 Good afternoon everyone. My name's Chris Johnson. I'm the Freeman Chair in China Studies here at CSIS. Thank you all for joining us for what I think is going to be a really spectacular talk today on Xi Jinping's sort of emerging foreign policy strategy and how we can look at his first trip abroad in that context. We're very honored of course today to have two very distinguished panelists joining us. Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski really needs no introduction, but I'll give a few highlights. He is obviously a CSIS counselor and trustee and co-chair as the CSIS advisory board. He's also a senior research professor of international relations at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University here in DC, and co-chair of the American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus and a member of the International Advisory Board of the Atlantic Council and of course had a very distinguished career in government. Dr. David Lampton, or as we call him Mike, is currently the George and Sadie Hyman Professor and Director of China Studies at CSIS. He served as the CSIS Dean of Faculty from 2004 to 2012, former President of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and past Director of China Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute and the Nixon Center among several other very distinguished positions. So without further ado, I'm going to turn the floor over to Dr. Brzezinski and we'll get going. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your kind words. I have to begin by saying that I'm conscious very much of the fact that the other two participants in this panel know infinitely more than I will ever learn about China. So I am a little bit like a student in front of them, but let me nonetheless go ahead and share some thoughts with you. First of all, regarding President Xi's foreign policy and his recent expedition, when I look at that expedition to Moscow and then to the meeting with the BRICS, I really have the sense that he's been engaged essentially in a search for Jewish strategy rather than engaging in a serious strategic undertaking. In the meeting with the BRICS, I think is lip service to a current fashion in judgments regarding international affairs because the BRICS doesn't really amount to anything as an institution or as an organization or as a shared strategic perspective. It just happens to be a number of interesting, promising, but very unequal, extremely unequal states, on the one of which is a genuine global power, for even the Soviet Union is not a genuine global power except for one factor which is not all that usable. Namely, it has a lot of tools with which to commit suicide. And that's not exactly something that you can fully base your foreign policy on. So I thought the BRICS exercise is really a waste of time, and my guess is that President Xi is not going to be spending too much dealing with that. More important was the stop in Moscow and the choice of going to Moscow first. I don't know to what an extent it really was a choice. I have a sense, but I have not reviewed it carefully. Perhaps my colleagues have, that his past schedule of reciprocal meetings involved an obligation at this stage to go to Moscow. And the Russians tried to make something out of it, quite understandably. He was the first foreign statesman ever admitted to the inside the special war-waging high command center of Soviet armed forces. And that's a special place which we have had a long time interest in and which we specifically targeted many years ago. But, of course, we didn't have him in mind in so doing. More importantly, of course, was also the fact that the Chinese renewed a number of contractual obligations with the Russians regarding the purchase of more advanced Russian weaponry. And that, of course, reflects their national interest. It also reflects Russian interest. The Russians perhaps see in it as a step towards some sort of a joint partnership vis-à-vis the outside world. But I suspect that the scope of that calculation is limited, both in case of the Russians and of the Chinese. It's an accommodation of convenience and specifically focused on some current issues to which I'll turn. The fact, however, that the Chinese buy weapons from the Russians does reflect a certain necessity for the Chinese. And it raises an issue in my mind regarding how legitimate that necessity is today. I have this in mind. Some of our NATO allies feel quite free in selling weapons to Russia. And the French particularly have sold some highly advanced weapons to the Russians. Is it really in the interest of the West to be maintaining an iron-clad boycott on the sales of weapons to China? Some other Western powers sold quite a few weapons to India. Is it really in the interest of the West to be that clear cut in terms of assisting the military programs of two major countries, one of which is viewed by the Chinese as a protagonist, potentially, and one of which, where the Chinese have a complicated relationship? I think it's something to at least think about. I would surmise that perhaps even from our own point of view, it would not be bad if the situation became more diversified. In any case, the above has been taking place in a much more important setting than these two issues, namely a rising friction in the relationship between the United States and China. And this rising friction has been taking place over the last year. It certainly involves a significant change of atmosphere and shared outlook from the joint Hu Jintao-Obama communique of January 2011, which clearly spelled out a comprehensive global partnership. There are obviously some reasons for it. To some extent, perhaps the Chinese themselves initially overstated the degree to which China is now viewed as a world power, to which its neighbors have to accommodate, and took a very hard-nosed position, both vis-à-vis the Vietnamese and the Filipinos, regarding the South China Sea issues, including some actions which could be interpreted as preemptive. I think that has been a source of some tension. And of course, the United States responded, perhaps in one case, particularly in the Filipino case, in a manner which encouraged the aggrieved party, the Filipinos, to overdo their subsequent reaction. And we had to kind of make it clear to the Filipinos that at least at this stage in history, we were not prepared to start World War III over that issue. And I think that perhaps was helpful. But the more serious problem arose, I think, as a consequence, an unintentional consequence of a very major speech delivered by the President of the United States in November of last year. I am in mind, of course, the famous pivot speech. Although the President has said that he himself never used that word, there is one, however, citation which does involve his use of that single word. But I think it's rather interesting that he doesn't feel himself committed to that word. It was, of course, endlessly interpreted by the mass media and in a fashion which, of course, was not particularly congenial to the Chinese. The Chinese, in fact, have seen it as essentially a hard-nosed formulation of an American intention to rein them in, perhaps, to surround them. And that, I think, has been a problem both for us and also for them. The speech, after all, was very sound in its fundamental assumption. The United States is, indeed, a trans-Atlantic. And I emphasize the word trans. Trans-Atlantic power. It is also a trans-Pacific power. And has been so since 1905. It might have been worthwhile to reiterate that proposition rather than to argue that we have to adjust our forces because the war in Afghanistan is coming to an end. We can now deploy more to the Far East. And as a sign of our serious intent, we will now be deploying forces in a portion of Australia. Even though, to my knowledge, at this stage, Australia is not threatened by, for example, an invasion from Papua New Guinea. So it is probably not surprising that the Chinese concluded that we must have somehow them in mind. And if one looks now at Chinese public reactions to that speech and to what's followed it, they have become rather antagonistic, in some cases rather extreme. I recently gave an interview to Renmin Minbao at their request about the overall nature of the American-Chinese relationship. And I've always been quoted by them very accurately in previous interviews. In this one, large segments of what I said were cut. And so I have checked what was cut. And what was cut was my point made in the course of the interview to the effect that both sides are to cool it and to be particularly careful of the rhetoric. And that is particularly applicable to the Chinese mass media because the Chinese mass media are not known for taking positions contrary to the Chinese government. And therefore, one can view what they say as somewhat authoritative and not as comparable to some statements by American mass media. The comparison really is to official American statements. And here are some quotes, just a few quotes, for example, from Renmin Minbao in relationship to the President's speech. America's overall goal is to secure total control of the Eurasian continent. And the purpose of clearing the perimeter is to pave the way for ultimately subduing China and Russia. Another quote in the United States is trying to exclude China's economic interests and political influence from Africa, choke off China's vital energy supplies in the Middle East, and find and support countervailing forces around China. In East Asia, it is going straight for the vital points of China's security and development. Judging by the historical experience of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, containment will surely be accompanied by murder. This is from the official organ of the Chinese Communist Party. A couple of more examples. Liaowu Wang, I think that's a military paper, isn't it? Or what is it? Intellectual paper. The strategic objective of the United States is to ensure its leading status in the entire Asia-Pacific region, build a trans-Pacific order centered on the United States, and continue its Pacific dominance. The key link here is to sow discord in the good neighborly, friendly, and cooperative relations between China and countries on the periphery. Here is an item from the military journal, Jifang Junbao. We China should cast away that pacifism and romanticism, which will easily evolve into capitulationism and the pressure and threat. We should make full struggle preparation for war and war preparation, only by doing so can China maintain a longer period of peace and development. Now, all of these items were omitted from the interview in which I was pointing out that one of the tasks that behooves both of us, China-America, is to contain the language, to contain the level of debate, and that behooves us on the official level, that behooves the Chinese. And I made the further point that in the case of the Chinese, it may not be why it's even for the Chinese government to so arouse its public opinion that Chinese nationalism will become extreme and force itself, impose itself, even on the rational calculations of the Chinese government, so that we have a shared responsibility here, in effect, to manage the relationship responsibly. Now, all of that, however, doesn't lead me to some drastic conclusions. I think we are at a stage in which it is important for both of us to undertake efforts to calm the situation down. We have that obligation, for example, in the Chinese-Japanese discourse over the Ions. Some recent statements by our closest friend in the Far East, Japan, have been quite belligerent, especially to what might happen if some Chinese were to land on the islands, and how military action may be taken by the Japanese in reaction. It's a kind of statement, which is not helpful publicly, because it then compels the Chinese to assert themselves in equally categorical terms, and an escalation can take place. So there is an obligation here, it seems to me, on us, but also on the Chinese, but also on the Chinese, to try to act in a manner that contains the problem. We have seen some signs of Chinese cooperation with us on North Korea, the public position by the Chinese to the effect that no country in the region has the right to plunge the region into disorder, was clearly pointed at the North Koreans. I am struck by the fact, incidentally, that the North Koreans, after weeks and weeks of blustering and threatening, have all of a sudden quietened down, and I wouldn't be surprised if there was a private communication from the Chinese to the North Koreans, not shared with us. So we would not be viewed as somehow or other influencing the Chinese to act on their own, but acting on their own, saying to the North Koreans, there are limits to what we can do for you and have no illusion regarding the consequences of your deliberately plunging this part of Asia into a conflict. The consequences for you will be dire, and we might take steps to make sure that you are not able to do it. I think something of that sort might very well have transpired. Of course, all of that requires deliberate guidance for the future, and here I would like to end simply by quoting to you from a rather interesting analysis published quite recently, a statement by the newly appointed Deputy Chief of Staff of the People's Liberation Army, General Xi, who lays out a longer-term strategic vision for the security of China and its military relationship with the United States. It's a tough-minded statement, but a very modern outlook, somewhat not unsimilar to our own statements on national security issues, but up to date, focusing on the critical issues and differentiating between tactics and strategy, strategy and geo-strategy and so forth. And in it, he even has some passages that struck me as remarkably reminiscent to my recent book, which of course was gratifying for me to read, but the point that he makes as a critical point in asserting China's ability to be a great military power as time unfolds itself is one with which I agree, and I think it's quite striking that he says it so explicitly. Let me read to you what he said. If we only stare at the issues at the forefront over the next three to five years, points of disagreement will exceed the points we have in common, talking about China and America. If we focus on the next one or two decades, the points we have in common may exceed our points of disagreement. If our eyes can see a little further, we may find even more things in common. That seems to me to be a rather deliberate reiteration of the primacy in the Chinese view of a stable and over time, essentially a cooperative accommodating relationship between America and China. And I think this is exactly something that we should be conscious of also in our definition of the relationship. And this is why I do hope that before too long, serious efforts will be made to reignite a bilateral dialogue at the highest level between President Obama and President Xi, which will reaffirm what was said in the January 2011 communique and go beyond it in keeping this suggestion, namely that we start looking further and further ahead as the world changes, and in which our relationship is so critical to global stability. Thank you. Well, thank you for all coming. Thank you to CSIS and you, Chris, and Dr. Brzezinski. I didn't find anything I disagreed with, and I'd emphasize a couple points. We didn't collaborate on these comments, but I think there's substantial agreement, although I make different points. I would agree with the proposition that I'm not too worried about the BRICS as a geostrategic consideration here. I also think that China-Russia relations have intrinsic difficulties with them, so I'm not all that worried about that either. And I would certainly agree that while our interests across the Pacific are getting greater and greater and we ought to devote more comprehensive attention to that, I think the way the pivot was rolled out was pretty effective in heightening Chinese anxiety, and to some degree we're seeing the blowback from that. So if those were some of the implications of what you said, I certainly agree. The task, as I saw it, was to talk a little about, really, where I see Chinese foreign policy going in the wake of the 18th Party Congress, of which the trip is certainly a one-part. And I think what I have to say, I even found as I was preparing for this, I was a little more sober and concerned than I've been in a number of years, and I had to keep reminding myself we're talking the strategic and focusing on military and military-related issues. We've got to keep in mind this relationship is much more comprehensive, and there are lots of other dimensions about which we could be much more positive. I'm not going to focus on those, but I think it's important to just remember what some of them are. Our trade just passed in 2011, half a trillion dollars that obviously we've got financial interdependence during the financial global financial crisis. China was really quite helpful, actually essential in the management of that crisis, very much to everybody's gain. Certainly, just looking at students, I think we're probably over 200,000 Chinese students here, and we're not even counting those in primary school and high school at that. So certainly, that's great. Governors from all the states are going over to China soliciting foreign direct investment in their states and congressmen, combined for it in terms of their districts and states, and so forth. So that, I think, is all to the good. We've got government-to-government agreements between agencies all the way from the EPA to the Coast Guard, and so forth. So the basic point I want is I'm going to be talking in the zone that's the most conflictual in U.S.-China relations and about which I am very concerned, but there is a broader relationship, and I think a total discussion needs to make that clear. To be frank, there's been a developing strategic character to U.S.-China relations that I find extremely worrisome, and I think has been exacerbated in some sense by what's happened since the 18th Party Congress. I would have liked to have been much more positive coming out of the trans-IC out of the 18th Party Congress, but I find it difficult to do that, and let me just sort of overall summarize what I think, if I had to kind of paint the four or five characteristics of the Chinese diplomatic and security strategy, what I think the game plan is. First of all, I think the truism that China remains most concerned and its leaders most concerned about domestic development and maintaining an international environment conducive to development. I think that is the key underlying, lining point. I think the Chinese are however pursuing some policies that are not going to produce that international environment, and that is where the rub is, but I think there is a consensus over the primacy of internal economic development and the need to have as Pacific, meaning peaceful international environment as possible. I don't think that point's been tossed out by any means, but I think there is a big but, and I base what I'm saying on both what I'm reading, the recent defense white paper. I did some interviews in China in September and again in January, and so there, and also an interesting interview by Qi Zhenhua, the gentleman that Dr. Brzezinski mentioned, the deputy chief of staff for intelligence and foreign affairs for the Ministry of Defense for the People's Liberation Army, and basically I think they are trying to establish regime legitimacy in the eyes of their people by standing up for Chinese dignity to not put a very fine point on it, and that the regime feels it needs to consolidate its credentials both with its own people and with the People's Liberation Army. And so there's going to be a period of time which we are living through in which the Chinese are emphasizing those two tasks at some cost to their potential peaceful external environment and at some potential cost to both their neighbors and the United States. In other words, domestic consolidation of the new regime is the priority of the year. Now I think they have in mind after they've accomplished that, they then are going to move back towards more familiar kind of foreign policy. I think that's more than hope. I think there's some analysis that lies behind this. So in the short run, I try to think of a little phrase that I think captures the spirit as well as the content of what the Chinese are doing, and I call it show the steel, meaning the military kind of enhanced deterrence, enhance our credibility, and show that you have diplomatic options. In other words, China is trying to establish the regime a sense of credibility that will enhance its capacity to operate in the future, deter future challenges. But this is in a sense, I was interested, Dr. Brzezinski, you said much of what Xi Jinping had to say and what you've been reading is rather modern in its phraseology. I would say also if we were trying to think of an American analog for the sense that the Chinese have, I think it's something we would recognize as peace through strength. I think that's what they're trying to establish right now. Now the white paper that was just issued this month says about Chinese military and security goals build a strong national defense and a powerful armed forces which are commensurate with China's international standing. Well, if China's already the number two economy and headed towards the number one, at least aggregate terms, this raises the issue of what is enough in terms of the definition of military capability. Now, once you've established this credibility at home and established deterrence abroad, and I think there's the next part of this strategy, and that is China is in a parallel track trying to develop a diplomatic alternative and a way to develop consensus while China is taken seriously. And I think it's really this new type big power relationship. And so I think the hope is that China, among China's leaders, we're going to enhance our credibility, our deterrence. We're going to show the steel. We're going to show we have backbone. We're going to get the support of the PLA. We're going to get domestic support. But we are going to turn to in our foreign policy towards a more cooperative, familiar face of the last decades. The problem, it seems to me, is they may so alienate the environment both near and at greater distance, including the United States, that that day of diplomacy is going to be either pushed off or much more difficult. But I don't think China has abandoned its basic strategy, but it has placed importance, I think, primacy in the next year or two on its own domestic consolidation. Now, let me give you some evidence, evidence over the last six months. I'm not going back into the 2009 and 2010, but just since, basically, since the 18th Party Congress. In January of this year, Xi Jinping wrote a piece for actually CSIS or CNA sent it out, I'm sorry. But it was a very interesting article written by the Deputy Chief of Staff of the PLA. This isn't a retired officer. This is a guy with responsibility. And I agree was big that what he says is very interesting and not all respects negative by any means. But he wrote for the Central Party School, and he said something that fits with this idea that I just conveyed to you. We need to make relevant countries. I read U.S. for relevant countries here, and maybe Japan, understand that we have a strategic resolve to use the necessary means to defend our sovereignty. That we have the firm will to defend national interests from being violated and cause them these certain countries to abandon the idea of taking chances. It's a kind of peace through strength and deterrence kind of notion. We've got to show people we're serious. I think this is a very powerful motive. Secondly, in just the White Paper just issued this month, it goes farther in authoritatively identifying the U.S. as part of, if not a major part, of the problem. It says some country, meaning the United States very clearly, strengthened its Asia Pacific military alliances has expanded its military presence in the region and frequently makes the situation more tense. On the issues concerning China's territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests, some neighboring countries are taking actions that complicate and exacerbate the situation. And Japan is taking making trouble over the Diaoyu Islands. Major powers are vigorously developing new and more sophisticated military technologies including space and cyber. So once again this kind of sentence of multi-dimensional threat the U.S. with a, let us say from their point of view, not constructive overall strategy and China has to stand up and be credible in the face of this. In my interviews in September and again in January, it's very clear to me, it was very clear to me if you ask well what are they doing on the Nansha or the Scarborough reef or now Senkaku Diaoyu Islands. It seems to me their basic approach is to say if you, meaning the Vietnamese or the Filipinos or the Japanese upset the status quo, we're going to define a new status quo and it's going to be less satisfactory to you. And I think we can, we can see this. This is showing the steel. We're not looking for trouble but if we find it we're going to establish a new status quo we can defend with our own security-minded community and with our population. So I think that is a clear piece of evidence here. If you look at Xi Jinping's trip abroad to Russia and Tanzania and South Africa and the Republic of Congo, indeed his next trip may be to Central Asia. But this is the part of the strategy of saying, you know, the U.S., the slot phrase is the U.S. is the most important single bilateral relationship. I think the Chinese still believe that. But the more they say it of course, they feel they lose a little credibility and leverage. So I think they're trying to show they have some diplomatic options out there. I agree with this big. I don't see the bricks. And one of my interviews said, you know, sometimes people just tell you the truth. And this, I take careful notes, as Carla will note in our many meetings in China. Xi Jinping is following these lines, I was told, tough with Japan, tough with the United States, closer to Russia. And once he consolidates his power, we'll be better to the U.S. So I think there's this kind of short-run, long-run kind of view that they also have. There's also increased emphasis, if you look at the White Paper that was just issued this month, much more emphasis on deterrence, which in a way I take to be a proactive. For many years, we've always said the Chinese are reactive. They wait for something to happen, and then they have a pow-wow and try to figure out what to do. I think China is proactively looking at places that it could be challenged and thinking how to deter it. And the White Paper, I think, was very clear. It said, resolutely deter proactive action which undermines China's sovereignty, security, territorial integrity, and firmly safeguard China's core national interest. So a much more vigorous assertion of deterrence is not waiting and then figuring out what to do, but figuring what threats you might face and trying to create a calculus in the mind of the other that will inhibit them from doing it in the first place. I think another part of this is really to, on the part of Xi Jinping, differentiate himself from Hu Jintao. And I have the feeling he sent out people to basically say, I'm not Hu Jintao. One of my interviewees said, you know, Xi is the kind of person that if you're tough, he'll be tougher. If you're soft, he can be softer, right? So don't mess with this guy. It's almost like when we get new presidents from time to time, the first crisis is always the most dangerous because they don't want to look like they can be pushed around. I think this isn't entirely alien to the way the Chinese may be looking at this. So if what we're seeing is this kind of strategy to establish credibility both in the international system and at home and with the military and then a hope to move towards a more diplomatic future once you've accomplished that, then the last issue, and I'll get off after just briefly addressing that, is so what's going on in China that accounts for this beyond just the leadership change itself? And I have about five little factors I'll just kick out here. One is that China's got more resources to do whatever it wants than it's ever had in modern history. And in case you think that's sort of an imposed construct, the white paper just issued this month said, China's overall national strength has grown dramatically. That isn't what the Chinese used not very long ago be saying. They always emphasized their problems. And now we've got that. Another, and I think I believe misjudgment, I think we are a very resilient society. But you know, Qi Zhen Guo in the remarks I mentioned, he says the position of the United States and Western forces is on the decline. I think that's a on multiple levels and not a very productive way to be thinking about this. But I think it's there. Public opinion and the foreign policy talk to anybody, particularly in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs constantly talks about the importance of public opinion as a constraint on their ability to accommodate. Indeed, most people in the foreign ministry, if they're candid, say we don't have as much cloud in the system as we've had at many points in the past. Finally, I think if you're just trying to understand what's going on in China, I think there has been very substantial change in the political system over time. That doesn't mean toward, it doesn't mean democratic, but it does mean change. And the way I would characterize that is that basically Chinese leaders are weaker with respect to each other than they used to be. They're weaker with respect to society than they used to be. The bureaucracy and society are more divided and pluralized and these somewhat less weaker leaders are unable to fully control as they would like this pluralization. And social groups are becoming more empowered, meaning capacity to have talented people, have money, have information. So you have a more powerful society, weaker leaders, and greater division in society. And so I think this strategy that I've described has some bearing or has some bear some relationship to these fundamental changes. Now, I think China wants to get to the long run, China's leaders. I think they want to have that discussion about a new type of big power relationship. But what is the new big power relationship? It's one where you cooperate with us, we share responsibility in the world, and you respect our interests on an equal basis. In other words, they're trying to establish a new status quo that reflects the prerogatives of a stronger China. And the question that really is for us is can we live with that? Thank you. Okay, some very thoughtful comments. And before we go to the floor, and I'm sure you guys are very eager to question our panelists as am I, and some really excellent remarks. Let me just add a few thoughts of my own just based on what I just heard. I think something to bear in mind, and I'm really glad that it's big that you highlighted these things that are appearing in the Chinese media. Because oftentimes you get the impression that the Chinese sometimes feel that one of their greatest sort of secret weapons, if you will, is Chinese, the language that no one in the outside world is actually reading Chinese and paying attention to what's being said in their domestic media, and so on. And so it can be quite shocking, I think, to them sometimes when Western people show them these things or acknowledge that they understand what's being said. That said, I'm less concerned, I think, by the overall tone of this, because what I looked to is especially at the 18th Party Congress was something that I thought was very significant, which was this idea again of a reaffirmation in the key documents of the 18th Party Congress of the idea of a period of strategic opportunity for China. This is a very sort of fundamental strategic guideline that has been around in their system validated by multiple party congresses now. And of course implicit in this idea of a period opportunity through 2020 is that China calculates that at the end of the day they have a benign external security environment that will allow them to focus primarily on their domestic economy and on their domestic development. And as such, for whatever commentary comes out about the pivot or rebalancing and its containment orientation and so on, it suggests to me that fundamentally China still concludes that that external security environment is benign. And this is very important because if they conclude that the external security environment is not benign, then we have a problem because in my sense that's when you start to see a race to the bottom in terms of competing interests and military rivalry emerging in the region. So big picture, I think we're in pretty good shape. I agree entirely with what Mike just said regarding domestic consolidation as the number one priority for this year for Xi Jinping. Anything that he does on the foreign sort of circuit, if you will, will be primarily designed to help him with that process of consolidation. And I'm also glad that both of my colleagues took the time to sort of look at and spend a lot of time talking about what we see in these key sort of domestic pieces of media that are put out. The one thing that is reassuring to me as a longtime China analyst in that with all the societal change that Mike talked about, the official media is still the official media. And in fact, it can be quite comforting as an analyst looking at that and trying to understand what they're talking about this. And I think what was really striking to me in the sort of coverage of Xi Jinping's initial foreign tour abroad was actually a piece that appeared in the overseas edition of People's Daily on April 5th. And frankly, they basically came out and it was the first effort in my mind to start defining Xi Jinping thought for lack of a better term. And that's striking for a couple of reasons. One, it's amazing to me that for a leader who had just literally become president two weeks before that they were already putting trial balloons up in this direction. It says something to me about the speed with which Xi Jinping is consolidating power within the system, which I think is very important for all of us as outside observers to understand. Secondly, as interesting as the kind of emphasis on a new style of great power relations has been, especially with regard to vis-a-vis with this U.S. Sino-U.S. relations, what was striking to me in this piece was it talked more about great power diplomacy rather than a new style of great power relations. And this phrase of great power diplomacy is quite interesting. This is something that Jiang Zemin used a little bit at the tail end of his tenure in the late 1990s. And I'm quite confident, although Mike will correct me if I'm wrong, that it wasn't used at all during Hu Jintao's period. And now it's back. And that's quite interesting. And even more interesting to me is the way that it's being defined now in the Xi era as compared to how it was defined in the Jiang era. In that earlier area, there was an idea of China should act as a great power when it is capable of doing so, but very much being mindful of overall U.S. supremacy in the international system. In the current context, as it was defined by this piece quite bluntly, it noted that new style great power relations or great power diplomacy is a function of a relationship of equality among the major powers. And it named the United States and Russia quite specifically. And I think that signals a fundamental shift. It speaks to what Mike was just talking about, about this idea of respect and acknowledgement of China's growing global rise and influence. And then a quick point on this idea of the bureaucracy and the weaker leaders and so on. And I think this is something we're really going to have to watch, because I think Xi Jinping appears to be signaling so far as something quite fundamental. My sense is Hu Jintao was more than willing to be sort of almost pushed around, if you will, by the bureaucracy on many major foreign policy issues. I think Xi Jinping so far and what he's been doing and saying has been trying to signal, I'm the party secretary. I'm the boss. And I make decisions about what we do, on these sort of things. And I'll listen to you as advisors, but I'm going to be the one who's setting the policy. And I think we've seen several instances where either through bureaucratic assignments and the way things have shaped out of following the leadership transition or from statements that he's made, he's sent a very strong signal to the party, especially, but also the broader bureaucracy, that I'm the leader. And I think he's trying to redefine and claim back, claw back some of that loss of authority, if you will. And then the other theme that I think we should all watch very carefully as he develops his foreign policy is to kind of paraphrase James Carvel, it's the party stupid. Xi Jinping is taking steps to sort of re-energize the party's control within the system. And I think this is extending into the foreign affairs sector as well. We haven't had, I don't think, formal confirmation of this yet, but the idea that it looks very likely that a different official will come in, Wang Huning will come in as the head of the party's foreign affairs office. So, Yang Jieqiu, who's now the state counselor, will not wear both of those hats in the same way that his predecessor, Daibing Guo, did. That will be very significant. They're taking a bullet bureau level official and putting him in charge of the party's official foreign affairs think tank. That says something to me about how Xi Jinping thinks about the party's role in shaping foreign policy. So with that, I'll end my comments and we'll open it to the floor. And please follow the standard CSIS rules, which are to identify yourself clearly and please keep your comments to a minimum and ask a question. We'll go right to the middle there first. Thank you. My name is Dong Huiyu with China Review News Agency of Hong Kong. My question is for Dr. Brzezinski. According to the declassified document that was published by the State Department yesterday, there were differences and even in findings within the court administration. So yesterday State Department published a declassified document from 1977 to 1980 about the U.S.-China relations. So I mentioned the history and you are the key policymaker to push the formal diplomatic relations with China, even though within the administration there were arguments that U.S.-Soviet Union reconciliation be the priority. So looking around the situation and global reality today, how would you see the U.S.-China-Russia triangle relations? Are you concerned about that China may align with Russia to balance the United States? Thank you. If I was a Russian leader, I would be a little more concerned about Russia's status in that relationship. I don't think that it is the national ambition of Russia to become, to put it very crudely, China's satellite. In the larger triangular relationship with the United States. The fact of the matter is that outside the nuclear arsenal, in which the Russians have enormous advantage over the Chinese, but an advantage that's really not politically usable, except in a catastrophic suicidal war, in most of the other aspects of national power, the Chinese are now considerably ahead of Russia. So it may be at this stage a transient arrangement of convenience with some economic significance to it, but in my judgment it is not a major shift in the distribution of global power, nor does it involve any particularly enduring new arrangement. From the Chinese point of view, the Chinese know very well that their own well-being depends in the final analysis on a relationship with the United States that jointly contributes to global stability, and particularly to economic and financial stability. Russia is not a player in that. Insofar as access to Russian natural resources is concerned, the Chinese know they can have it if they can pay for it, because the Russians are very anxious to sell. In terms of demographic dynamics, they know very well that the Russians feel very weak about their position in the Far East. So it is a relationship which I think is tactically perhaps of some significance, but in my judgment it is not a relationship that is capable of transforming the fundamental realities, and the most basic reality is that the American-Chinese relationship now is an interlocking relationship in which significant China's judgments, by one or the other side, adversely affects the other side. Let me just add to that real quickly, and I agree 100% with all those points, and just to add one or two of my own. I think if you look at Xi Jinping's visit to Russia, actually, you can make the case that for what it was designed to do, it almost backfired in some key ways, and especially the fact that Chinese happened to be in Beijing when this was happening. Chinese state television is arguing that a weapons deal had been signed as part of the agreement, and then the Russians come out the next day and deny that this is true. And having that been such a sort of underpinning of the Russia, that and energy as the two key pieces of that bilateral relationship, to me it ended up telegraphing the very serious mutual suspicion between the two sides and the relationship, and likewise even on the energy deal, what do they have at the end of the day? They have an agreement to perhaps sign an agreement by the end of this year, and as Dr. Brzezinski just highlighted, it's going to be all overpriced, which it normally is, and that issue is going to be hard to resolve. Can I just say, I don't want to drive excessive number of nails into this coffin here that we're building, but in any case, I think there are a couple of things. The Russians have shown reluctance to have FD, Foreign Direct Investment, from China in key areas. That speaks volumes. Certainly the Russian military over time has been ambivalent about selling weapons to a country that has such an extensive boundary and has the history that that boundary has. If you've ever been out in the Russian Far East, you see an awful lot of Koreans and Chinese, and that's not lost on Moscow. That's about, what, 10 times the home's away from that. So I think there's just a strategic imbalance, this membrane along the Halong River, that the river boundaries there. I mean, you've got a million or two million max, three million Russians in that part, and you've got a hundred million Chinese just across this membrane, and you've had disputed territory in the past. So, you know, I guess I basically think that America structurally ought to be able to have better relations with either of them than they can have with each other, I think, in some way. In the back there. Yes, I'm Dr. Sam Hancock of Emerald Planet, Emerald Planet TV, and picking up on this theme, and as any of the three of you, the notion of energy security in China, you know, they're going to almost the entire continent of Africa, dealing in Southeast Asia and even into South America, looking for secure energy sources, primarily from the petrochemical side and fossil fuels, but yet they're very aggressively going after renewables as far as solar and wind energy, among others. What do you see as the policy or collaboration between the United States, China, even Europe, in these areas that would bring global stability, which is one of the key factors of what China is actually looking for, so they don't feel threatened as far as access to some of the fossil fuels in the Middle East and the African continent. And thank you for being here. But let me comment just on one aspect of it, and perhaps my colleagues can be more informative than I. I think the Chinese at this stage are quite worried about what is happening in the Middle East more than anything else. Africa, Latin America, these are longer term targets of opportunity, and I think the Chinese are doing pretty well on their own, and I don't think they feel particularly fearful of our ability to freeze them out, and they feel reasonably confident about their ability to compete with us, and that's perfectly normal. The Middle East, I think, worries the Chinese. I think the Chinese are uneasy about the overall situation in the Middle East, dynamically unstable, but they're also worried about U.S. policy in the Middle East, namely that it contributes to this dynamic instability by being either short-sighted or overly inclined to rely perhaps on military solutions to long-term political and historical problems. I have in mind more specifically in this instance the question of Syria, but of course in the background Iran looms large, and the Chinese have a very big interest in that. But on Syria, for example, we took the position from the moment of the crisis. The moment the crisis started, we took the position at the highest level publicly through the words of the President, Assad must go. That was the first explicit U.S. policy response. Now it just so happens that it was not really a dictation. It really was a wish because there was no policy to make it happen, and there was good reason for us not to have the policy because how would you enforce a statement like this unless you're prepared to invade Syria? And the more closely we have looked at it, the more we have come to realize that the situation in Syria is extremely complex and grave, and with enormous potential for spilling over into the Middle East as a whole. So our ability to really get involved is limited. Nonetheless, we persisted in our approach, tried to force through a UN Security Council vote, and since the Chinese deigned not to follow our instructions and prevented the resolution from going through, we then publicly stated through a senior U.S. government official that the Chinese position on this subject has been infantile and disgusting, not exactly an invitation to try to work out a joint approach. So I think the Chinese have do some concerns, but they're specifically oriented right now to the Middle East, and they stem less from antagonism towards us, per se, strategic antagonism regarding the long-range problems of the Middle East, but more from considerable concern that perhaps we don't really have a realistic policy but are dug in for a variety of international and domestic reasons into a policy that makes it very difficult for a larger international response to be mounted. I think another thrust of your question, if I understood correctly, is that energy is broadly speaking in an area of cooperation in the U.S., which we've spent quite a bit of time talking about tensions, and I would just note that the SED under Paulson and now the S&ED have focused on this as an area of cooperation. We're making some progress, I think, on carbon sequestration and so forth, so it is an area where I think we're cooperating. Also, I just happened to be working with a colleague on a project on nuclear power plant construction in China, and of course Westinghouse, Toshiba, and so on are involved in building several plants there. It's actually, I think most Americans would be surprised, the magnitude and the depth of nuclear cooperation between the United States and China. I think that's all to the good. Just in terms of China's strategy, I think it's got a sort of a three prong strategy. One is geographic diversification, a geographic diversification of the energy sources, and so you see them operating in Latin America, obviously Africa, the Middle East, Russia. There's no area that's too problematic for China not to be working with, and then transport diversification, pipelines, new shipping routes involving Burma and pipelines, rail transportation, as well as ship mooring through the regular sea lanes, and then also diversification of the kinds of energies. So, you know, solar, wind, biogas, natural gas and fracking, and all of this. So I think this is a really important area to cooperate in its own economic sense, not to mention the climate change. And I do think there is an area in the climate change where the United States and China can cooperate, and China does have a useful concept of reducing the energy intensity of its GDP. So less energy consumed in generating GDP, I think, is a way, a framework, at least, to begin about thinking about cooperation. Yeah, I would just add real briefly that I think this is an area, climate change especially, is an area where we are seeing how the domestic in China drives the foreign, right? And if you look at the behavior in Copenhagen several years ago on the climate change process, and now that we have established a new working group between the two sides on climate change, I think a lot of this is being driven by the pollution situation in China and the public reaction to that, and the pressure that is building on the leaders to show that they're doing something about it. And that opens an opportunity which hopefully the U.S. side will, will grab onto. Hi, Chen Weihua, China Daily. Yeah, I want to go back to this catchphrase you, I mean Dr. Langshun talked a little bit about a new type of big power relationship, which President Xi today in Beijing mentioned again to Dr. Kissinger and Hank Paulson. How, I mean, do you think the Obama administration should interpret and respond and react to this call from Mr. Xi? The other is a really, you know, question, you know, some argue that the problem of the relationship today is because there is no one in the Obama administration, someone like you and Hank Paulson kissing you that make Chinese feel comfortable. Is that true? In general, I think it's important for us to engage in a serious dialogue with the Chinese, which goes beyond just nice formulations, shared dreams or common purposes, China rising, global harmony, and so forth. Those are very nice. I think, however, we have to realize that we have here at stake something which, if it works out well, will be historically constructive and without precedent, namely two powers, one rising, one already at the top in a way engaging in some degree of collaboration. But if we don't reach that kind of level of partnership as a serious enterprise, which has to be spelled out concretely and not just in terms of adjectives, we run the risk of having a very complicated situation on the world scene. And what perplexes me a little bit in terms of China, and in that respect, a little more so than in the case of America domestically, is what I sense to be the relatively high susceptibility of the Chinese public to become suddenly mobilized by intensely nationalistic feelings. If things go wrong, then there is the surge of public reaction, which is connected to some extent with the new pride, but also with a sense of historical mistreatment by the West, a sense of grievance, and the combination of pride and grievance produces really kind of highly intensely emotional reactions. And we saw that already a little bit in the last year and a half in the Chinese relationship with the Japanese, where Chinese masses, not the government, but the masses, set the pace and the government had to cool things down because the pressure of the public became so strong. And that in turn, in my judgment, is related to the potential vulnerability of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, if things don't work out that well. You know, what is the Chinese ruling Communist Party? It is essentially a bureaucratic organization which subscribes to the slogan communism, but is engaged in national development very successfully so far, but also with a high degree of personal financial advantage for the leading echelons of that organization. It's perfectly right. It looks a little bit like the Republican Party in the United States. But, you know, is that strong enough? Is it good enough? And here what interests me in this context is the possible connection between whatever you mentioned, volatile nationalism, and if the party begins to fail in its ability to manage things, the rise of the military as an instrument of national will, national pride, national consolidation, national aspirations. Because if you read, for example, the statement that I was quoting from by General Chi, it's not just a military statement. You just read that carefully. It's a political statement which deals with grandeur politics. It deals with global trends. It defines China's position in that context. I have to say, I'm not the student of China, and maybe my colleagues will contradict me, but when I look back 10, 20, 30 years ago, I don't see Chinese top military figures engaging public statements like this one. This could have been a statement, not just of a rising officer in the general staff who probably would be the next chief of staff. It could have been the statement of the prime minister. It could have been, in parts, a statement of the president. So there is this military nationalism nexus in China's future. That's a potential. And that could be highly, highly disruptive to international affairs and to the American-Chinese relationship. To address more of the detail of the whole slogan, a new type of major power relationship, I want to make two points. First of all, there seems to be a feeling among the Chinese that the United States at the official level hasn't, as explicitly as apparently some in China would like, you responded. Actually, I've gone back and looked. The U.S. has been consistent and favorable about talking about this general concept. And President Obama told then President Hu, and I believe is mid at the G20 meetings in Los Cabos that he accepted. Security adviser Donilon gave a speech at the Asia society. It was very clear that we thought this was positive. And there ran a whole sequence of people, including the Liangguang Lie, chief of staff, visit here. Anyway, there's been a lot of discussion. Everybody agrees it's a great idea to talk about. But this gets to the point it was just made. The contents a little lacking to say almost nonexistent. And if I were just to throw out about three bullet points on what I think the content might the next step in trying to specialize in content is certainly building local level economic ties and increasing economic interdependence between the two societies. That would probably be step one. Step two was implied in the question and Dr. Brzezinski is too modest to say. But in any case, this relationship has worked best in my view when somebody is clearly in charge. And I don't think that was necessarily the way I would have characterized the first Obama administration. It wouldn't be the way I would have characterized the first Clinton administration actually. Second one, he did better in that regard in my view. So get somebody in charge, better management of the relationship, meaning more coherence. Also, we've got to manage and Dr. Brzezinski suggested this third party management. We helped on the Taiwan issue in 2003 and thereafter when Chun Shui Ben was pushing the limits. Let's put it that way. We've just now we're hopeful that China least secretary carries hopeful that China's pushing North Korea. That's what needs to happen when Japan gets a little over the top from our interest point of view. We need to be a little, let's see, clear in our annunciation of our interest. So better third party management. Certainly we need better crisis management in military to military. And I noticed General Dempsey just met Wuxi Jinping and there were a lot of the right words there. But let's see what happens. I think we need. So any case, I think you can give content to this idea in a meaningful way. And I hope the next stage of our dialogue will be to do just that. Okay, you have to leave now. Dr. President, one more question or one more? Okay. We'll take one more. Thank you. I'm Dan Bob with Sasaka Peace Foundation, USA. My question is about Japan-China relations specifically about the Senkakus-Diayu problem. Given some of the points that were made about the nationalism in China, the need for the leadership in China to sort of show how tough it is, coupled with a more conservative Japanese government that by all appearances after an election coming in July may focus more on security issues and territorial issues rather than the economy. There are many ways that I could see how this problem could ratchet up even beyond where it is now, but I wonder if the speakers could provide any suggestions on how this might be ratcheted down? Well, I made a suggestion semi-seriously, but semi-seriously means that it was not entirely realistic, but was designed to point in a certain direction. I made a suggestion when I had the opportunity of talking to some senior figures actually from Japan and then from China separately, namely that if neither side takes full charge of what is happening and is forced to respond to the actions of the other, we have a high probability of escalation and of something unpredictable happening, and then anything goes, emotions get unleashed and depending on what specifically transpires, it could become messy, messy for each. And I said why, you know, given the problems that you have in addressing this issue, because public opinion is engaged and deeply so, profound feelings, you have to go through certain motions, but on the other hand, you have to realize that the other side may be driven into a situation in which collision then occurs. Why don't you sort of apply the kabuki dance formula, namely you engage in certain well-timed demonstrations of your interest and presence, but in such a fashion that neither your ships nor your planes are there at exactly the same time, but quite deliberately at times when you know they won't be there and they know you won't be there. And this way you can demonstrate to your public your continued commitment to the assertion of what you consider to be your legitimate rights, but at the same time you minimize what is otherwise a serious risk. And then, of course, both sides have to take into account the fact that the United States has taken public to the position, and that this is an issue in which the United States does have some residual responsibilities of semi-juridical type international law, and that we don't want to be forced in this situation in which we are forced to react, but pending our presence in that position for the foreseeable future, one cannot expect a one-sided resolution of it to the benefit of one or the other side. So it's, I think, in the interest of both, in a sense, to dampen it down. It's hard to tell from what one observes whether it is happening. I have a sense that on the oratorical level there has been some decline, but nonetheless some gestures are still taking place. And then there is the volatile element, which may not be subject to control by either government fully, including even the Chinese, which is the fishermen themselves. It's not all that easy to police a large number of fishermen who do these things regularly, purely for the sake of economic benefit and personal survival, so that some incidents may be really the reaction of spontaneous interaction of variety of dynamic factors. I agree with what was just said, might have a little more specificity. I think it was in the New York Times today. I read all three papers at the same time, but I think it was the New York Times. They had a remarkable picture of Japanese and Chinese ships passing and what's it seemed, I don't know, with a telephoto lens, in dangerously close proximity and anybody going in the same direction. Yes, right. So in any case, that just seems to me a formula for problems here. Secondly, if we look back to the management of the Fomoi Matsu and Taiwan Straits crisis, you know, they ended up with all alternate days of sort of firing propaganda shells back and forth. This is the Chinese version of Kabuki to which you were referring. I think they need to work out rules of the road whereby they can demonstrate to their people their asserting their respective claims without running the risk of claiming. That is one of the implications when I said China's strategy, when it's challenged is to create a new status quo. The new status quo is going to involve a more tangible kind of expression of Chinese claim in the future than it had in the preceding the nationalization of the islands. So I think and apparently there was at least scheduled to be a Japanese minister going to talk about this crisis. Anyway, I think in the past they've also had some crisis management discussions on this sort of under the radar screen. So I think they do both sides seem to recognize they need to find a way that's politically effective for their people to deal with this at the same time it reduces the crisis. So I think we have to do whatever we can. I would just say one other thing. The news has been full of Prime Minister Abe and I think we need a little more firm evidence and data. So I'm just raising issues that are in the news. But of course when you have 168 legislators going to Yasakuni Shrine this creates a problem. I think it ought to frankly create a bit of a problem for the United States too. So certainly that is an issue. Apparently there's a debate now about whether the Prime Minister in remarks that I don't know were more private in character question the nature of what is aggression and whether it was committed by Japan. So I mean whatever it is the Japanese authority figures are saying I think we ought to encourage cooling the rhetoric. I would just add two quick points. One is this idea of with both sides flooding the zone for lack of a better term with ships and planes and everything else you dramatically increase the likelihood of some sort of incident. So a mutual if back channel agreement between the two sides to decrease the operational tempo of both sides especially maritime surveillance and Coast Guard that would be very useful. I think frankly the other big piece that's missing here is what in the past had been a very robust very sort of informal and solid back channel between the Chinese and Japanese leaderships using retired figures generally speaking that is completely broken down in the last several years as you know well Dan and I think that's something that both sides need to put some investment and political capital into revivifying because that was very helpful at times in the past where we had some of these tensions spike and both sides showed a willingness to deal with it quickly. So all right well I believe Dr. Brzezinski has to go so please join me in thanking the panel and thank you for being a great audience.