 It's 3 p.m. I'm Jay Fiedel on a given Wednesday. This is Think Tech Asia. We have the honor again of having an informed international citizen, Russell Hanma, and he's going to talk about the meeting between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump coming up next week. Russell, welcome to the show. Well, thank you, Jay, for inviting me again for the Think Tech Kauai. It's great to have you here, Russell. So, I mean, this is really important. We're in a swirling confluence of things that are happening around trade and multilateral and bilateral deals and trying to hold things together, despite what the Trump administration likes to do, despite Brexit for that matter, and despite, you know, this sort of folding on yourself nationalism we got going. So, there's going to be a meeting. Now, it hasn't been well-publicized, but can you tell us about it? Well, I can tell you a little bit about the history of it. It's scheduled for April 6th and 7th in Florida, in Mar-a-Lago, where Donald Trump, the president, likes to have his meeting with the state officials. Last time he met was a prime minister from Japan, Abe Shinzo, there. But I was told that through the line, like, you know, they haven't made an official statement through the State Department as a press release, or China's foreign ministry hasn't made an official statement as yet, but heard that they're going to relocate the meeting location of El Palm County. It's in the same area in South Florida, but they're going to be relocating instead of having them in Mar-a-Lago, but it is scheduled for... Why would they relocate them? Maybe for... Mar-a-Lago is a big deal, isn't it? Yes, I think so, but I think maybe it was incest from the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and maybe through their delegation. But I think from the security point of view, I guess they wanted to change it to there, but I guess they got to come up with the agenda of what the meeting's going to be. But through what I was told, or they're going to want to talk mostly about the security issue with what's happening with North Korea, because as you know, China has the influence with North Korea with Kim and Moon in these factions, so they want to restart the Six Nations Security talks again. Who's they? I guess the United States, we want to push it as well with our allies they have with Japan and South Korea. You think this is something that Tillerson talked about when he went to China? Well, definitely he went to Japan and South Korea and China, so hopefully they can revisit the issue of starting up the Six Nations Security talks and complying with the United Nations Security Agreement for nuclear arms and missile for this... Where is China on North Korea? I mean, it behooves them to be the one that kind of controls North Korea and to be the one at the head of the pack in the Six Nations, don't you think? Yeah. They want to control things and so they're not really in a hurry to represent Six Nations. Why are they doing this? Actually, they have a meeting in the past, but we try to do one in 2012 in Beijing, China, but they postpone the meeting and they're not terrorized after that. But then the South Korea had meeting with the North in terms of unification committee and they had their industrial park, Yangsing area, where they closed industrial parks area and they have to reopen it again. So there's a lot of politics going on between South and North Korea. So I think with the Six Party talks, this includes China and Russia as well with Japan, South Korea, United States and North Korea. So there's six nations that's involved with the Korean Peninsula and they want to make sure that they bring peace to the region. Well, you know, just two weeks ago there was a meeting of the Pacific Forum CSIS, the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington that met here. And of course, Joseph Nye Jr. was one of the speakers, but the other was Admiral Harris. And when the conversation turned to North Korea, Admiral Harris said he was losing sleep over North Korea. We should all be losing sleep over Kim Jong-un. And that was a very threatening thing for the United States and for Hawaii. So you know, I wonder exactly what the American position is on North Korea right now because to Hawaii it's pretty threatening where within the ambit of their intercontinental missiles and presumably they do have a bomb. So we should be concerned in any event. He's concerned. Should we be concerned? Oh, yeah, definitely. I think when we had our second defense, Mattis, he went over there and he discussed those terms with South Korea and Japan and with our allies there since we have our military bases and we have a secured agreement as well. So I know that Admiral Harris, prior to his predecessor, Samuel Locksmith, when he was pushing for the peace treaty talked with the North Korea, you know, that kind of broke in the Six Nations Security Talk. So I know that Admiral Harris understands what the ramification of Asia-Pacific region is all about. But that is our number one issue in the Asia-Pacific region, how to work with North Korea and see if they can reason with them. And I know that we've been trying to do it from a diplomacy and try to resolve some of the issues. But I think when this new administration with President Donald Trump, we're losing our patience and I think when Defense Secretary General Mattis went there, he was a former Marine Corps general, so he understands the strategic ways of our Department of Defense operates. I mean, when this administration first started, first thing was Donald Trump taking a call from Taiwan and making negative statements about China and Xi Jinping. That did not get us off on a good start. And then, of course, he made some really negative statements about North Korea, which probably doesn't help much. And so here we are, and it seems to me from what you've said, that this meeting in Florida is really all about North Korea. It's about security. But at the same time, we have ruffled the feathers of China and we have to sort of pick up sticks and resume a better relationship with them, and that's part of the challenge of this meeting, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. It's not not only for North Korea issue, but I think what they're trying to do is come up with like putting all the eggs in one basket kind of approach and come up with other issues and make this U.S.-China summit more meaningful and see if we can come up with a better relationship, and not only for commerce and trade, but I think in terms of security, cyber-spacing, intellectual property rights, some of these concerns that we have, and maybe hopefully we can create some manufacturing jobs to come to Hawaii, not Hawaii, but to the United States, and maybe they might have come up with a good economic package when they come in with... Well, you always want that, but sometimes it gets realized and sometimes it doesn't. You don't have a lot of control over it. But the one thing I'm thinking is that this is a hard road to hoe right now between the U.S. and China. Do we have a stated policy? Does Rex Tillerson have a stated policy on how we're going to get back to a decent relationship, and what about the TPP? What about trade agreements? The Chinese are trying to get ahead of us. They're trying to take advantage of the vacuum that was created when Trump said he was going to back out of the TPP. So how can we return to this kind of trade mentality that we had before? Well, I think I mentioned that in the last talk host here about the TPP when we withdrew from the... when there was an executive order, when the new administration came in, and I think now what we're trying to do is try to go with the bilateral status from country to country, but eventually we're going to have to go with multilateral or even trilateral kind of working with groups. So we've got to justify who our allies are and who our partners are, and I think that that's what TPP was calling for was we knew who our allies and partners are. So the 12 countries that signed that, the signatory members, they felt comfortable working with each other. So now, this recently, there was a meeting in TPP in Chile about two weeks ago, and China and South Korea and Columbia showed interest and joined in. So they were sitting in with the 12 members. We had our representative from the USTR's office attender as well, and kind of oversee even though we... Not a party to it, yeah. Exactly. Eventually, maybe in the future, we may have to join in with the TPP again or even with our set, with China's pushing with the ASEAN Six Nations and trying to come up with a free trade area in Asia Pacific region. So those kind of things are being discussed right now. There's a dialogue within the leaders. Well, let's refresh about our last conversation, because what I remember of it is that we backed out of the TPP, so that's going to hurt the TPP. And I'd like to ask you again how it looks like it will hurt the TPP. I mean, will the TPP survive without us? Second thing is what will China do now that we've done that? What is their move? And the third thing, this is the more difficult, you alluded to it a minute ago, is what can we do to counterbalance the fact that they, the Chinese, have this big advantage on us because of what we did with the TPP? Well, I don't think they have a tremendous amount of advantage, because if you look at our bilateral trade agreement, still there's going to have to be a tariffs on non-tariffs and tariff items. So it's obviously either you're going to pay import tax on certain items and vice versa, when we go into their country, we'll be paying for their tariffs as well. So you just, obviously the free trade agreement makes the no-tariff free trade with the no-trade barriers whatsoever in terms of protectionist kind of movements. But I think in the United States' point of view, our economy is so huge that even in trade, we can still force some of the tariffs that we've been paying, and we still think that we're making a bit of a deal with the consumers or paying at the retail prices. So if you were there representing the United States and Florida at the meeting with Xi Jinping, what position would you take for the best result? I think we're still going to work in a core job, because we don't want to create any a mausoleum or create some kind of friction with like a trade war or anything. We want to work with them. And we understand if you look at the history of China, I remember when the first China premier that visited Hawaii was Zhao, Ying, Xi'an, Yang Zing. This was in 1984. He was the first premier to visit Hawaii. He went to the East West Center. And prior to that, he was one of the Mao Tung's disciples. So he's been understanding what the United States, if you look at Tao Xiaoping, there's two disciples. And Yang and Tao Xiaoping was the one that was learning from Mao Tung. And when they were getting exposes to the West from the Communist Party, Tao Xiaoping came up and said, well, it doesn't matter what the color of the cat is, long as the cat is mice. So it's like a slogan that we kind of say. In other words, they're more open when it comes to business. And they want to work together without being prejudiced. There was a piece in the New York Times this morning about all of the criticisms, I should say criticism, insults, it's a better word, that Donald Trump has made to people in the press in this country, to politicians in this country, and to politicians and officials in Europe, and I suppose in Asia. And there were hundreds and hundreds of people who were on this list in the New York Times this morning. So the question is, winning by intimidation seems to be his brand. And he does this freely. He continues to do it even after it's obvious that on an international analysis that doesn't get you ahead may get you behind. So Will, do you think that he has learned? Do you think that he will again insult people? Do you think he will again try to win by intimidating people? Or, well, what would you advise him, Russell? What would you advise him to do now? I would advise him to listen to his cabinet members. He's got a good cabinet members. Even a Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson and his staff members are well-trained and they know about the diplomacy and what channels to go through instead of, you know, like his approach was in the beginning, was fear motivated by fear. But I think people catch on after a while and they want to work in a cordial way. But that's the way, you know, President Donald Trump, because he's been a businessman. And I understand that, you know, being a developer and working in the construction industry, you've got to fill him out in order to cut costs and then you try to come up with a better deal, you know. So I think he's a coach. The art of the deal. Exactly, but it works for him and it's working right now, so you can't... We're going to have the art of the break. This is the art of the break. We can take a one-minute break, we'll be right back. And when we talk about how this affects APEC and how it affects Hawaii, oh, this meeting is important, we'll be right. I'm Ethan Allen, host of likable science here on Think Tech Hawaii. Every Friday afternoon at 2 p.m., you'll have a chance to come and listen and learn from scientists around the world. Scientists who talk about their work in meaningful, easy to understand ways. And you'll come to appreciate science as a wonderful way of thinking, a way of knowing about the world. You'll learn interesting facts, interesting ideas, you'll be stimulated to think more. Please come join us every Friday afternoon at 2 p.m. here on Think Tech Hawaii for likable science with me, your host, Ethan Allen. Hi, I'm Nicole Alexandreinos, and I was born three weeks ago. Congratulations on being there for me for some of the few weeks of my life. I'm starting a new show, The Millennial Mind, every Wednesday at 2 p.m. for the month of April, where we'll go over some of the reasons why millennials are some of the most anxious and frustrated people at the moment. Ah! Okay, did you see Nicole? You notice on that? All right, here's one for Nicole. Wow, shout out. Okay, so, you said there were five points to talk about and part of our program, so what are they that would discuss? Well, I think in the early March, China National People's Congress had conducted a gathering. They meet once a month, once a year, and there's like 3,000 delegates from all over China, from different Congress, and their officials, delegates. Just like we have a U.S. Congress. Yeah, this is a big deal. Exactly. Exactly, they develop policy for the country. And they came up with five points that, within the, which they brought it to their officials, business leaders as well, with government officials. One of them was, they wanted to increase their military spending up to 7.6% of China's GNP, which I guess they wanna strengthen their position as well and go from that approach. Number two was the U.S. Why does that trouble me? Nevermind. Yeah, and then number two was the U.S. China Summit that they're playing with the CGP and Donald Trump. So. When is that? Hopefully it's gonna be scheduled for April 6th and 7th. Oh, this is what you're talking about. Yeah, this is the one that we're talking about right now. Okay, okay, all right. And the third approach that China economy, because they wanna be more open, they wanna avoid the protectionist movement. And they see that they have roughly about 6.7% of economic growth per year. So they wanna project that growth up to year 2020. Hopefully they get it close to 6.7, or they'll be at 7% of economic growth every year. Some people question whether those numbers are accurate. Do you think they're accurate? But I guess they have their economists making their projection of the financial making within the fiscal and monetary policy, make sure they balance their state budget as well. And number four item is the issue on Hong Kong and Taiwan as one China policy, as they have the one built policy. So I know that Taiwan just had their election and Carly Lam has won. And she's a local girl over there that was born and raised there. And she's speaking from what the Taiwanese want. They wanna become independent ever since- Of course. Have tech check days and how Taiwan was being- So they wanna be a sovereign nation. But I know the mainland central government people in China are kind of holding back. Say, no, no, they're runaway progress. Now you gotta be under one China policy. So when Ms. Carly Lam called Donald Trump after the election, presidential election, they were so concerned that she was trying to come to the US for help for being independent. So I think Xi Jinping had to give a call to Donald saying that, hey, wait a minute, we have this one China policy. So make sure they obey that. And so right now we have a policy to work with China as a one China policy. So it's a addiction between Taiwan, even Hong Kong is under China. Sure, Hong Kong, Taiwan, it's all in the past. Protocol, we have to go through that. Like in Hawaii, we have an economic council from Taiwan here, but so they're not allowed to have an embassy yet. So we're using it as a council for economic council office. So these are the five points that came up at the People's Congress. Another one was that they have to gloom the young politicians or guys, as you know Xi Jinping and the Premier, they have to mandatory retire by age of 68. So as they get older, you have to have another leader in place. So they want to make sure they get the right leader. We should adopt that rule ourselves, don't you think? We have a two term limit, but. We should have an age limit to who there went and said it. So anyway, the thing about the People's Congress is you always wonder who's running it. Because you see in the pictures, everybody sits there so dutiful, they stare straight ahead and there's no banter or anything, and there's all these hundreds of people sitting in a big room and you think that maybe the guy who's running the show, in this case Xi Jinping, was telling them everything they got to do and say. Is that true now? Do you feel that there's independent thought going on in the People's Congress or is this just another expression of Xi Jinping? I think you got to look at a chain of command. It's not only Xi Jinping, but there's other Chinese officials already that's been established and they have their hierarchy within the time they spent. So they have their own factions already. But if you look at the demographic of China, they're so huge and you go to every province, they all speak the different language and the dialogue. So they make sure that Mandarin is our national language and some of them you go and they speak the different dialects so you got to write in Chinese character to explain what you're explaining. So I think those kind of things, they have different culture there too so you get to understand that one China policy doesn't really mean they're homogeneous. So how would you characterize their place in the world these days? You know, I thought the train from China to Europe, I thought that was brilliant. They're doing soft power just the same way Joseph Nye likes to talk about soft power on the American side. They're doing soft power all over Southeast Asia and in Africa, they're making great progress when their young people are getting out and they're creating influence everywhere in the world. So you got to say that they're pretty smart about exercising world influence and developing connections everywhere. How do you think they're doing in general though in terms of a world leadership right now? I think they're trying to, I think they're trying to strategize a way to make it more vision so they can actually get these projects and even they invest into these kind of, in terms of foreign investment, they want to go overseas, get them so established, start, you know, got to play ball with their politics over there and start up the private sector business, got to go there. So they're being a privatization or state-owned enterprise going there and trying to do it. You got to get some of these private sector, you know, you have like Jack, Bob, Alibaba. And you know, people like that. You got to get more private sector people to go with the free thinkers and try to do it and be more innovative. It's a start, I think they're realizing how to work with the private sector now, let the private sector do their own thing and the government be the referee, just like our famous Adam Smith of the Invisible Haired Hamster, you know. You know, there's also talk about how he's too tough and his, you know, his missions against corruption and all that are really a facade for knocking down his political enemies and, you know, those who would bring him down. And I wonder how you feel about that? Is this something that demarks the times in China right now? Will they get over this or will this be a problem for him and them going forward? He's trying to extend his term by another five years. He's trying to become a very powerful man. And you wonder if this is a good thing or not and whether there's sort of a uplifting, you know, younger generation that's coming in here that might, you know, moderate what you might see as a tyrannical government, yeah. I think, you know, he, you know, what I've known from what I read or, you know, I haven't met him personally, Xi Jinping, but I'd like to meet him someday. But, you know, he's a conservative man. He's been educated in the U.S. He understands the global aspects of what China needs to do. Maybe he thought, you know, corruption, one of them to straighten out the clean house in their parliament as well. And so I think that was a good start for him and make sure that everybody in the cyberspacing that the U.S. was so concerned. So he came up with a joint task force to prevent cyberspacing and hopefully they can get into more into intellectual property rights and make sure that they'd be more innovative and they obey the international law. And the rules of law, yeah. So I think China's realizing that not to accept the international community and be a global player, even when they became a member of the WTO, the World Trade Organization, they still had to obey some of the export regulation like the Dumping Law, Canterville Duty Act. So they're realizing what the stake is all about. And what about the South China Sea? What about that island they're building? What about their refusal to accept the tribunal and the Hague? Oh, yeah. What does that take them? If they want to be respected internationally, that doesn't seem to take them in the right place. I think they want to approach it like in bilateral, I think from a China's point of view, instead of having a third party decide, they're saying, let us decide with the each countries. If you have a problem with Japan and the Senkaku Island, Daidu, or if you have a problem with Taiwan, they have problems with Malaysia or Burnay, Singapore and the territorial dispute, they're thinking that not the United States, the margin, they want to make their own negotiation with those Asian countries. But it's part of the international law. Yeah, it's part of the, if you look at the, how are you gonna map it in terms of the boundary, nine dash nine of the dispute area, the freedom of navigation. That's under the United Nations Law of Sea. This is that there is a boundary line that establishes. If you could advise Xi Jinping on this now, what would you tell him? I think how, I gotta see it from, I understand that China's thinking's all about, so from an Asian perspective, I would like to see more like if they can work out with them the countries of dispute. Maybe those man-made islands that they had already built could be used as an international rescue center like the Red Cross, and keep it more open in terms of due diligence and transparency, so we have international visitors. Would you tell them not to be a bully? Would you tell them that people consider them to be a bully when they do this, and when they ignore international law in the United Nations? Yeah, I think so, yeah, you gotta obey the international perspective from the community. They look at the rule of law, and so you gotta justify those means. But China wants to work around indirectly or they wanna say let us negotiate with each country that's affected. Do you think that Donald Trump will tell them these things? I hope so, I hope he can say that or at least his staff member or the secretary, the state department, I'm sure that we have our counter people working on it already and make sure that the agenda's already there when we have those kind of meeting and they understand what ramifications gonna be all about. So not a big question, we have a few minutes left here and I always ask you how this all affects Hawaii, and what can I do about it? And we need to, you know, how international should we be thinking right now because of this meeting between the US and China and all the things you've talked about? Oh yeah, China, you know, Hawaii's a cornerstone of China with the relationship. If you look at the history, the first Chinese immigrants that came from China was in 1778 and they immigrated here and they were the first agents to come to Hawaii. So after that, Chinese start coming in helping with our plantation as well with the business and commerce and by year of 1950, I would say we had like 46,000 Chinese Americans living in Hawaii already and that's like close to 5% of the population. But if you look at all the mixed Chinese, we call them the Hawaii hakas. There's roughly about one third of the people that's in Hawaii have a Chinese descendant or have Chinese cocoa. So what should that government in Hawaii do, Russell? If you were the governor now, what would you say we gotta do in order to take advantage of or protect ourselves, whatever the case may be in terms of these processes happening in Asia Pacific? I think, you know, what the government can do is basically we got a, from Hawaii's case, you know, we China talks about the one China policy. Maybe we can go with the one Hawaii policy. And we live in Aloha state here, so we work with all different ethnic people and we have, you know, we show the aloha-ness. So I think that's a big asset for Hawaii. I agree with you absolutely. And we have to apply American law here and do things with openness, with due diligence. I think it's a great place to, that's why I wanted to make Hawaii the headquarters for TPP as well as some of these trade unions. We'll have you wish, who knows. Thank you, Russell. Russell Humner, wonderful to have you again. Thank you, Jake. Come down, I hope we'll talk to you again after this meeting in Florida.