 Paul, I'm here from the Carnegie Endowment. I'm Vice President for Studies in the Asia Program. See a lot of good friends here in the audience. We don't spend a lot of time on introductions as a consequence. Grateful that you're here on this hot afternoon. Hope you've had plenty to eat. Please help yourselves afternoon unfolds. It's my great pleasure and opportunity today to introduce this topic of Taiwan's trade role and what might be the prospects for Taiwan and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. We have to kick us off this afternoon. A man who knows the trade issues as well as anyone on the island of Taiwan running the trade, an external trade and development council, but having years of experience in Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs, which those of you who know Taiwan know was the great instrumentality of the tremendous success that Taiwan has been and is today and will help to guide its future as well. And we're gonna start with a set of remarks by him. He's here both in conjunction with making this presentation today, but also to take part in the US Investment Promotion Program that the White House is organizing yesterday and today. To follow his comments, we will have some discussion by a pair of really terrific experts. Kicking us off and not in the order on your paper, but as they will speak is Matt Goodman. Matt, there's a lot of interesting things. He's part of that Goldman Sachs mafia that runs Washington. But in recent years, he's had more respectable work in the White House and at CSIS as senior advisor and guy who really knows the trade fronts. Also joining us today is my colleague from next door, Richard Bush, who has distinguished himself in many ways with respect to Taiwan and Hong Kong and other issues. Most recently, last week, hosted an event which I was unable to attend, but I heard was a terrific look at Taiwan and the immediate aftermath of the elections earlier this year and the new installation of a government from the opposition party, formerly of the opposition party, now the ruling party, DPP. Is that available online so I can catch up with it? So if you're interested to go to brookings.edu and you can find the event, some very good people spoke at it. And Richard will join us to talk about TPP. Just in early 2014, he wrote what is the most detailed and thoughtful and practical look at ways for Taiwan to participate in the TPP going forward. So we'll ask Matt and Richard to offer their comments. After we welcome Mr. Francis Liang, the chairman of the Taiwan External Trade Development Council to make some remarks. Francis, please come up. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Doc, for that very generous introduction and distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. It's always a pleasure coming back to Washington, DC to meet with the old friends and to make new acquaintances and to see many people that are interested in trade policy and the regional situation. And first of all, I'd like to thank the college environmental for international peace, for inviting me and the delegation of Taiwanese business leaders to participate in this seminar while we are here in Washington, DC for the Select USA Investment Summit. At the same time, please allow me to express my warmest welcome to those of you who have come for this seminar and for your information, we have with me business representatives from eight different Taiwanese companies that they are not here. Probably, could you stand up so that later if people are interested in industrial cooperation. Thank you. Okay, thank you. So the last time I was here, I talked about the highly successful cooperation between Taiwanese and the U.S. firms on establishing regional and global supply chains. I mentioned that this is strong intention of Taiwanese firms to expand their cooperation with the U.S. companies. Today, I'm pleased to say that according to the data from U.S. Department of Commerce, Taiwan's trade with the United States has increased last year and that Taiwan is now the number ninth largest trading partner of the United States in the world, surpassing Italy, Brazil, India. So not many people realize that Taiwan is the number ninth largest trading partner for the United States. This shows that the U.S. and Taiwan are indeed enduring partners and strong friends. In today's presentation, I will talk about those four topics and I will start with the topic of a closer economic partnership between Taiwan and the United States. The United States is an indispensable trading partner for Taiwan. Since 1950s, Taiwan has transformed from a largely agrarian economy to the global industrial powerhouse today. And it is important to note that U.S. has always played an important and indispensable role in Taiwan's economic transformation in terms of providing the necessary capital, technology, training, and market demand. In return, Taiwanese firms have supplied affordable and high quality products and services to the business and consumers in the United States. And now Taiwan is among the world's top manufacturers. In today's globalized economy, Taiwan's industry has become technologically advanced. And as can be seen on this slide, the U.S., China, and Japan are the top three manufacturers in the world. But Taiwan ranked number 10 on the list. Taiwan make up about 2% of the global manufacturing outputs in terms of a per capita output than Taiwan ranked number four in the world. And the U.S. is always a highly important trading partner for Taiwan. As I indicated last year, Taiwan was the number ninth largest trading partner for the United States. And the U.S. was Taiwan's second largest trading partner, third largest source of imports, and third largest export destination. So if we consider only the volume of export orders, then U.S. still is Taiwan's biggest source of commercial orders. On the other hand, despite its limited size in population and area, Taiwan has now a very important trading position with the United States. As I indicated before, number nine overall trading partners. And Taiwan is among the top 10 largest exporting partners for every U.S. state, and among the top five largest exporting partners for 22 states. So the Taiwan-U.S. trade relationship is still the most complementary and mutually beneficial among other U.S.-Asia trade relationship. The Taipei Economic and Cultural Represented Office, the Criteria Office, has recently published the result of a survey done at the end of last year documenting that Taiwan invested company in the United States together with U.S. exports of goods and services to Taiwan, created and supported over 323,000 well-paying American jobs. This is an impressive figure. So in addition to trade flows, Taiwan and the United States are close partners in investment and industrial cooperation. The U.S. is Taiwan's largest source of foreign direct investment, and the U.S. is a major destination for Taiwan's outbound investment. Our statistics show that last year, 40% of Taiwan's investment to the United States are in the manufacturing sectors, including pharmaceutical manufacturing, electrical equipment, electronic products and components, and metal products. In the electrical equipment sector, the end of this year, we are very pleased to see that a new solar power plant in New Jersey will formally begin its operation. And that is a Taiwanese company, Yuting, through their subsidiary in New Jersey, invested as the sole investor in this solar power plant in New Jersey. And we see more and more Taiwanese companies coming here, not only as providers of equipment, but as provider of systems integrating software and hardware and engineering capability. And on the other hand, U.S. investment in Taiwan's manufacturing industry include electronics, electrical components, machinery, and equipment manufacturing and chemical products. Beyond the traditional manufacturing, we are very pleased that we see that Taiwan and American companies are operating closely in developing emerging technologies and new applications. That's the reason why we believe that the U.S. will lead a new economy and Taiwan shall create a new miracle. We are now in the era of knowledge-based economy. Innovation will boost the competitiveness. One after another, countries have proposed the competitive strategies to take advantage of such trends, such as industry 4.0 in Germany, made in China 2025, and the advanced manufacturing partnership program in the United States. These approaches will create new business opportunities. A few examples include virtual reality, the Internet of Things IOT, the Internet of Vehicles, smart machinery, and innovative green energy. Today, the boundaries between high-tech and the traditional manufacturing are blurring. Even in traditional industries, such as textiles and apparel production, they have become more closely linked with technological advances. And Taiwan is a great innovative economic partner for the United States. Taiwan possesses an excellent geographical location, highly competitive industrial clusters, world-class infrastructure and logistic services, complete R&D and production capabilities, a skilled and professional labor force, strong entrepreneurship with a strong creative spirit and a well-protected IPR environment. Last year, Charles Rifkin, the Assistant Secretary of State Department, visited Taiwan and attended the opening ceremony of Computex, that is the second largest computer show in the world, and the largest in Asia, which is organized by my organization. And he also attended the FutureCity workshop. He mentioned that Taiwan is a long-term and a like-minded partner of the US on innovation and IPR protection. I believe everyone agrees that in the semiconductor industry, Taiwan and the United States have already built a world-class cooperative relationship. As a result, Taiwan's semiconductor technology and IC design provide strong support to US industry's efforts to take advantage of the rise of IoT and development in interactive automobile technologies. Today, I would like to present another case showing how the talents of Taiwanese and US entrepreneurs can combine to create a new commercial opportunity. The biggest news in the sportswear market occurred in early 2015, when the 18-year-old brand Under Armour overtook Adidas as the second largest sportswear brand in the United States. Actually, one of our delegates, a Taiwanese firm, Tex Ray, is the supplier for Under Armour. In addition, the leading yoga wear brand, Lululemon, also collaborates with Taiwanese suppliers, such as Eglad Textile and the Reliable Source Industrial Company. It can be said that for every 10 items of yoga wear, sold in the United States, eight uses fabrics originating from Taiwan. Although, based on the WTO statistics in 2014, Taiwan is the seventh largest exporter of fiber, yarns and fabrics in the world, but Taiwan is the leading global supplier of functional fiber that adds value and as a result, and extensive R&D activities. Taiwan's textile firms have demonstrated strong R&D capabilities, about 40 to 50% of functional fibers and 70 to 80% of outdoor fiber produced for international brands originate in Taiwan. In view of Taiwan's strong R&D capabilities, yields and effectiveness, we can expect further collaboration between the U.S. and Taiwan in future textile and apparel products development. So, Taiwan has its presidential election early this year and has just completed our third peaceful transition of power between political parties. The election of President Tsai Ing-wen marked another important milestone in Taiwan's democratic evolution. President Tsai has declared her intention to implement major domestic reforms to keep Taiwan a global technology leader. She has also declared the objective of promoting innovation in five industry clusters, namely green energy, the Asia Silicon Valley for R&D, biotech and pharmaceuticals, smart machinery and the defense industry. Innovation will lie at the center of developing those clusters and will assist Taiwan in maintaining our global competitiveness. Building on the strong industrial cooperation that already exists between the United States and Taiwan, the development of these industries will bring about new opportunities for both Taiwan and the Taiwan and the U.S. firms. By many measures, Taiwan is among the world's most innovative economies. Taiwan's knowledge-based economy beats the OECD average and we ranked first in Asia in the 2014 ADB's KEI report. Taiwan's economic freedom continues to progress. This year, Taiwan ranked 14th in the Economic Freedom Report issued here by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal. Taiwan's entrepreneurship is also the highest in Asia. According to the 2016 Global Enterprise and Development Index, Taiwan ranked sixth in the world and the first in Asia on innovation and entrepreneurship. The 2016 Global Manufacturing Competitiveness Index ranks Taiwan seventh in the world. So before President Tsai was elected, she visited the United States last year. At that time, she expressed in a letter to the Wall Street Journal that Taiwan's foreign policy requires a four-pronged approach, including broadening multifaceted cooperation with the United States and protecting Taiwan's economic autonomy through trade diversification. And these are among the most important reasons Taiwan needs to join the second round of TBP negotiation once the agreement is open to new members. To be precise, Taiwan feels strongly that being part of the economic integration efforts in the Asia Pacific region that is essential to our national economic security that Taiwan be included. In addition, Taiwan's joining the TBP is also the expectation of the U.S. business community and of our own industries. Taiwan is highly dependent on international trade and investment while our commodity dependence on foreign trade has increased and stayed at a high of almost 100%. If we calculated the combined value of import, export in relation to our GDP, our trade value is about the same as our GDP. But in 2014, our trade volume is 110% so making Taiwan one of the most dependent on trade nation in the world. But our FTA coverage rate is only 9.74%, less than 10%. So as you can see in the slides, it's far below that of our major trade competitors. So TPP members all have very close economic and trade ties with Taiwan and we think it's natural for Taiwan to be included in this trade pack. Last year, Taiwan's exports to TPP member countries reached almost 100 billion U.S. dollars which accounted for almost a third of Taiwan's total exports. In addition, investment in Taiwan from TPP member countries reached approximately 24 billion U.S. dollars accounting for almost 19% of our total foreign investment. Comparatively, 16% of Taiwan's total upflow of our investment also goes to TPP countries. Taiwan has formed a very close working relationship with TPP member countries through global and the regional supply chains. As a result, Taiwan firms have established long-term strategic cooperative with networks with major brands in many sectors. And Taiwan is a key link in global value chain for many international brands. According to the OECD estimates, Taiwan's participation in global value chain totaled over 67% higher than all other Asia Pacific countries and G20 members. Taiwan provides a key link in global value chain and is the center of the supply chain for the information technology and the semiconductor industries. Just mentioned two examples. The proportion of Taiwan's export containing foreign value-added components has reached more than 43%. Taiwan and its trading partners cannot afford the disruption of those vital international linkages. For example, recording the successful US-Taiwan partnership in the textile industry. I mentioned earlier that TPP will have a long-term effect on partners of trade in textile and apparel products due to the TPP young forward rules of origin. And we believe that Taiwan's entry into this regional economic integration will expand global development, making it a win-win situation. Taiwan's economic strength and a solid and a partner-real development can be very helpful in creating new partner patterns of economic models and the growth in the Asia Pacific region. If we can speed up our entry into the regional economic integration, we estimate that doing so will add another 200 billion a year market access to TPP members. So in the past decades, Taiwan's stable development has benefited the United States by creating shared prosperity. Taiwan has been described as being one of the United States most reliable and democratic allies with the United States being Taiwan's most important economic and security part in the Asia Pacific region. So Taiwan and the United States share common values of democracy and respect for human rights and freedom. Taiwan's entry into the Asia Pacific regional economic integration is consistent with the U.S. policies towards our region and will support further U.S.-Taiwan cooperation. So Taiwan-U.S. relation has been close and important. The U.S. has played a crucial role in every stage of Taiwan's economic development. We will continue to seek opportunities for future corporations with United States. Taiwan's entry into regional economic integration is a top priority of our government and our trade and the industry. And we hope that the U.S. will support our future membership in the TPP and we would be grateful for your help and support in this regard. So we have so much in common and we have so much to accomplish together. So I look forward to working with all of you to achieve a more prosperous future for all of us. So I thank you very much for your kind attention and if you have any questions later I will be delighted to answer them. Again, thank you very much. Thank you. Let's take a seat for a second. You're welcome to use the plug. I'd rather sit but he wants to stand so I'll do it his way. As you like. Okay, thanks. Okay, well thank you. Thank you Francis. Thank you Doug for inviting me. I feel like a midget among giants here and U.S. Taiwan relations with Doug and Richard and Francis. Although I've been involved with Taiwan for a long time since I was a junior treasury official in the late 1980s and was responsible for Taiwan more recently working with Taiwan in APEC which was a very rewarding experience. I was also there last year around the time that Assistant Secretary Rifkin was here for a big conference put on by the Ministry of Economic Affairs on TPP and I was struck not having been in Taipei for a couple of years about how, again by how dynamic and positive the vibes are in Taipei and particularly on TPP I think there was a lot of enthusiasm and greater understanding about the importance of TPP for Taiwan which I think is very encouraging. In fact, it's hard working at Taiwan not to feel optimistic. I'm a sort of natural optimist which is an irrational thing to be because as the wise man said, if you're a pessimist then you're a much happier person because you're either always proved right or pleasantly surprised. And so one should be a pessimist but I'm an optimist and I'm an optimist about TPP first of all and I think that's been proven to be the right position. Everything that was supposed to happen in TPP so far has happened as long as you didn't pick a date and didn't pin yourself down to a particular date. So I feel vindicated in having been optimistic that TPP would eventually get done and signed and all that's happened. I'll come back to my prognostication for where it goes from here but let me talk about Taiwan for a second in this context. So obviously as Francis has indicated Taiwan would benefit tremendously from being a participant in the Trans-Pacific Partnership and I can think of at least five reasons for that most of which he's touched on. First of all, embedding Taiwan more deeply in regional supply chains. I think that's clearly of interest and particularly if you look at that in a slightly less optimistic way if in particular other countries move ahead to deepen those supply chains and particularly if one country in particular I won't say which country but its initials are Korea joins TPP that's gonna be a real challenge to Taiwan's position in regional supply chain so I think there's a sort of negative and positive reason there. Secondly, TPP can help drive the domestic reform process in Taiwan and support productivity enhancements and growth and particularly in the services sector where there's a need for such improvements so I think it would be very good for Taiwan's internal economic prospects. Also, thirdly, reducing the dependence that Taiwan has on the mainland for trade and economic activity and I say that not as a matter of politics but as an economist you have a large economy has been growing very strongly for 35 years but it's clearly slowing down and it's in a transition to a slower pattern of growth. You also have substantial financial risks across the strait and I think there are a number of reasons just from an economic perspective where Taiwan may wanna be less dependent as other members of the region are on China still interacting and integrated but perhaps a little less dependent. Fourthly, and this is not talked about often but I think another benefit for Taiwan would be helping to shape the rules of the regional economic order. Taiwan obviously has a big stake in a rules-based order and has benefited from those rules tremendously but also has contributed as I mentioned in APEC it's been a real contributor to helping incubate new rules and uphold and update the rules of the economic order and that's I think another benefit of Taiwan being in. And then finally is the broader strategic value to Taiwan of being more integrated with countries like the United States and Japan and other partners and that's obviously an important objective. So I think there are a bunch of reasons why Taiwan understandably wants to be in TPP. I also think from the United States perspective there are a lot of good reasons why we would want Taiwan in. Again, Francis has touched on much of this but you have the fifth largest economy in East Asia. The ninth, I thought it was 10th but that's glad to hear it's moving up. Taiwan is the ninth largest trading partner of the United States. Again, critical to our own supply chain management. Also from a U.S. perspective, having Taiwan in the group that is committed to shared values and interests and willing to help us work to improve the rules of the global and regional rules-based order I think is also an important thing for the United States. So I think there are a lot of reasons why the United States would benefit from having Taiwan in TPP. But, and you would only expect me to say but having watched these issues and worked on them for a long time. There's no free pass. Taiwan is not going to be invited into TPP without conditions. It's not going to be invited in at all. No one was invited in. The United States was not invited into the original TPP. That may sound a little disingenuous but we had to actually make the case to the four existing members of the P4 that this was something that we wanted to do with them. And when every other additional member has joined they've had to show and demonstrate that they really want to contribute to this high standard rulemaking endeavor and market opening endeavor. And Japan certainly had to do that. And so any illusions that Taiwan has that Japan got a free pass is just not correct. We had a very tough, intense negotiation with Japan but even more fundamentally, Tokyo decided itself that it wanted to be part of this and really demonstrated its commitment to achieving the high standards. That doesn't mean they agreed to everything that the US wanted or the other partners wanted but there was a prior commitment and a demonstration of willingness to address these longstanding issues. So that's a really important part of this process. And I don't want to have to recite the litany of issues that are out there that have to be addressed for Taiwan to prove its willingness. Obviously they're the agriculture related issues and using sort of science-based approaches to agriculture imports and regulation, other technical barriers to trade. There's a regulatory environment that has persistently been a problem for outside investors and sellers into the Taiwan market. I would also throw into the hopper as a former Treasury official the foreign exchange issues. I mean, I actually might have been the first or second person to actually call Taiwan a currency manipulator, not by my own opinion, I was just doing my job when I was responsible for drafting the foreign exchange report the Treasury does every six months. And so these issues have been out there for a long time and as you know in the most recent report in April, Taiwan was identified among about a half dozen countries as having, being at, on a sort of watch list on those issues and in its tendency to accumulate reserves, to intervene in the foreign exchange markets in ways not just to smooth out transactions. There's a kind of history of this and I think it's something that in the political environment here is gonna be very important for Taiwan to demonstrate a willingness to address. But again, more than these individual issues which are well-known, I think especially to this audience, I think there's a deeper sense of, you know, there's a bit of a trust gap frankly and a credibility gap that has to be maintained from a US perspective because there were issues that seemed to be resolved and then weren't resolved and then were resolved again. And I think there's a bit of a burden of proof on Taiwan to show that it's willing to take these things on. But I do think it's possible and I do think there is a path ahead. First of all, the first step in that path of the first milestone is obviously TPP itself has to be ratified by the 12 existing members of TPP. I am an optimist. I think, again, Larry Summers, who was my boss at Treasury used to say, Matt, if you wanna be a good economic forecaster, pick a number or a date, but not both. So my number is 95% confidence, maybe 98% confidence that TPP will be ratified. I won't say when but I do think it's possible it's gonna happen this year. In fact, I think I'm probably at the optimistic end of the now kind of pessimistic conventional wisdom about TPP. I do think that after the election, it's not gonna happen before the election, but after the election, a lot of things are gonna be clear that aren't clear because a lot of uncertainty right now in a lot of ways. But after the election, I think you could find incentives in the administration and the perspective administration and in Congress aligning very quickly to get this thing done quickly. Again, I'm not quite predicting that, but I do think it's possible and people shouldn't rule out that possibility still. And I'm happy to elaborate on that in the questions. Then I think, as I mentioned, I think Taiwan has to demonstrate a real commitment to wanna get into the TPP. And Madam size, President Xi's early comments about TPP are encouraging and I think reflect a real desire to try to do the things that are necessary. I think politically it's gonna be very challenging for her. So I think it's gonna take a kind of no pun intended but Nixon in China approach by her to do something unexpected and to sort of go against her base to some extent to get some of these things done. And that's gonna be difficult. But I think it's possible. And then obviously steps are gonna have to be taken to address these longstanding irritants and issues and to put some things on the table to resolve those issues. Then clearly there's going to be a need to talk to all 12 of the existing members. Remember, this is not just about the United States inviting Taiwan and all 12 of the existing members have to want any new member to join. And so those negotiations, I understand informally are already happening but those have to step up and move forward. And I think they should start now because as I said, I think there's a possibility that TPP is going to get done. And then obviously another milestone or issue along the way is going to be political related issues. I'll let Richard talk more about that. I personally think that those are resolvable. Certainly from a US perspective, if this is my opinion, I don't know if this is an accurate assessment but my own view is that if Taiwan addressed those longstanding economic issues and demonstrated its real commitment to the substance of TPP, then I think certainly the United States would be prepared to move forward with the accession protocols. I think I can't speak for the other 11 members and there may be some issues there but I think the US if, that's a big if, Taiwan actually did the things it needed to do substantively on the economic side. I think that this could move forward. So but again, I'm getting out of my lane in depth here. So I will let Richard take it from there and happy to answer questions or discuss this further. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. That's okay. That's okay. Good afternoon. It's a great pleasure to be here. Thank you Doug for inviting me. Thank you for the kind words you expressed about my paper. Thanks to Alex Taylor for his arrangements. It's a great pleasure to see Francis Leong and also the business leaders from Taiwan who are part of his delegation and who are really on the front lines of ensuring that Taiwan remains competitive. Francis has served Taiwan in a variety of capacities including working in techro here. He's contributed to the island's prosperity. He continues to serve Taiwan in his current position. From my point of view, his presentation provides a convincing argument that the economic interests of the United States and Taiwan are overlapping and converging. That's all the more reason why our two governments and our two business communities should work together to deepen our integration and cooperation. All the more reason why Taiwan and the United States should work together to facilitate Taiwan's entry into TPP. Now it was my honor back in 1999 as chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan to sign on behalf of the United States, the US Taiwan bilateral agreement concerning Taiwan's accession to the World Trade Organization. I was not one of the negotiators but it was an honor to be the one to sign that document. It would please me a great deal to see after not too many years Taiwan joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Membership will fuel Taiwan's future competitiveness. I agree with Matt that the road from here to there is going to be very complicated and very difficult. I would tell you something that many of you probably don't know but one of the members of the delegation, the Taiwan delegation that negotiated the bilateral agreement with the United States back in the late 90s was a very bright, dynamic young woman, well younger than me who I think really provided the energy to get the agreement done. That was Tsai Ing-Wen, the current president of Taiwan. She knows trade. She knows how to balance trade policy and the politics of trade. No one could, is better positioned I think than she to bring about Taiwan's entry into TPP and I hope she succeeds even accepting the difficulties. Now I think Matt went over a lot of issues concerning Taiwan and TPP. I won't repeat him too much. I do agree with his analysis and the various issues that are going to have to be faced or not trivial. I think that the more Taiwan can do now in advance of a decision on Taiwan's participation in the second round, the better. And as Matt alluded, this helps Taiwan mitigate and even eliminate a problem that's developed in what social scientists call the credibility of commitments that a negotiating partner of Taiwan will want to know that if they take the time and make the effort to sign an agreement on this or that that Taiwan will actually be able to get it ratified within its own political system and then carry it out. And there have been a couple of instances in recent years where that has not been the case. And so it has an impact on the desire of our trade negotiators to go forward. Now Taiwan has already taken an important step in this regard and in doing what is called gap analysis. Each ministry, each agency went through its list of laws, I think it was at least laws, to look at the ways in which those mandates differed from the requirements of TPP and therefore defining what would have to be changed. This needs to be done with laws, it needs to be done with regulations, it needs to be done with policies. But identifying what the gap is is the first step and an important step in resolving the issues and the negotiations. I think to the extent possible, Taiwan should move from a gap analysis to gap reduction and even gap closure in some cases. I also think that it will be necessary for Taiwan's leadership to build a broad social consensus that the kind of economic liberalization that TPP will bring is very much in Taiwan's interest. Not only because it will open markets but also because it will stimulate the structural adjustments that Taiwan needs to move its economy to the next level. I would note that making advanced preparations in positioning Taiwan for participating in TPP's second round is not just about poor. As Mac suggested, it's about a lot of things, regulations, the whole regulatory environment in fact. But even if Taiwan can make all the advanced progress that it could and even if it demonstrated a new that it was prepared to make difficult concessions, get them passed in the legislative run and properly implement them, the obstacle of China is still there. We all understand that. Taiwan understands it more than anybody else. I think that we can expect that Taiwan would mount pretty serious opposition to, China would mount pretty serious opposition to China, to Taiwan going ahead on TPP on its own. And this is probably more serious because we have a DPP government in power rather than the KMT government. But I think that the opposition would have been the same. And Beijing just doesn't like to see Taiwan have too much of its own international identity. So the question is whether this obstacle can be removed and here I have two answers. One is a more strategic answer and one is more tactical. The strategic answer I discussed in the paper that Doug referred to and that was that there be a replay of the scenario for Taiwan's entry into WTO. Back around 1997, early 1998, the Clinton administration made a decision that it was going to accelerate Taiwan's accession to WTO in order to put pressure on China to accelerate its own negotiations. And I saw the value for itself in entering into those negotiations and the result was that China and Taiwan entered the WTO at basically the same time with China going first and Taiwan right behind. Now, if one were to do this again, the key point here is that Chinese leaders would have to recognize that the reforms that TPP would require are ones that China should make anyway in order to maintain its competitiveness and growth. They would probably have to recognize that joining TPP would provide useful outside pressure that would allow reformers within the regime to push the concessions through. Now, I think that the reforms that Xi Jinping and his colleagues proposed at the third plenum of the Chinese Communist Party in the fall of 2013 would take China in a TPP direction. However, it appears that there is by now insufficient political momentum to implement them under current circumstances. Perhaps TPP could be a way to reinvigorate reform within China. One important difference between WTO and TPP is that for WTO, China already saw a value of getting in in the mid 90s. The only question was the terms and conditions. They haven't made that basic decision yet. Now, that's the strategic way and it might take a long time before China decided that TPP was in its interest and that's probably not good for Taiwan. A more tactical way is for Taiwan to develop countermeasures to deflect a PRC campaign to pressure some of, or all of the existing TPP members to block Taiwan's participation in the second round. How would that work? Well, if you look at the text of the TPP agreement, it lays out how an existing APEC member can be brought into the negotiating process for TPP. It first has to make an application basically and make a case why and how it is prepared to accept and implement the disciplines that TPP requires. Then the step after that would be to form a working group to address that application if there is agreement from all the existing members. Now that agreement can be expressed in one of two ways. Number one, member countries can affirmatively support the formation of the working group or they can just not say anything. If after seven days a country hasn't replied to the question, should we form a working group or not, that's taken as a yes. So basically they can abstain. They don't have to affirmatively oppose to make the point. So that suggests that Taiwan's task going forward is first of all to encourage those countries that are liable to support the formation of a working group to do so on the merits of Taiwan's application. And then the other is to find ways to incentivize the holdout countries or the undecided countries just to keep quiet. This is very easy for me to say. It's very hard for Taiwan to do. It requires a lot of work. If you go down the list of countries that will be members of TPP, sorry, members of TPP should it get ratified all around. Some seem positive, others are big question marks. So Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam. I'm not gonna make any predictions of any sort about which countries are liable to support formation of a Taiwan working group and which would might oppose it. I presume that the Taiwan government is already working hard to engage these countries and encourage them to do the right thing. Now, some of these countries I think will be affected by China's rather aggressive activities in East China Sea and South China Sea. Japan, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam come to mind and that helps Taiwan. But what is most likely to encourage the undecided countries I think is for Taiwan to create its own pattern of positive policy and regulatory reform in order to demonstrate that it really is serious about becoming a member of this very important 21st century economic law. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Richard, for those very thoughtful and practical remarks. The very last remark you made is the one that really gets it for me, which is that if you have a community of business people, whether it's here in the US or in the other 11 partners, who see opportunities opening on Taiwan and the only thing standing in the way is a reluctance to have Taiwan as part of TPP, they're gonna beat the doors down and the government move forward. So Taiwan can facilitate that process of beating the doors down by doing exactly that. So thank you, Richard, for making that valuable point. Francis, you made a terrific case from the ground up, and I appreciate that, that everybody here today who's sweating when they're outside can appreciate these fabulous new textiles coming out of Taiwan and allows to breathe more easily in hot human Washington through the summer. But that these constituent elements have built such a skein of interrelationships between us, and we have these wonderful CEOs here, Chairman, respectively, of dynamic firms as examples of that. I'm gonna throw the floor open to questions and I'm gonna ask people to think, if they wanna ask these CEOs some questions too, don't be afraid to do so, because sometimes the guy who has to run a real business knows a lot that people sitting in government can't quite understand about the nitty gritty of the trade world and the making your way forward and increasingly what people commonly call a spaghetti bowl of trade agreements, where you have to have lawyers for each of the trade agreements that's being developed. Our step is being negotiated now, and other China's been promoting this trade, free trade agreement for the Asia Pacific, very notional at this point, not real, but there are plenty of existing trade rules that have to be accommodated. So it's a very complex world, I think we've got good people here to talk about it. So first I'll throw the floor open so anyone who wants to, first question is right here in the third room. But it's possible that since you mentioned we have business executives with us here, so could I briefly mention their name and industry, so you got the idea of what the business name was then, okay? But very briefly, so we just, when I mentioned your name, just raise and raise your hand. First we have Mr. Steven Xu from AON Technology in, that's a major industrial computer manufacturers. So they are part of the ASUS group that is the consumer computer, but they themselves are into industrial computers. And then we have Mr. Paul Chen from Fairfax Group. They are the major machinery, especially the machine tool manufacturers, number three in the world, and they are aiming to become number two soon. And they have 35 brands in 54 production locations in the world wide. And, okay, You Jia, okay. Later if you want, we can give you the full name. So because otherwise we'll use two languages in one occasion. Okay, and next is Chairman Yang. He is the chairman of Canada Robert Industrial Corporation, one of the major tire manufacturers. And then we have Jerry Xu from Kimpo Electronics and Kimpo is a major electronics manufacturers They are the largest 3D printer manufacturers in the world and they produce 25% of laptop computers sold in the whole world. So next we have Dr. Chen from Motak Industries. They are the major green energy, the solar seller manufacturers in the world. They are very big. And then we have Mr. Alex Tsai from Tax Array Industries and they are the major manufacturers of the functional fabric and the garments. And the next we have Mr. Eugene Chen, the chief secretary of Bureau of Foreign Trade because that is the agency in charge of organizing the delegation attending the CELIC USA Investment Summit. And then we have Mr. Philip Chen from one of the largest investors in the United States for most of plastics. They invested more than five billion US dollars in the US and still working on new projects. Okay, thank you. So this time we have 70 business executives coming to Washington to attend the CELIC USA Summit. Here we only have eight representing a group here. Thank you. Thank you, thank you very much. So you have a good sense now of the kinds of businesses that are represented in this transaction with the US. There's a question in the third row here, please. It's coming, it's coming. When you get the microphone, please identify yourself, your affiliation and the whom you're addressing the question. Well, thank you. Jim Berger from Washington Trade Daily, I guess the question Mr. Yang. Everyone recognizes that it would be a big boost for Taiwan to join TPP. But fewer and fewer people think that TPP will survive. And so as an option, your government must be looking at RCEP as a way out or as a way to achieve the similar goals as TPP, although maybe not as luxurious. What's your view on RCEP? Okay, first of all on TPP. So it's for the US to decide on their final position on TPP ratification. And for RCEP, that is one of the two most important regional integration efforts in Asia Pacific, but there's no replacement because the United States is not part of the RCEP. If we talk about the US market, RCEP will never do the work. So our end and President Tsai Ing-wen announced in her inaugural speech that we are working on both TPP and the RCEP. Just to say that I think the general view is that RCEP, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, I don't think we've actually said that yet, which is the ASEAN plus six Asian countries negotiation is not moving anywhere anytime soon. And that's largely because of, again, not to pick any names, but India does not seem really committed to the project. And I hear this even from Chinese friends who are sort of exasperated by the whole process. So I don't think RCEP's prospects are much better than TPP's indeed. I think TPP's are much better, but that's heard me say that. Just as an additional point on the RCEP and TPP, across the street at the Peterson Institute, Jeffrey Schott has led a research effort, which is really pretty admirable. And they've looked at the relative values and accomplishments notionalized by these two trade packs. And RCEP is really aimed at the trade supply chain, of which the US is really the recipient, not the producer in most cases. So the net vantage for the US to be involved in RCEP is relatively small. The added advantage to be, to put it very crudely, read his papers, Jeffrey Schott, but if you want to get the detail, the added advantage that we really find valuable in TPP is the access to service sectors, which is where our national economic strength lies today. And it opens service sectors in other markets, not only, but very importantly. And a much more value to be created out of this agreement than RCEP represents, which would be actually a fractional, kind of an additional benefit to the US if it goes forward. And the second row over here on the right. Thank you. My name is Jim Keith. I'm a retired diplomat and now with McClarty Associates, a business consulting firm. And this question is for Pre-Richard, although others may wish to chime in, including anyone on the Taiwan side. It seems to me there's a, you spoke very clearly about the potential for Chinese opposition to what is the symbolic perhaps, you could say level of Taiwan participation in TPP, but at the substantive level, I think Matt, you and others emphasized how much that part of the equation is in Taiwan's own hands as a kind of second tactical measure. Would you think that there is a possibility for Taiwan to move forward on the substantive side and even find bilateral arrangements that are a way station toward success on the symbolic side? I think I understand the question. That is to say with the substance of trade liberalization serve Taiwan's interest enough so that it could proceed, even recognizing it might take awhile before the symbolic value of TPP membership. Well, there has been in the sort of small community of people who follow this, what's known as the building blocks approach, where that takes note of the fact that TPP is made up of a number of different chapters on a variety of different subjects. And so there might be a value in and of itself for Taiwan, but also building towards TPP to knock off some of these. And the first that comes to mind on which there's already been some discussion is a bilateral investment agreement. And that's harder for Taiwan than it is for the United States because we're already pretty open. And there may be things in the intellectual property protection that Taiwan is already doing, so why not codify those in one thing? So that, I think that is a worthwhile strategy for Taiwan to consider. I'm sure that Francis as a trade negotiator is thinking, well, is it really a good idea for us to make all our concessions unilaterally and before the negotiations even start, won't they just pocket the concessions and ask for more? That's not an unfair point, but both in terms of commitment to TPP's goals and in terms of establishing credibility of commitments, that would not be a bad thing to pursue. And it's a way to sort of do a little bit of an in-run around China and its opposition. Francis. Okay, Ruxia, thank you very much for reforming as a trade negotiator, but now I'm not in a government service. I'm the chairman of the TITRA. That is supported by the government, but it's not part of the government. So I'm not a civil servant. I'm not a political employee either, but I always have an interest in this field. We talk about possible building block approach. It is true that for some matters, you can do that for the very good, very limited application, why? Not that I don't want it. For instance, Ruxia mentioned probably a bilateral investment agreement. US refused to do that. Why? Because although you think US has a relatively liberal regime, but some people in the USG think that, they don't know how to handle congressional approval process. It may need a bicameral process, and to them, it takes political capital for that process as the same procedure for approving a full-fledged FDA, but that's the US Internal Legal Proceedings Congress. You're used to working in Congress. So you are familiar with that. So for that one, it looks like a good candidate, but it cannot be perceived. Anything involving market access on goods or service would be difficult because of the WTO regulation on most favorite nation treatment, unless one can be exempted from that in the name of FDA. On some matters, probably it's good as a building block or competence building mechanism, but application is limited. And mostly, if it involves true market access issues of importance, then the liberty is rather limited. Okay, thank you. For the back, halfway in the back, the room. Hi, I'm a student from Northwestern University, and this question is for Mr. Liang. You mentioned a lot of numbers in your presentation on export markets from states in the United States to Taiwan. I was just wondering if there's any online or public resource where some of those numbers might be available. Okay, why don't we do this? I am sure that some of the numbers are online available, but I'm not personally aware of that. I will have one of my colleagues here in Tecraw or my colleagues from Taiwan to keep contact with you, to provide you with the most relevant information. And Matt? Well, on our side, not to tout another think tank, but the East-West Center has a very good site called Asia Matters for the U.S. or Asia Matters for America, I think, and it has a lot of that state-by-state data on exports to Asia, which I would commend to you. It's an excellent site. And there's a booklet recently published by Tecraw here in Washington, also detailing the information on trade and investment relations between Taiwan and all the states individually. So that one is available. Turn the fourth row. I will show of DPP US Mission. Chairman Liang, thank you for leading one of the largest delegation to select US and Gulag in your trip to Panama. My question is, what do you see the staffs Taiwan is taking in preparing itself to join the TPP? We know that there's a preparatory office in the UI for the TPP trade negotiation office. And as Dr. Bush said, there was a gap analysis that's been done. Also, people are entertaining the idea of engaging TPP member countries like Japan and Australia and FTAs. So would you please share some light with us? OK, two things here. One is Taiwan's preparation work and the progress. One is Taiwan's interaction with other TPP members. Yes, we contacted all the TPP members. And mostly, we received very positive response on economic and trade side. They recognized that Taiwan's participation is important. And some mentioned some bilateral issues. Because we know that the process of joining TPP is two steps. First of all, you have to negotiate individually with all the 12 members when they reach the conclusion that they are satisfied with the status. And then they will form a group or they will have a collective decision to open the formal negotiation session. So two from approach. So we fully understand the importance of having the consent from other 11 member states, member countries. But of course, United States is one of our largest trading partner. You probably are aware that for TPP to be effective, it needs six countries consisting of 85% of TPP GDP in size. That means what? US alone accounts for 67% if I remember correct. 67% of TPP. So even the other 11 countries approving TPP will never come into effect. Because US alone accounts for 67% and Japan 17%. So those two countries are most important. We recognize that and we are working on all of them. And on the preparation work, which I mentioned that and most people realize that the Taiwan government has been very serious. We formed a task force. We did the gap analysis and the recently ministries even come up with the amendment of law and the list. So because before the TPP negotiation was concluded, we can only compare chorus text as the benchmark. But afterwards now we have the full text of TPP. So we ask each agency to study relevant factors and to compare our domestic laws and the regulations to see what need to be amended to be able to comply with the TPP requirements. So we know exactly what we need to do. By the way, the chorus text is the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement for a few of you who may not know that. I think it's important that Taiwan is doing this process because in so many areas, as you mentioned in your presentation on the slides, Korea is one of your leading competitors, especially in the high-tech industries. And so it's important for Taiwan to have even a playing field that can compete. I don't know whether that's polite for me to mention Korea, but you guys mention Korea directly without any reservation. Competition. Thank you, Doc. I'd like to slide with the United States of Taiwan. My question is for Mr. Goodman. Taiwan has been seen as an intervention or manipulation of foreign exchange rates. But the chairperson of the Taiwan Central Bank, he called it dynamic balance instead of intervention. I'm wondering, what is your recommendation for Taiwan can do or cannot do in that regard, if Taiwan wants to express its willingness to join. Thank you. Well, I mean, first of all, I should have clarified that currency issues are not, and famously not, an actual element of TPP, per se. There is a side agreement that sets up a process for looking at currency-related issues, but you don't actually have to pass a formal test in order to get into TPP on currency. But there is this process that reflected, really, the political sensitivity of this issue, because there's a longstanding concern in Washington, the US Treasury and Congress, about countries, particularly in East Asia, it seems to be a pattern of building up substantial foreign exchange reserves, intervening in the currency markets to keep their currencies undervalued and to gain competitive advantage in trade. And this has been a longstanding, as I mentioned, going back to the late 80s, early 90s, when I was a Treasury. And so it is a political reality here in DC that I think has to be addressed. Countries are allowed to intervene in their currency markets. There's no international law that says you can't do that. But the Treasury, and I think the congressional view, is that you should do that only when there is real excessive volatility in the market, and this is just to stabilize conditions in the short term, not to gain structural advantage in trade, which is a longstanding complaint about East Asian countries. Again, not just Taiwan, Korea, Japan, China have all been subject to this concern for a long time. So I think if Taiwan can demonstrate that it's intervention capability only in times of true stress in foreign exchange markets and not as a matter of policy to gain, create advantage then, you know, that helps the border going back. Thank you. Michael Kurtzegui, retired from the Department of Agriculture primarily working in the Middle East before, but I'm interested in China and Taiwan. And I wanted to know maybe it should have been an earlier question. Could you give us an idea of the economic situation in Taiwan? We're going through a presidential race over here. You just went through one. We're talking about infrastructure, education, health, unemployment, all these problems are declining middle class. Do you have a similar situation in Taiwan, or are you doing better, let's say? Thank you. Okay, I respect your description of the US status. I have no argument there because that's your affairs. In Taiwan, we are doing relatively well in a sense that our industry still develops their new skills and innovation. But we face three problems. One is since the early of last year, the global exports situation worsened. So Taiwan suffered like 10% of loss of our export. If I look at the top 20 exporting countries in the world, none of them, even China suffered a loss. So I think it was due to the price drop of oil prices. So in a way, Taiwan's dependence on foreign trade is higher than others, so we suffered. Number two is kind of a global that the economy still grows, but the benefits of that growth were not shared with all the segments of the society. So that's the reason why Dr. Tsai Ing-wen in her inaugural speech mentioned that innovation, job creation, or employment, and equal distribution would be the core value of her economic policy. And another issue is really what's been kind of touched here is that our trade dependence on Chinese market. We're trying to absorb like 39% of our export. So people are thinking that if we continue that trend, that may, even let's not talk about political analysis for every country, for every company or individual, risk management is a very important method. So if you put too much eggs in one specific basket then you are running that risk. But on the other hand, if we have 100 eggs and that basket contains 39 eggs, we need to take care of that basket as well. This I quote somebody else saying. So those are the problems that we are facing but overall the economic situation in Taiwan is relatively well. But how to create more jobs for the younger generation, how to let them enjoy the benefit of economical growth is a matter of urgency. There's one of the great paradoxes that, well, we've got a surge of populist opinion not only in the US but pretty much universally about the inequality of distributed wealth. And at the same time, governments are struggling to find policy measures to reinvigorate growth into their economies, again unsuccessfully throughout most of the world. And then we have something like TPP, sitting in front of us, which is a key to unlocking a source of growth. And yet they're set against each other in the political environment. We really need our leaderships to explain more carefully the path to solving the first problem is by addressing the potential that's on the table in front of us. There's the way back. Thank you very much, George Dragnich, former assistant director general of the International Labor Organization. Mr. Liang, several years ago when you're here at Tech Row, you reminded me that Taiwan has ratified all of the major ILO conventions even though it cannot be a member of the ILO. So right there, Taiwan has the labor advantage in terms of its provisions and TPP that many other countries don't have, including Korea. And of course, China would be almost insurmountable at this point. But you just now spoke about job creation. That's also a factor in all of these other countries because Taiwanese corporations are major employers, particularly in the textile and electronics industries in all of these TPP countries. You've brought a delegation with you. Are you doing the same thing in these other countries, showing them with your industrialists how they can generate greater employment if they pull Taiwan in? A good suggestion, not yet, because we are here to attend SelectUSA Investment Summit. So in a way, because the US government has this program, so we are very excited that we come here. And thank you for your suggestion. We probably should do the same to other countries. Thank you. One of my hopes for the new administration in Taiwan is that it can follow up on some of its campaign initiatives and reinvigorate Taiwan's informal diplomacy with a lot of the countries that fell into kind of a backwater of Taiwan attention during some of the years at the beginning of this century. And there's a lot of, there's a big reserve of goodwill and past and continuing economic experience between many of Taiwan's neighbors in Taiwan that could be more fully exploited. If I may, you'll know that the new government in Taiwan now institutes a new policy called New Southbound Policy to strengthen our relations and interactions with the Southeast Asia countries as well as the South Asian countries, including India and Pakistan and the six countries in that region. So this will be part of that efforts. Greg, we hope from Radio Free Asia, this question is for Matthew. Since in 2016 this year, we see the Chinese economy has a sea change, even though their official newspaper, Chinese Daily, they admitted that their economic growth will look like an L shape instead of V shape or U shape rebound. It's going to be L shape for long, which generally believe that that kind of prediction or assessment is come from Xi Jinping's inner circle or might be even from Xi Jinping himself. So what is your assessment and your recommendation to Taiwan as a small nation beside his big brother in this kind of L shape economy when China become another Japan like in the last 10 years and then what is the best strategy? Is the Go South strategy a good strategy for Taiwan? This is the first question. The second question is Doug just mentioned about the so-called populist trend in the whole world. Oh well, would these economic downturn in China contribute to certain nationalist sentiment inside and then create certain unpredictable political affairs like the South China Sea or whatever? Well, what is your prediction due to the Chinese economic sea change this year? Thank you. Well, don't do my own forecast of Chinese economic growth and I don't wanna characterize what Chinese government's own forecast is but most analysts are saying that the Chinese economy is slowing down pretty substantially and that is on one level inevitable and not even a bad thing, maybe a good thing if it's happening in the context of a real structural transformation of their economy from investment, export led growth to more sustainable domestic demand especially consumption and services led growth that inevitably growth is gonna slow and again, from a bigger base, even six or 7% growth is a significant increase of output but there are concerns that this growth is not, the slowdown is not sustainable or it may continue at a low level of growth and against a backdrop of very heavy over capacity and debt problems in the Chinese economy which personally I think from the analysis I read is a manageable problem in the sense of avoiding a crisis in some kind of Lehman shock type of crisis in China for a variety of reasons but could be quite a drag on their long-term growth so I actually don't rule out the possibility of a lost decade in China, I think that's possible I'm not again forecasting that, I don't do my own forecast against that backdrop, I think everyone should be diversifying their positions if you're heavily dependent on Chinese growth then you need to find other sources of growth and you need to encourage China to do the right things to ensure that it's growth is sustainable and that's what I think the US is trying to do but we're all dependent on China China is the largest economy in the region and it's not gonna go away and I'm not suggesting that anybody should completely sever economic ties or even substantially sever them I'm just saying I think you need to be looking for sources of growth beyond mainland China in this environment. If you do that you'll be acting like an awful lot of Chinese business people are acting as they themselves are taking their money to many other destinations including the US. Two points, one is you talked about the L-shaped curve got a lot of attention from this trainway rinsher the authoritative person who wrote about it what got much less attention was the following week a seemingly equally authoritative article arguing the opposite which suggests to me there's a debate going on in China about the continued reliance on debt subsidization to sustain the high targets GDP growth in the Chinese economy and that debate is not yet resolved at least it wasn't as the time of the second article's appearance. On your question about the political environment I just got back last night from a series of conferences and meetings in Beijing over a few days and I was saying to Richard before we started the meeting what everybody's in a hot and bothered mood over the South China Sea and parenthetically I'd say there are Chinese reasons for this and there's things for which we're responsible where we could have done a better job as well but put that to one side I noticed the quiet with respect to Taiwan among the intellectuals and officials that I've been dealing with given that we've had a major change of administration in Taiwan and a very substantial adjustment in policy between Taiwan and the mainland the dog that doesn't bark catches my attention and I'm impressed at how this is a time for a good matter of fact dealings between the two and I would recommend both sides try to keep the decibel level down because if you take the contrasting example of the South China Sea screaming at each other doesn't get as much closer to a resolution maybe a quiet approach will have a better effect. The question in the middle of the room. Hi, I'm Ken Scarab, a visiting fellow of CSIS dispatched by Marvin Corporation I just would like to ask Mr. Liang whether is it possibility for Taiwan to have a bilateral FTA with TPP countries as a process of preparation of the participating in TPP? The possibility of having individually negotiated bilateral FTA with 12 countries of course we have one with New Zealand and Singapore with 10 others in theory is not impossible but may be not practical because it will involve the same degree of political debate as for ATPP and then each member will face the same degree of political opposition if there will be one for TPP there will be one for bilateral so and on average each bilateral will take about two to three years to negotiate thinking about the 10 have you got enough people to do this for you? So probably that's not the preferred path I would say but from my personal view Okay, time now for one final question for Mr. Liang or for our other two commentators Hi, my name is Aaron Yang and I'm from Claremont McKinney College I was wondering because in the United States of America some opposition to the TPP is about jobs the fear that jobs will be lost to other countries if the United States signs on to the TPP so in the future if Taiwan hopefully does join the TPP what steps are you or the Taiwanese government Taiwanese businesses taking to ensure that Taiwanese employees and Taiwanese students will have jobs here in the future and will be prepared to enter a TPP economy For whom? Mr. Liang What are you going to deal with? Okay, if I say this I don't want to cause misunderstanding nobody guarantee you a permanent job now for the employee they have to be competitive in the job market the country has their industry competitive in the global marketplace so what we are doing is to create an environment that our industry can compete successfully in a global marketplace and then they definitely can guarantee a brighter future for their employees so if the industry will be marginalized because of not being able to join regional integration I don't see a brighter future for their employees as well Just to compliment that I think what all countries that are moving up the technology ladder need to do whether they have trade agreements or not is develop mechanisms to ensure that the people who are working in less competitive sectors can retool themselves and move up United States does a terrible job on that frankly and we are not an example to follow I agree with all of that let me just say that I think the job story as it relates to trade and trade agreements has been exaggerated on both sides that is people who have touted these trade agreements have tended to exaggerate the job gains in the terms of actual numbers of the jobs created and the people who are worried about trade or they're worried about a lot of things blame trade agreements for substantial job creation the economic analysis, the most credible economic analysis widely viewed is that it isn't a net trade doesn't have these huge net effects of numbers in either direction it's fairly like an agreement like TPP has been analyzed up down in sideways and the view is pretty clear that the economic conclusion is pretty clear that it's probably going to be relatively neutral and the number of jobs it creates or destroys overall but there is obviously a transitional cost in trade and this gets to the point that I think governments and those supporting TPP need to do a better job of explaining how they are going to address all of the disruptive factors to trade I mean sorry to jobs including technological changes and have policies that range from not only training and education but potentially other tools like wage insurance and frankly in some cases direct subsidies to people like my age who are not going to be able to make that transition where it's too late to retool us so I think we do need to be a better job of addressing those anxieties though they're not all to do with P or trade they're to do with a lot of factors but this is a part of the political economy debate about trade that we've heard a lot of noise about this year and I think it's going to be a permanent part of the discussion in all our countries that's just lying on your colleagues thank you very much for coming here today and making this possible thank you Matt Goodman, Richard Bush