalry. It's just he's in his mind, not loyal enough. And so he purged all those people. And so this regime that is on the mind, his authority, confidence among his own people could be on the mind lost. So this sign of big trouble coming. But I don't know how much because in the PRC history so far we have not seen any leader because of these type of problems will lose power. Mao Zedong stayed until all the time. So he could be in the same situation. Unfortunately, last week I talked to people, so many people are unhappy, but at the end of conversation I said, what we can do? Nobody can do anything at this time. You can solve it at his power, the military, the security forces, and also propaganda. He controlled everything. Nobody dares to openly challenge him. That's the problem China today. Well, we just have a few more minutes, but we have some good questions from the virtual audience and I want to put them on the table and you can pick the ones you want to answer. I mean, one of them is how to understand US-China competition in the context of the, I assume, economic interdependence between the two countries. And the second really relates to the work we do here at USIP in terms of conflict prevention. A question about whether it's possible for the US and China to collaborate at all in resolving major conflicts and of course, I think, for most on people's mind, Ukraine and the situation in the Middle East. So those are two questions. We have more, but why don't I just let you pick either one or try to tackle both quickly? I don't know. I can top these two together. Last week when I was in Beijing in that forum, at the end, I told my audience, I said I came from United States, also I came from China. So I have a dream. These two countries can work together because I benefited from this relationship. And these are two most powerful nations on earth. So if these two countries can work together, a lot of problems in today's world can be resolved. Although they work together may not resolve all the problems, but many problems could be resolved. Unfortunately, at this time, I don't see that possibility. So I see my own mission or my own type of job is to help both sides to understand the issues and find the ways to work together. On those big issues, such as Taiwan and regime, I mean, ideological conflicts and also so-called structural conflicts, rising power and incumbent power. On those issues, I don't think we can find solutions anytime soon. But other than those issues, those non-traditional security issues, economic issues, I think we can work together. In fact, the next week, we have a policy dialogue. In fact, I invite Carla to join us in Beijing. I cannot find time. But in any case, we have three sessions. One session is non-traditional security. And Oriana, I put her in that section. She emailed me, why we talk non-traditional security? And we should talk about big regional security and Taiwan issue. I said everybody is talking about those issues. Because everybody is talking about those issues, we don't find solutions on those issues. We have to talk about those issues people don't talk much, such as the drug trafficking and the fentanyl issue in the US is such a big issue here. We want China side to understand those issues. In fact, we can collaborate on those issues, economic independence and also the pandemic. All those issues, we can work together. We can put this side at least without solution at this time. And then we see how far we can go from there. Otherwise, we all emphasize the issue. We go nowhere. Thank you so much, Sui Xiang. We'll leave it there. And thank you, David, for your incisive comments. And thanks to the audience for joining us and all of your great questions. And I hope you'll stay on and enjoy a small reception outside the room. And sorry that the virtual audience can't enjoy it with us. Signing off here at USIP. Thank you very much.