 Good afternoon. My name is Andrew Wilder. I'm the Vice President of the Asia Center here at USIP. On behalf of USIP, let me welcome you all today. For those of you not familiar with USIP, the Institute was founded in 1984 by Congress as an independent national institute dedicated to the proposition that peace is possible, practical, and essential for US and global security. We work on the ground in many countries with local partners and provide people, organizations, and governments with the tools, the training, and the resources to help prevent violent conflict or if it breaks out to help resolve it. We are here today to discuss the impact of China's Belt and Road Initiative on Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Burma, Myanmar. Based on the attendance here today, it seems like it's a topic of great interest. China's Belt and Road Initiative and its overseas investment projects more broadly have been a central topic of conversation around the world. And this was particularly evident last month when China hosted the first Belt and Road Summit in Beijing. The forum included 29 foreign heads of state and representatives from more than 130 countries and 70 international organizations. And they were all there to talk about China's ambitious plan to improve connectivity across Eurasia and around the world. As everyone here knows, China's overseas investments did not begin with the Belt and Road Initiative when it was announced in 2013. China has been actively pursuing infrastructure projects overseas for some time. And today we want to take a closer look at how those projects have impacted the countries of Sri Lanka, Burma, and Pakistan. In each of these countries, China's investment holds tremendous promise and could bring much needed economic benefits. At the same time, they have also had some unintended or unanticipated consequences, which have prompted protests in these partner countries and introduced a new set of complications and challenges. If I could ask everyone to turn off their mobile phones, thank you very much. By taking a careful look at the experiences of these three countries, we hope that today's discussion will help identify some key lessons learned and inform similar investment projects to make sure that these projects don't lead to violence or exacerbate other problems in the future. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to USIP's director of our China programs, Jennifer Statz, who will be moderating the panel today. Thank you very much. Thank you and good afternoon and welcome everyone to USIP. My name is Jennifer Statz and I'm the director of the China program here. And our China program at USIP is focused on China's impact on conflict dynamics in fragile states around the world. Now, as everyone knows, China's overseas investments and particularly its Belt and Road Initiative are a key part of this story. In fact, almost every conversation about China these days involves some reference to the Belt and Road Initiative or BRI. But for those who aren't following it closely, the Belt and Road Initiative, which was announced by President Xi himself in 2013, is a massive project promoting connectivity across Eurasia and around the world. The primary arteries of this effort are the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. But the initiative is now open to all countries as well as all international or regional organizations in all parts of the globe. No one is quite clear how much the project will ultimately cost, but estimates range in trillions of dollars. Now the initiative is based on bilateral agreements between participating countries and China. And China's plan calls for projects across a number of areas, including infrastructure and facilities connectivity, which tends to get the most attention when we talk about BRI, but it also includes other kinds of projects, related to policy connectivity, to trade and financial integration, and people-to-people bonds. Now officials in Beijing have repeatedly stressed that the Belt and Road is intended to be win-win and is intended to promote the Silk Road spirit of peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning, and mutual benefit for all involved. Indeed, it is opening remarks at the Belt and Road Summit last month. President Xi said the BRI is a project of the century that will benefit the people of the world. Now there is clearly enormous potential involved in this project, so today we're going to ask, how is it going? We have a terrific set of experts here this afternoon to help us look a little more closely at some of China's overseas investments and connectivity projects, and to get a better sense of the impact that these projects are having on the ground. The countries we're focusing on today, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Pakistan, are significant partners in the Belt and Road Initiative and are host to several significant infrastructure projects. By looking at these three experiences in greater detail, we're hoping to build a better understanding of what impact the Belt and Road might have in the short term as well as the long term, how it might evolve in each of these countries, how each country has responded to the projects on the ground, and how these experiences might inform China's approach to future projects. So on our panel today, we will start with Priscilla Klap, a senior advisor here at USIP and the former chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Burma. Nilanthi Samaranayaka, who is a strategic studies analyst at CNA, who will talk about Sri Lanka's experience. Wang Lin, who is here as a research fellow with the CBN Research Institute and a journalist with the China Business News and a visiting fellow with the East-West Center here in Washington, who will talk about the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. And finally, Moid Yusuf, who is associate vice president of the Asia Center here at USIP, to share some additional views on CPEC and Chinese investment in South Asia. So we're going to start, we're trying something new today. We're going to start actually with two lightning rounds from our panelists. So first I'm going to ask each panelist to share their prepared remarks outlining Chinese investment in each of these different countries and impact that it's had. But I don't want to discuss these projects in isolation. After they go through and do their opening statements about each country's experience, we're then going to go back through and have them give them a chance to say a few more words, responding to what they heard from the other panelists, but also highlighting some of the similarities or differences that they might have noticed across countries and across projects. So we are going to try to do both of those relatively efficiently so that we still have plenty of time at the end for questions from the audience. So thank you again for joining us today and we are going to start with Priscilla Klapp. Thank you. Okay, I guess it's on, isn't it? Yep. Thank you very much. I'm pleased to be here. Jennifer, thank you for the introduction. I'm Priscilla Klapp and I am at USIP a senior advisor in the Myanmar program. And I'm going to address the Chinese BRI strategy in Myanmar. In its latest form as a national, as a Chinese national strategy articulated by President Xi Jinping, BRI in Myanmar is still largely in the proposal stage. As such, it has not yet produced discernible economic benefit to Myanmar. While there is no evidence that serious cost benefit analysis has been performed on any of the major BRI related projects currently under consideration there, it is nonetheless clear that they would entail multi-billions in debt initially to Chinese government banks and ultimately to Myanmar. Therefore, the economics of BRI in Myanmar is no trivial matter. Even more consequential, however, is the sociopolitical impact that large BRI projects are likely to incur in Myanmar and whether this could avoid igniting new areas of conflict. There's already extensive conflict in the country. I'll focus my remarks on a brief outline of China's pre-BRI investment strategy in Myanmar to the extent that it may have served as a kind of laboratory for the development of today's BRI strategy. And I will discuss the formidable political obstacles that must be resolved before it can become a reality in Myanmar. Myanmar's role in President Xi's current BRI strategy already has a history of more than 25 years. In fact, one might easily conclude that in the case of Myanmar, BRI now serves effectively as a Beijing-designed chapeau for a strategy that originated in Yunnan in the 1990s. At that time, Yunnan was starved for resources, energy and trade routes. So its government and business leaders, including the Kuomint branches of the large Chinese state-owned enterprises, conceived of Myanmar as the province's best route to the Indian Ocean that would give it an independent trading connection with the world. They also saw Myanmar as a potential source for energy and manufacturing resources to make the province competitive with China's wealthier manufacturing centers. The major BRI precursor proposals emanating from Yunnan during the 1990s and the first decade of the 2000s included, and I will list them sequentially, one, a dual pipeline to transport natural gas and petroleum from the Bay of Bengal to Kuomint. This project was completed more than five years ago, but has only recently become fully operational with the construction of an oil refinery in Kuomint. Two, investment in offshore natural gas deposits in the Bay of Bengal to produce gas for transport through the pipeline. Enlarging the port at Chowk Pew in Rakhine State on the Bay of Bengal to accommodate large ships carrying petroleum from the Middle East to offload into the pipeline to Kuomint. The ships have just begun offloading the first petroleum into the pipeline with the completion of that oil refinery. Four, dredging the Irrawaddy River to accommodate larger vessels and building a road from Yunnan to the port of Bamo on the river to complete this as a trade route to the sea. Myanmar's military leaders were never keen on this proposal and seemed to have successfully turned it off over the years. Five, building a major highway and high speed rail line along the route of the dual pipeline. This idea apparently reached the stage of an MOU, a Memorandum of Understanding, but this MOU was allowed to expire under the Thane-Sane government. Six, building a massive hydropower dam at Mitzone, the headwaters of the Irrawaddy River in Kachin State. Upon completion, the hydropower plant would have produced 6000 megawatts of electricity annually, more than 90% of which would have been transmitted to Yunnan. The $3.6 billion dam, however, was fraught with serious social, political, economic and environmental consequences from Myanmar that had not been taken into consideration by its developers. Thus, during its early stages of construction in 2011, it was suspended by the newly elected president, Thane Sane, in response to popular opposition. Now the current status of BRI-related proposals is this. During the final months of the Thane-Sane government in late 2015 and early 2016, a substantial number of new agreements were signed with Chinese entities for a variety of investments. The incoming NLD government reportedly suspended all of these proposals pending a reassessment of the economic feasibility of the proposed infrastructure and resource extraction projects and whether the terms of the agreements would benefit the Myanmar people and not just the enterprises involved. In response to Chinese requests for a decision on the suspended Mitzong Dam project, the NLD government also undertook to perform a thorough review of the project and present a report by the end of 2016. No report has been released to the public so far, but I think it does exist. Of the other pending projects, the two most relevant to BRI appear to be the Chowk Pew Special Economic Zone and Port in the Rakhine state on the Bay of Bengal, and a massive 7,000 megawatt hydropower dam on the Thanlin River, which is also called Sawin, in Shan state, that reportedly would create a lake large enough to cut the state in half. Press reports on recent meetings between senior Myanmar and Chinese officials have suggested that both sides have been discussing some sort of trade-off between Mitzong and Chowk Pew. Mitzong is no longer a compelling interest in Yunnan because they have already achieved energy sufficiency without it. Chowk Pew, on the other hand, has taken on significant strategic value to China, so a trade-off would be a logical solution. But I don't think it's going to be easy for them to arrive at the right term, so it could be still a ways off. Considering that all BRI-related projects would require free access to Myanmar from Yunnan, the most obvious problem facing BRI in Myanmar is the current political instability and historically high level of conflict in northeast Myanmar along the China border, for which there is no end in sight. This area is not even under consideration in the national peace process at this point. In fact, the non-governmental armed entities in this area constitute the bulk of the internal opposition armed forces, and they have formed an alliance adamantly opposed to the nationwide ceasefire agreement, the terms of the peace process, and significant provisions in the national constitution. Efforts by representatives of both the Myanmar and Chinese governments have failed to bridge the wide gap between the demands of these groups and those of Myanmar's military leadership. I mean leadership of the military, not of Myanmar. A second serious obstacle to large Chinese infrastructure and resource extraction projects in Myanmar is the level of public animosity they have created in the past. As exemplified by the successful opposition to Mitzone and the Lepidong copper mine, I haven't discussed that, but we can get into it later. Environmental and other civil society organizations have become powerful forces during the years of transition, and they continue to receive substantial external support. Chinese government and business representatives have not been particularly successful in appealing to or interacting with Myanmar's civil society and labor organizations. And finally, to the extent that the BRI strategy has been captured by the large Chinese state-owned enterprises, these large BRI projects will probably be deliberately over-financed, as in the case of Chowkpiew, drawing strong hesitation and opposition in Lepidong, Myanmar's capital, now that military and their cronies are no longer the driving force behind these deals as they were in the past. The terms of the Chowkpiew agreement, for example, signed in haste by the outgoing Thane Sang government, raised alarms, serious alarms, with the incoming NLD economic managers. And I think this is one of the issues that's under heavy negotiation right now with China. Thank you. Thank you very much. Great. Well, my thanks to Jennifer Chang and USIP for the invitation to be here. To address the topic today, I thought it might be useful to present a few framing questions to help us understand Sri Lanka as it relates to China and the Belt and Road Initiative. So the first question that I would propose is, what does Sri Lanka want out of all of this? It's been a difficult time for Sri Lanka over the past few years. The country has taken a lot of heat due to the fact that it is engaged in so many projects with China and has gone into a lot of debt as a result of these projects and has also withstood a lot of criticism and accusations that Sri Lanka is ganging up with China against India, which is a very important country just to Sri Lanka in terms of its economics, politics, security. So what does Sri Lanka want? I think one answer is that Sri Lanka sees itself as a future Singapore or taking its place along Singapore and Dubai as a major connector of economies and as a site for transshipment of cargoes. So really connecting Singapore and Dubai in the central Indian Ocean, it's strategically located. And I think as a result of that self-identity and that ambition, the country wants to grow, it wants to develop, build critical infrastructure. And I think an additional factor compounding that national ambition is this feeling that the country is starting at a starting line that's further back than it should be. And that is owing to Colombo's war against the LTE, which it fought for many decades and that war ended in 2009. So I think these Chinese projects in Sri Lanka, they represent a convergence of a few factors. So first you have Sri Lanka's desire to build, to grow, especially after the war. It's positioning itself as a maritime hub. It has definitely made that prominent in terms of its communications. And there's this additional feeling that they need to make up for lost time. Then second, I think you had at the same time this push where China was pushing out its construction capabilities and its financing capabilities. There was a surplus domestically, these state-owned enterprises doing these kinds of projects. And also the fact that China will lend money with no strings attached or relatively few strings attached. And that's attractive to a lot of governments. But this leads me to my third point, is that the international environment grew increasingly hostile to the Rajapaksa government for the way that regime conducted the final phase of the war for insufficient post-war accountability and for his authoritarian leadership in the years after the war. You had the UN Human Rights Council issuing resolutions that were very critical of Sri Lanka. So I think it's really the result of a few of these factors. And we have many projects between China and Sri Lanka. Some of them are highways like the Southern Expressway, which connects Colombo to points down south. Also port projects, the terminal in Colombo port, as well as the Hambanthoda port in the south. Also the airport in Hambanthoda, even a dam project. Just as an example, in 2016 Sri Lanka obtained 1.3 billion in terms of loans from a variety of sources. And 34% of those were from China, whereas 26% were from the Asian Development Bank. So I think it shows that even despite all of the criticism and the debt that China still remains a major development partner to Sri Lanka as recently as last year, that Sri Lanka is also open to other sources of access to doing some of these projects with these loans from like the ADB. So the second question is how do Chinese activities affect Sri Lanka? What have been some of the impacts? And I think these activities are often framed as being negative. So it's important to take a look at both the benefits and the drawbacks, especially the benefits to so you can get into the minds of policymakers in Colombo. I think with the Chinese port investments, particularly in Colombo port with the terminal there, I think that's helped to facilitate trade, not just with Sri Lanka's trade with the rest of the world, but also India's trade with other parts of the world. Because Sri Lanka is really a major site of transshipment. Just in Colombo, the figure that's often cited is roughly 70% of transshipments in Colombo port go to and from India. Even in Hambanto port, which has been very criticized as being a port to nowhere, a white elephant project, even that port actually does see transshipment activity of automobiles. So you'll have automobiles that are manufactured in southern India that are trans shipped there for destinations in East Africa or the Middle East. You'll have liners as far out as Japan coming through and trans shipping automobiles there. So these activities serve this larger goal of increased connectivity. And it's a phrase that's used in South Asia a lot. I think probably because the region is one of the least integrated regions in the world. But it's definitely an ambition to access these global lines of communication. But there are clear drawbacks to these projects, namely the loans that Sri Lanka has had to take out to fund these projects. Clearly Sri Lanka's debt financing model of development under the Rajapaksa administration. It was not a sustainable model. I think the leadership at the time, they felt certain pressures of having to deliver to the population now that the war was over. Now they have to deliver on economic growth. So that might have been a factor as well. There's been a lot of estimates about how much in debt Sri Lanka is. But I think the consensus is a considerable portion of the government revenue goes towards servicing these loans. Another drawback is from a development perspective. Some of these Chinese projects are criticized as being poorly done. Like the power plant in Narochalai. It's more than a billion dollar project, but never quite grabbed the headlines like some of the poor projects did. But it's been beset with technical difficulties for the last decade. And experts have also detailed problems with the Hambantota region projects from a planning perspective. Also, there's been local resistance to some of these projects by citizens such as fishermen and environmental groups that are concerned about some of the environmental impacts, especially along the coastline with the Colombo Port City project. That's been one where people have been very concerned about some of the environmental impacts. And we saw very prominently in December and January protests in the southern part of the country in Hambantota, in that region, by port workers who are very concerned about the security of their jobs. Also, when news was coming out that the agreement with China would be negotiated where China would get a considerable part of equity in the port in exchange for swapping some of the debt just to address Sri Lanka's balance of payments crisis. We saw major protests there, detaining two ships even at the port. And also, there was a big concern that China would get a lease to a large swath of land for a special economic zone. At present, the port deal is still being negotiated. I'm not totally optimistic about how it will play out in terms of Sri Lanka's favor in terms of that equity, but I think at a minimum the protests actually worked to some extent because it was supposed to be a done deal by January timeframe and it's June now and still being renegotiated. And just quickly, the third question is what are the implications for the international community? And I think for better or worse, China is filling this desire by countries that are yearning for development and infrastructure and just wanting to connect more to the world economy. So it isn't just Sri Lanka, but what's the international community going to do? I mean, if they don't like all of these Chinese projects, I know Sri Lanka for its part makes it clear that it's open to a lot of different lenders, certainly not only China. And there is some evidence that India is working to enlist Japan as a major development partner and maybe trying to provide compelling attractive investment alternatives and projects, such as in the Port of Colombo with a terminal that's being discussed there and also an LNG terminal in Colombo. So I'll stop there. Thank you very much. Thank you. It's an honor to be here. And I will mainly focus on about China's investment, the impact of China's investment in Pakistan, especially the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor implemented in April of 2015. And the first impact is that CPAC, the implementation of CPAC and also the related Chinese investment really reshaped the Pakistan Economic Prospect in the next three to five years and also strengthened Pakistan's economic growth since 2015. And based on IMF's data, we can find the two times. The latest time is about IMF's Article IV Consultation of Pakistan. And in the Conclusion Report, they evaluated that Pakistan's outlook for economic growth is favorable and with real GDP estimated at 5.3% in the financial year 2016 to 2017. And it is expected, it is also prospective that it will strengthen into 6% over the medium term and especially on the back of step-up CPAC investment. This is the latest estimation. And if we found the previous one, it was in October 2015. It's almost only six months after China has implemented CPAC in Pakistan. And at that time, with IMF's report, it was from the ETH Review and the EFF for Pakistan. They mentioned about two driving forces for the further Pakistan economic growth. And one is the planned improvement in the supply of gas and electricity in Pakistan. And we know that the lack of electricity has long time been one of the most serious bottlenecks of Pakistan's economy. And they expect the expected improvement of the electricity is one of the driving force. And the second driving force of Pakistan's economic growth at that time in October 2015 is the investment related to the CPAC. When evaluating one country's economic growth, I'm related to China's investment of CPAC as one of the two or one of the three pillars of one country's economic growth. So we can see how Chinese investment, especially under the CPAC, has influenced Pakistan's economic growth and also the prospect. And we think that this trend will also continue in the next three to five years. And second, the impact is that with the Chinese investment, especially the implementation of CPAC, one of the four major areas of CPAC is about the industrial park. And with regard to this, we can see that with Chinese investment, China is sharing with Pakistan the economic, China's own economic development experience and expertise in the last three decades. And we know that actually in the past three decades, China is really a big fan of the industrial park and also free trade zone. And especially recently in the last three years, there is a new wave of upgraded free trade zone in different cities in China, in Shanghai, Wuhan, Shenzhen, Shoko, and there are many different cities. And we also know that under the mechanism of CPAC, Pakistan has established that we can see that a dozen of free zone, free trade zone or industrial park. But they are not only with Chinese engagement. We know that with Chinese engagement under CPAC in terms of the industrial park, there is one in Lahore called the Haier-Ruba industrial park. But actually that was built before the initiative of the Belt and Road initiative and also the CPAC. And the other free trade zone on free zone is in Guadar port. It's called Guadar Free Zone. And it will also complement with free trade and also industrialization, manufacturing and other things. This is one type of the free trade zones in Pakistan with China's engagement. But in the past three years, there are also other free trade zones in Pakistan that were proposed by other players. One kind is by the Pakistan federal government or by the provincial government. They are also supporting their local free trade zones. For example, like both Sindh province and Punjab provinces, Punjab province have mapped up their guidelines or regulation framework for the free trade zone in their own country, but either with Chinese investment or without Chinese investment. And the third type of free trade zone is that with international engagement. Both World Bank. World Bank is also piloting a few free trade zones or industrial park in Pakistan either in Punjab and in Sindh. And the Asian Development Bank is also deeply engaged in the planning and the complementation and professional advisory for Pakistan's free trade economic zones in the development phase or in the complementation phase. So the second impact is what we call that China is sharing its own economic development experience and expertise with Pakistan along with the Chinese investment. And the third impact is that with the implementation of CPAC, actually it strengthened the Pakistan's political consensus and the willingness for the economic development. And we know that the vision of China-Pakistan economic corridor was actually was proposed in the middle of 2013 with China's primary Keqiang, but it was implemented in April of 2015 with Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Pakistan. And we know that in the very initial few months, especially in the late of 2015, there is very fierce debate in Pakistan about whether how to implement the CPAC, especially the debates on the west route and east route. And at that time, many people think that this shows that the political lack of political consensus and also the domestic political fights in Pakistan would be one of the major risks or bottlenecks for the CPAC. But we know that actually the process is dynamic. After the hot debate and the current ruling government, especially the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif found that the CPAC was not going to be successful without the more active engagement from the opposition parties and also from the local provinces, like from the Belugistan provinces, from the Sindh provinces, ruled by the PPP party. So there are many meetings and negotiations, and we can also see there are many compromises in the discussion of the implementation of CPAC. On the very ground, it relates to the project of which should be included in the CPAC and what will be the guidelines and who will be responsible for it, especially in terms of who will provide the security forces to protect the CPAC. Because we know that in terms of the security forces arrangements of CPAC, Pakistan government has two domains. One is from the federal level. There is unified military and police forces to secure and safeguard the CPAC projects and also the people. Actually, the federal government of Pakistan also convenes the local province from different parties that they could also provide security forces for the CPAC projects in their own provinces. But by the time, if we look further, and by the time of December 2016, actually there is a stronger political consensus of CPAC in Pakistan, especially after the resolution of the East route or the West route. One of the landmark phenomenon is that there is a GCC meeting of CPAC in December. In the very late December, it's called the Joint Cooperation Conference. Actually, all the chief ministers of different provinces of Pakistan has attended this GCC meeting. They are on the same table to discuss all the projects of CPAC. The fourth impact is that the China's investment and the CPAC really improve and enhance Pakistan's regional role and also the international image. We know that with China's investment in CPAC, there are also many international players are very interested in the CPAC, like UK, Japan, and South Korea. And also, there are many regional partners from the Central Asia countries and also Iran. They also propose their willingness to how to draw the CPAC or how to benefit from it. The fifth impact is that we know there are many discussions about the social impact of China's investment. And with the CPAC, there is design of the social sectors in terms of education, health, media, and also the party communication and also the civil society activities. Take the example of Guader, and with the Chinese investment, especially the Chinese operation at Guader, there is also school and hospitals with China's foreign aid or with China's social donation will be implemented in Guader. And the sixth is that actually, Pakistan has really become a very popular destination of investment in China because I personally report about China's overseas investment. And we can see that in 2017, that Pakistan has become the largest contracting market of Chinese contractors. This is a real thing. And for now, there are many Chinese contractors. Previously, they don't invest in the host country. But nowadays, they are trying to transform and also invest in host countries like in Pakistan. So I will stop here. Thank you very much. Thanks. Thanks, Jennifer. Welcome all to USIP. You'd ask me to also speak about CPEC and China's role in how it affects institutions in the countries it invests in, namely Pakistan. So I'll try and focus on that briefly talking about the institutions and then we can have a conversation around that. So I think the first thing, the first point I want to make is to be clear that the CPEC initiative to my mind is a slightly different basket than the overall belt and roll initiative. And the reason I say that is that I think this is almost become a compulsion for both China and Pakistan rather than a luxury. For China, because I think China has staked a lot on CPEC being the litmus test of Belt and Road success. The timeline is quicker than most others. And so what happens in CPEC will affect how the world looks at China's larger Belt and Road initiative. For Pakistan, interestingly, it's a compulsion because at the moment and for some time Pakistan has seen and felt a need to find a anchor to get out of its perennial concern about India trying to isolate it. Whether that can happen or not is a different story but Pakistan's world view to a large extent flows from that. And so in Pakistan's case it's really how do you get out of this problem of securitization of your budget which keeps your economy at 3%, 4% doesn't let it grow. So CPEC addresses its economic problem potentially by bringing in this investment. It anchors Pakistan with China in a way that China becomes dependent on the success of this project. And by definition then it also finds a way to diversify its alliance options which have shrunk over the years considerably with the John Dess relationship with the US, tensions with India that continue and largely non-existent but now improving relationship with Russia. And so the reason I mention this is that I think both sides are going to keep at it and try to make this work despite the hurdles and hiccups that may come and definitely will come and have come already over time. And that's important to understand. Second, because so much is staked on its success I think you will have to assume that the Chinese are going to be more interventionist in trying to ensure the success of this initiative than they have been in Pakistan in the past. The China-Pakistan relationship so far has been a very interesting one. It's an entirely state-to-state relationship. It's a very deep, very strong, very significant relationship both economic and security but it's never involved anybody but the states which means that the narratives of the two countries in each other's country have been fairly well managed and have been entirely positive for the most part. This is the first time I think China and Pakistan will have to operate beyond the state level in terms of private sector, in terms of society, in terms of Chinese physical presence in Pakistan, in terms of Chinese citizens working in Pakistan, etc. So this is going to be a first test I think for China and Pakistan on how they operate when it comes to this kind of environment. And there I think a great example is the U.S.-Pakistan relationship it's been a very interesting state plus society-led relationship for 70 years and if you look at the popularity ratings of both countries in each other's capitals you've got something left to be desired there. I'm not saying it'll end up that way but I think it will be a challenge. Why would China need to be more involved? I think if you ultimately want a successful CPEC to prove that Belt and Road is going to be a success and if this is the litmus test the first thing you have to look at is that internal Pakistani political wrangling does not get to the point where it starts to sabotage the progress of CPEC. So you mentioned the East and West route and I don't think we've heard the last of it. I think this is going to keep coming back because there's a lot of conversation still to happen between provinces on who owns what and where resources go whether it's the economic zones, whether it's the infrastructure, et cetera. So I think that's one area where the China sort of approach to Pakistan and in general is to stay out of this, hands off. But at some point if it gets too bad I think the Chinese will have to play a role behind the scenes to make sure that it doesn't sabotage the progress. Second, I think if you have to ensure efficiency there are a number of institutional issues that have to be worked out within the Pakistani bureaucratic system. It's a fairly, you know, inertia attic system if I will and that doesn't really gel with the Chinese approach to development. So already I'm hearing that, you know, certain units set up in the Pakistani government Chinese counterparts have had to come in and ask for changes in personnel in terms of approach, in terms of how they operate, in terms of resources, the allocation of resources because they feel that things are not moving as smoothly as they should. Perhaps create some tension as well on the Pakistani bureaucratic side. Third, this is a point that I'm plagiarizing from my colleague Andrew Wilder who just spoke but I'm shameless in that so I'll take it. A point that he's made and I haven't heard anybody else make which is that this is the first time Chinese citizens and Pakistani citizens are going to come in contact with each other. So questions about, sorry don't look at me like that I've taken it already, but questions about culture, questions about labor diversion, questions about rights wherever the Chinese are operating have never been answered before. And I think this is going to be a question that both sides will have to deal with fairly quickly and fairly decisively because otherwise I do see problems there. I already hear conversations in Pakistan people calling up somebody for a plumbing service and a Chinese company showing up to do that which is all great and I think if you start looking at a labor surplus country which is going to start losing jobs there will be some questions raised on that. Fourth, I think in terms of institutions we will have to find out what the Chinese threshold for security risk is. We've already seen two Chinese nationals abducted and killed in Balochistan what is the threshold? How far are we going to go? The US threshold as we know is fairly low in these things in conflict environments. The Chinese have traditionally been higher but how high will it be? I think we will have to wait and see. What does this mean for Pakistani institutions? And I'll stop at that. The first thing I would say is that you will see Pakistani institutions increasingly create special arrangements for CPEC. So you will see the normal bureaucratic channels being circumvented special units being set up they're already set up in some cases the Prime Minister's office running some of this. This will be the highest priority in the coming months and years. So what you will find is that normal processes and rule of law systems I think will be circumvented in the name of greater efficiency. It will bring greater efficiency but the long-term repercussions of that we don't know and we will have to wait and see. Second, I think you will also see special arrangements created for debt servicing and scheduling. And I think the Chinese will be more lenient on this than probably in other countries because of the litmus test factor that I have put out. We don't know yet what the debt burden is going to be. I think there's a lot made of this debt burden rightly but I also feel that this is a conversation that's very different in Beijing and Islamabad versus in Washington. The conversation in Washington on Chinese investments usually focuses on debt as trapping countries in this process. The conversation in Beijing and Islamabad in another capital is very much about delivery of infrastructure, energy and economic progress. Where the middle is, we don't know yet and I think this is a question that will be answered over time. Fourth, I think Pakistan's security institutionals will also be compartmentalized to deal with CPEC. There's already a special force that's been created or a division that's been created but I think you will find more and more special units dealing with the problem of security for CPEC and the Chinese versus the rest. This is for the first time that such a major project is going to give the Pakistani navy that is really an often service when it comes to Pakistan military, a stake in the system because when it comes to Gwadar and the transshipment and the hub it's really the navy that's going to benefit from this. So I think that's going to create a very interesting dynamic within the Pakistani military as well. Let me just say to conclude two things. One I think test with CPEC two rival global development models. One the Chinese the other the American. The American model that focuses much more on institutions rather than resources, economic resources and infrastructure for long-term institutional development. And the Chinese model which essentially says economic development equals stability. We will test this in Pakistan. We know that the U.S. model has had problems in various contexts but we also know that just throwing money at the problem has not worked for the most part. Again, I think the jury is out and we will see where we end up and my guess is the truth will be in the middle as it always is. And finally I think we're going to have a very interesting geo-strategic dynamic which is India opposes CPEC Every single time you see CPEC being targeted through terrorism, through anything else Pakistan's default position will be to blame India. This will create more tensions between India and Pakistan because China is invested in CPEC and India has approached Belt and Road. It will harden the Chinese-Pakistani alliance versus the Indian position CPEC in South Asia. If you add to that the U.S.-India relationship, I think what you will find in South Asia in the coming years is that CPEC will be one force. I'm not saying this will be the defining force. It will be one force that will probably harden the Sino-Pakistani alliance versus the U.S.-India partnership. How that plays out in other broader spheres, Afghanistan and elsewhere we'll have to wait and see. But I think you are going to move to that direction with the force that CPEC brings to it. Thank you all. That was tremendous. There's a lot to cover here obviously and I think our speakers have done a great job really laying the groundwork on three very interesting and unique and important cases. We've covered a lot and I definitely want to leave time for Q&A but I did promise everyone a chance for a quick follow-on comment. There's a lot to respond to. I won't even mention all the different themes that came up because I don't want to take time away from you. So I think ask everybody to take one minute to respond to either something that came out from another presentation, something that came to mind while you were listening or one more thing that you would like to highlight before we go to Q&A. We'll start with you Priscilla. I was interested in sort of seeing the progression from Myanmar to Pakistan as people were speaking because I think there's a big difference in geographic proximity to China among the countries that will be affected by Belt and Road. Myanmar shares a border of probably 1200 miles or 12 to 1500 miles with China and they have a thousand-year history of relations back and forth and there's been a lot of migrants migration into Myanmar so you have a very long history of a relationship there that is both dependent and conflicted and that is going to affect how China can proceed with the Belt and Road initiative in Myanmar. It's going to be right up front and center whereas listening to Moid's presentation about how CPEC is going to be affecting Pakistan-China relations because it hasn't yet so far. It's actually more advanced in its development in Pakistan by far than it is in Myanmar but it hasn't really reached the point where it begins to have an impact on the people and the institutions in the country whereas in Myanmar even without achieving anything yet it's already affecting the institutions that are deeply involved in the political developments in the country particularly the peace process because they have direct interest in it so I think it's going to be quite problematic in Myanmar compared to other countries so I think that one needs to look at Myanmar almost as the canary in the mine that the problems we see in Myanmar are the problems that could well afflict other countries along the way as this strategy develops on both the negative and the positive side. There are many potential positive benefits to Myanmar if they can get beyond the problems that they're facing right now but it's hard to get beyond the problems because they've been there for a long time. Sure, just quickly I think one point that resonated with me that Priscilla mentioned about how Yunnan was seeking a route to the Indian Ocean that really that makes sense when I was thinking about the Sri Lanka case I mean it's basically we're talking about the pursuit of southward lines of communication just access to that and I think that's what a lot of the ambition from Sri Lanka is wanting to increase infrastructure and increase access to those regional and global networks with some of this infrastructure. Also, Wang Lin's point about how some of these projects are built before the Belt and Road Initiative were announced I think that's a really important point I forgot to make that in my presentation but it's true like in terms of if China wants to claim credit for some of these projects I know like in the Sri Lanka case so many of these were before the Belt and Road I think you can say that the Colombo-Port City project or the International Financial City project that and this new phase of the Hamadoda Port that are being developed I think you could place those safely under the Belt and Road Initiative but a lot of these projects really predate that announcement and are part of a larger pattern of Chinese investment in the country I'll stop there. Thank you I will mainly talk a little bit more about the financing issues as I said about the Washington conversation about BRI is mainly about the debt issue and it's true that with the implementation of CPAC and also BRI even for the Chinese authority that the financing is also a critical issue and we can see that from the cooperation documents of the BRI this time there is a lot of contents addressing the importance of sustainable stable and risk control of financing and in terms of the specific financing in CPAC and there are a large amount of loans and there are also many of the co-financing or joint financing so the financing for the CPAC is not only from the Chinese banks there are also from the international institutions and also from the foreign investors there are three mega power projects we can take the example one is the tar coal mining and coal power plant this was a project that was co-financed by both the Chinese banks and also the local banks and the Pakistan local bank Habib and helped to finance with local currency for this project and there are also some foreign investors with another power project like Kasim power project that is the China Pakistan and also the Qatar three-party financing of this power plant and there is another three gorges carried hydro power station it was also co-financed by the Chinese company Chinese banks and also the Silk Road fund and also the World Bank IFC so actually with the Chinese vision of the Belt and Road initiative actually it really hope that there will be a sustainable and also co-sharing and co-risk financing mechanism that I think this is an issue both for Beijing, Washington and also for the host country thanks thanks three points one let's not underestimate the attraction of liquidity financial liquidity for these countries who have no other alternatives at this point and it's connection with political expediency so if you are getting this liquidity and putting in billions of dollars worth of projects in the next five to ten years that's what's going to get you re-elected and it's time to re-service the debt thinking about that as a rational politician so don't underestimate the attractiveness of the fact that there is no other power in the world but China that can bring this liquidity to the table in a time horizon that fits perfectly for any rational politician in these countries or any country for that matter that's one point now on that I think what really matters is the behavior of the host country in how they protect their institutions and equities in the process and I would argue that countries with relatively stronger institutions are likely to do that better than countries that may not be there and I think Prashila that may be one difference between Myanmar and some other countries on how they will handle this but to me it's the host country quite frankly that really matters at the end of the day on how this is going to play out for them it is also absolutely crucial I think for the host countries not to get into a mindset whereby they see China's investments as allowing them to substitute for other partnerships in the world I think one of the biggest sort of mistakes that a country like Pakistan can make is to say well we've got this country that doesn't need the U.S. so we don't need somebody else I think that would be a catastrophic era for any country in that space and I think the Chinese must push the host countries not to see them as a substitute ally for everybody else that they are not being able to work with I think that that that right thank you again to all of our panelists we have about 25 minutes for questions obviously with lots of expertise up here and lots of things to share I'm going to ask people to please make their questions and answers as concise as possible so we can make sure we have a chance to touch on a number of things so if you have a question please raise your hand someone will bring a microphone to you and would ask that you stand and identify yourself and ask your question and we'll probably take some questions before we give the panel a chance to reply anyone go over it my name is Peter Reese I'm with the interning at the House of Ford and Ferris committees and just given the instability in Afghanistan and the tensions relationship that Pakistan and Afghanistan have with each other what do you think China's role will be in trying to ensure stability investments going on so just pretty much do you see a larger role in China stepping in to ensure political stability given everything that's gone on in the last 15 years in regards to the Afghanistan war good afternoon my name is Julian Kyle Lewis I study international education policy at the American University here in Washington DC and my question is about the current president of the United States and the message sent abroad President Trump and President Xi of China when they first had their official meeting to sit down and talk and just discuss things and their views on the world the president of China had to take 20 minutes out of the meeting to explain Chinese and South Asian history as far as diplomacy and military aspects to the president of the United States President Trump didn't really know anything about that so how do you think that region or that part of the world views how the United States and China should move forward when one president has to take 20 minutes out of an official meeting to explain country history to another president thank you my name is Fatima I actually just visited Pakistan and I was very shocked to see how prominent the CPEC was and how celebrated it was so I wanted to know what do you think the risk of China using its economic sphere of influence to exert political what is the risk that they would exert their sphere of influence in a paternalistic manner great thanks okay so questions about instability in Afghanistan about the U.S. role in CPEC or in relation to BRI in South Asia and questions about China's role in Pakistan so not everyone needs to answer all the questions but if you have something to say we happy to go from there so the question about having a foreign leader explain history to your leader is not a new one I've I'm retired Foreign Service I have spent my life firsthand dealing with foreign relations and I have seen many foreign leaders particularly dictators sit down and walk through their version of history so that they can set the scene for how the conversation should continue it's a device that's used and so I wouldn't necessarily say that it's simply a case of the president not knowing anything I mean that may be true but I don't think I don't think we have to assume that it is for example I think that the president of China also gave China's version of history like Korea used to belong to China a few things like that that then got repeated by our president because he didn't understand that it was China's version of history so in a way it's dangerous but I don't think that that in and of itself is a problem in relations between two leaders the best thing is for the leader just to cut it off when it starts I would say it's proposition that should be tested I think the hope was even before there's something called the quadrilateral cooperation group that was coordination group that was set up between Afghanistan Pakistan US and China and the hope there was that the Chinese presence would allow more pressure if you will or encouragement whichever way you want to put it for Pakistan to try and do certain things that need to be done or are asked of Pakistan so it didn't happen and it didn't happen for various reasons but I think it's a proposition to be tested again partly because quite frankly I don't see many other options available to try and see how to move forward on the regional consensus in Afghanistan whether it will work or not I don't know but I think it's worth testing on the question of Pakistan and China look when you're bringing in this kind of investment to think that you will not have political leverage is naive there's of course going to be political leverage and I think if you look at the debates in the Pakistani parliament on CPAC they've been very vocal I think the real shock here is not that CPAC is so hyped the real shock is the explicit nature in which the Pakistani parliament has debated this to say exactly what you are saying is this going to become a real problem again I think the jury is out the Chinese have not done this before in their region people draw parallels with Africa I think it's very different and to me again it really depends on the host country on how they manage the relationship rather than how the external party is going to do this maybe I talk a little bit about the risk of CPAC in terms of the politics and the economic interest yeah not only CPAC but also the whole market projects in China there is also debate about how to define and tell the different Chinese interests either is economic interests or the political and strategic interests and we know that in terms of the investment actually the interest is very diverse and dynamic it may be the investment from the state-owned company foreign company so I think in terms of the CPAC why the CPAC could be quick and the early bird of BRI actually it because the very solid foundation between China and Pakistan in terms of the political relations even in other countries maybe this actually for every country the trust foundation is very important for cooperation but for Pakistan is a unique case but even in Pakistan actually China is still did not change the rule of that not interfering or intervention of another country's domestic issue yeah so we will say that how China could unite the different forces of Pakistan to to support CPAC especially in terms of the cooperation on the ground thank you I will take a few more questions from the floor my name is Dawood Ahmad I had worked with the World Bank for a long time 30 plus years of experience in infrastructure development a lot of it in China 10 years plus can quite a bit in the border provinces of Xinjiang and Yunnan currently I am associated with a public policy in Pakistan which is a think tank group I am raising it because this year the working institute is focusing on its annual report on land based commerce it is going to be an independent evaluation of the CPAC proposal from point of views of what it is what its potentials are what the benefits could be internal linkages versus external linkages I am coordinating that effort and we are currently working on it I have a couple of concerns about this well told initiative at CPAC the first one is that this is a very non-conventional intervention conventionally the projects are evaluated based on economic, financial institutional feasibility here the focus is mainly on regional connectivity it is you want to do things along a particular corridor and there are quite quite a bit of risks in it I think some effort has to be made to ensure that the individual projects are subjected to due diligence and you don't end up with I mean in Pakistan frankly you have a lot of examples of Chinese investment which have gone sour a lot of them are good but are there are quite a few which for lack of proper due diligence and finally I would like to say that this is a very good initiative conceptually it is good but one has to keep in mind the implementation capacity of everybody involved China as well as the host country it is many times full of these implementing capacity of Pakistan and I have worked long time in China even it is beyond Chinese capacity so the time travels which are being fulfilled in my opinion are unrealistic but we will see that things will drag on sorry to take so long Sopin Chettopathar from the Indian Embassy the strategic objective of this one belt one road that BRI still remains there are a lot of suspicions still remains as the speakers they have said some projects were taken in Myanmar before the previous government resigned then similarly we know that some projects were taken hurriedly when Mr. Rajapakshe was there in Sri Lanka and we are quite well aware that the Chinese companies how much they paid kickbacks to some of the families of the president for those projects so this all gives a lot of suspicions about the Chinese intent of those projects and their things and see on the CPEC also they are saying that this will improve they are again and again focusing that this will improve Pakistan's economic growth ok that's fine but to say that only with the CPEC this will improve Pakistan's international image is not the correct one Pakistan's international image will depend on so many other things rather than only on CPEC and for the Chinese to propagate and propaganda this initiative as the signature project of the president Xi Jinping who has a lot of stakes in this project to his leadership and the incoming party congress that is quite obvious but the suspicions of the strategic content of the intent of this project still remains and what Mr. Yusuf said that regarding the projects contributing to the peace and development in this region and China claiming that this kind of projects are like no as part of China's peaceful rise but we all know that there are a lot of questions about China's peaceful rise when we see about China's territorial disputes or other things with the countries in the region there is a basic questions about China's peaceful rise so how this project is going to call the China's peaceful rise I don't know so that has to be seen how much China really helps in the peace building in this part of the region thank you how do you think the One Belt Road will impact the China-North Korea relationship how much should be read into the latest missile launch during the summit how isolated is this may this make the North Korea feel left out of an initiative that's unifying the rest of Asia that China is creating special relationships with all its neighbors at a time when it's actually starting to enforce UN sanctions against North Korea cutting off North Korean coal exports is it just media hype that or is it just merely a coincidence that North Korea missile launches that this deteriorating relationship with North Korea how will this spill over into that relationship that North Korea no longer has that special relationship you mentioned that there was a variety of sources of financing for CPAC so do you expect that the investments of local banks or foreign investors will rival those of international banks or of China or will they be too small to be significant and if they do have effects what will those be thank you David Sadney with CSIS a lot of talk about pre-existing projects and current projects is there either overall for the initiative or for each of the countries involved here any real hard figures about how much additional investment has been made as opposed to putting pre-existing projects under this umbrella I have a question for Maiden Club this morning I talked to professor David Stenberg and he said the big problem now in Myanmar is the rising of the nationalism and I agree with that so how could China address this problem of the nationalism in Burma yeah okay a lot of interesting issues raised on a number of fronts still some questions about implementation in Pakistan suspicion still from India questions about relationships to North Korea sources of financing pre-existing projects versus how much has really changed with the announcement relationships in Burma a lot to cover here and I would just add to the mix as well these countries that we're talking about today are really kind of at the forefront of the Belt and Road experience if you will they've received a lot more investment in some cases they are the litmus test or the poster child for some of these projects what lessons have been learned so far that you think will be useful for other partners in the Belt and Road initiative to keep in mind as they craft their projects going forward and their engagement with the Chinese and similarly are there lessons learned for China in terms of the experiences that they have had in your countries in the way that China might adopt or adapt its approach going forward so lots of different things to talk about I think we'll probably just go down the line and give everybody 90 seconds to share your wisdom and we'll wrap it up from there thanks Priscilla I don't know what to say nationalism in Myanmar is a problem but it's it's not so much nationalism that's associated with the state it's nationalism that's associated with ethnic identity and you have many different forms of nationalism it's also identified with religion so it has a lot to do with internal conflict and China is deeply involved in the peace process and all of the the kinds of internal events that are going on in Myanmar so I'm sure the Chinese government is fully aware of that problem it's going to be very difficult to deal with it, Chau Pui is sitting in the middle of a hotspot of nationalism, we're kind nationalism versus the Muslim population and very very prone to communal violence that is not something that can be handled in state to state relations so China is going to have to become much more aware of and even involved in some of these local tensions if it wants these projects to be successful I don't see how especially economic zone in Chau Pui or a port can be made safe if it's sitting in the middle of a hotbed of communal violence and this is not just that part of the country, the worst of it all is on the China border and I don't think this problem exists in other countries where Belton Road initiative is being pursued but the fighting on the China border is higher now than it's ever been historically except perhaps during the period when there was a communist rebellion in Burma so I think that as China proceeds with the Belton Road initiative the larger lesson here is that they're going to have to become much more aware of and involved in local situations than China has been before because China has stepped back and said we don't want to do anything that will affect internal situations in countries but this is deeply embedded in internal situations in countries so China is going to have to take that into consideration and it almost is going to require a new form of education in the country I think in terms of lessons I think for some of the recipients of these Chinese loans projects I think just being more careful about the terms that they end up signing up for that is definitely a lesson in the Sri Lanka case where I think as I mentioned there was this sort of push at the end of the war for post-war development and trying to sort of you know make up for the past time but I think some of these other countries that have witnessed the pitfalls of some of these projects they will be a little bit more alert to some of these some drawbacks like seeing your country go into a significant amount of debt I think one lesson for China and this maybe touches on Fatima's question about behaving in a paternalistic manner but just with regard to this Hamantoda deal becomes a little too or acts a little too mercenary that will leave a really bad taste not only in the mouths of Sri Lanka as a partner in this Belt and Road initiative but other partners in the initiative I think this project it you know Sri Lanka really needs that infusion of cash and so this equity this debt for equity swap is very attractive to Sri Lanka but ultimately it is a critical infrastructure asset that poured in the southern part of the country so I think if China as we wait for this final deal to be announced I think if China's seeing as being a little too mercenary that will have a negative impact not only in Sri Lanka but in other potential partners in terms of the financing especially with the additional financing of BRI actually to be honest for my understanding it's really hard to accumulate how much the BRI will cost and how much in total that China will invest as a package but with the additional financing especially from the Belt and Road Forum in May and we can know that for BRI what we know is that to promote BRI China established a new fund called Silk Road Fund and the total amount is 40 billion US dollars and initial initial scale is 10 billion US dollars and during the forum in May and the Chinese government also added 100 billion RMB to Silk Road Fund to support the Belt and Road Forum and we can see that the Silk Road Fund is the main financing mechanism to support BRI and besides that there is also China Development Bank and Exxon Bank they have invested and given loans to the countries around the Belt and Road for a long time and there is a large amount of existing amounts and the new additional financing with the Belt and Road Forum in May is that for CDB there will be 250 billion RMB special loans for the Belt and Road Project and for the Exxon Bank there will be 130 billion RMB with the Belt and Road Project and there is also a difference previously China married the loans or the financing with the US dollars but with this time with the Belt and Road Forum China married the new financing in RMB and for the whether the reveries of different institutions actually even in CPAC the demand of financing is huge and actually China what China now worried actually for my understanding is that there is no enough money or enough financing China really want to attract different sources of financing to support CPAC either it could also not be called investment projects in Pakistan or in the countries along the Belt and Road initiative or any countries it will help either in one condition that it will help the connectivity infrastructure and industrialization of different countries and in terms of the improvement of international image of Pakistan for my understanding is that it means that the image of Pakistan will not be only about the terrorism and the fragile country it could also be emerging economy with great potentials and I think that a stable study and economic development focus the Pakistan will also benefits the other countries in South Asia including India and in terms of Indians concern of the CPAC and also BRI and we know that almost at the same time the proposal of CPAC was happening at the same time of China's proposal of another corridor in South Asia that called BCIM but because of some obstacles I think that made many many concerns and doubts of these projects we can see the complementation of CPAC but with the BCIM corridor for now it is only in the feasibility of studies and we are happy that it seems that there are some progress in the last few months I think in early of this year thank you Thanks I'll address a couple of points one the strategic dimension to this I think it's entirely clear I think countries will keep pretending that we don't know where this is going but I think everybody knows where this is going China is playing global card this is a new model that the Chinese are putting out as a rising power which rivals you know in some ways the U.S. model without taking this head on in a way that it would be a collision I think that means that number one China is physically trying to reduce its vulnerability in the states of Malacca so you open up the west second it means that there will be political leverage that comes with it and then the real question on what that means for geostrategy is the downstream effect what does that mean in terms of the changing alliances in the regions that this happens what is the strategic intention of the host country that's equally important what does Pakistan want to do with this what does Sri Lanka want to do with this what does Burma want to do that's what's going to define it then skeptical sort of countries who are skeptical of this will then find alternative modes to balance out and BCIM India looking for other means if it's going to oppose so I think the larger picture is fairly clear how this plays out in terms of individual countries still remains to be seen but at the very least I think this is going to increase strategic competition I think transparency in most countries about what these investments are because that can generate a debate that will make sure that it doesn't become lopsided in favor of either the investor or the China or the host country not in many different countries most countries have to work out their domestic politics that's the lesson to find out so far don't work out your domestic politics in advance I think I have no problem with euphoria allowing Chinese investment I think that's only natural politically country not working sorry I wasn't audible I guess countries will actually political governments will use this to say that we are bringing in all this investment so that is going to happen the question really is how do you channel that euphoria for institutional effectiveness and then just political experience and that I think ties to my initial point about transparency and debate because you have that as a check and balance on going too far in this direction but I do maintain I think the weaker the institutions the country has the greater the possibility that you will get carried away with this investment all right well thank you all for joining us this afternoon I think we just scratched the surface of all there is to talk about on this issue so we look forward to having you back for a related event sometime soon before we break I want to first thank Jennifer Chang who is standing at the back this entire event was her idea and she really is working hard to pull it together so this wouldn't have been impossible without her so thank you Jennifer for making this happen thank you obviously also to our excellent panelists it was really a treat to have you all here today and thank you for sharing your expertise with us and hope to have you back soon thanks