 Hello everyone, my name is Rob Ronsky and I'm the Executive Director of the Calis Foundation. It's my pleasure to be speaking in front of you today. I'd like to thank the Chinese Society of Astronautics for inviting us to participate with you today. And I'd like to thank our partners at Secure World Foundation for working with us in the project that I'm about to present to you. I'm here today to present a research report that was produced by both our organizations the Calis Foundation and the Secure World Foundation. This is a new report, it was released in the last year, titled Lost Without Translation, Identifying Gaps and US Perceptions of the Chinese Commercial Space Sector. This report is available currently on both of our websites, swfound.org and calisfoundation.org, where you can download the report for free at any time. To give a little bit of background on where this research came from, as has been discussed already, our organizations have been in collaboration with the Chinese Society of Astronautics in an ongoing track two diplomatic dialogue since about 2019. During this process and during these efforts, we've recognized that there are significant gaps or missing pieces of very basic information that would help reduce miscommunication and improve understanding. So our goal for this research was to identify specific gaps in information and specific areas where we could improve upon our dialogue efforts and help alleviate some of the misunderstandings that we see are very prevalent. To go about doing this, we designed a research project that will allow us to explore current perspectives of US commercial stakeholders on the emerging Chinese commercial space sector, trying to identify how this was impacting them and what their views are and their perspectives, and then use this information to identify significant questions and gaps in information that these stakeholders have. The data in this research comes from two sources. First, we set up long form interviews with multiple US commercial space professionals. These were all private sector individuals and so no government employees were interviewed for this research and we interviewed them to try to get a full understanding of what their views were, what questions they might have, and to try to probe certain kinds of ideas that they might have to enable us to get a full idea of their perspectives. Then we compared this set of information to a wide review of US and Chinese literature and articles on China's commercial space sector. So we looked at academic articles, we looked at social media discourse, and we looked at a wide range of information to try to give us a better understanding of a grounded reality to be able to compare these interviews to. To give you an idea of who we interviewed, we interviewed 15 individuals across the the commercial sector in the United States. We tried to cover a wide range of individuals. 15 is not a large number in some context, but the method that we use, the qualitative approach that we took, makes 15 actually kind of a large number. So what we tried to do with our limitations was to gather individuals from a wide range of segments. So we covered remote sensing, geospatial, space exploration companies launch in space logistics infrastructure, a couple of individuals from academia, and some stakeholders from the finance and venture capital side of things. And so what we tried to do is get cast a wider net to see a range of perspectives. And so it's important for me to say that obviously what I'm showing you today is not representative of the entire US commercial space sector. However, what we gathered from that are some very meaningful insights that we believe help clarify many of the issues that we believe that we need to work on. So with that in mind to give some context and challenges that we saw from having these conversations, just some key points first. One of the most important things that emerges that US commercial stakeholders welcome competition, but they want to understand it. We have this quote, I welcome true competition with anybody, it makes us better. So in the United States in that cultural context, in the commercial landscape and business, competition is good. Competition is seen as the mechanism that improves business, makes companies more effective, more efficient, and generally produces positive outcomes for everybody. So again, to clarify competition is seen as a good thing in the United States context. However, competition is best when it's understood. People want to know the rules, people want to know how to how to compete. They want to know that they have a fair shot of doing that. So that was the primary concern for the people that we talked to. Now, it's important also to add that 83% of the interviewees that we spoke to perceived no current Chinese business competition. So in other words, their business, their current industry segment, they perceive that they were not currently competing with China or Chinese firms. Not that they were not saying that there was no competition elsewhere, but they perceived that they were not currently in competition with any Chinese firms. However, 92% believed that in the long term that competition would be inevitable. They see the Chinese commercial sector rising and they believe that they are going to be competing with it. So what was clear was they wanted to have better information about this. They wanted to be informed and they wanted to be able to make smart decisions. Some of the challenges around that and why it is difficult to get that information, there were a number of reasons, but there were two primary challenges. The first is this issue of information asymmetry. So by that, what we mean is that it was clear that Chinese stakeholders are more informed about what's happening in the US commercial sector than US stakeholders are about what's happening in the Chinese commercial sector. And the reasons for this are various. For one, the US commercial sector is more established and therefore there are more sources of information. There are more established outlets where companies publish their information or release those things. Those information is just more readily available than it is on the Chinese side. But then there are also language and cultural barriers. There are more English speakers on the Chinese side than there are Mandarin speakers on the US side. And so the access to the information that is readily available on the Chinese side is filtered through a smaller number of individuals who have the Mandarin capability. And then there's also the cultural differences that a lot of US stakeholders don't understand Weibo, they don't understand WeChat. And so it's difficult to access that information. They're not familiar with where to find it. The other main challenge for making sure that stakeholders are well informed and can make grounded decisions is the sensitivity of the subject. We had individuals who denied having a conversation with us just because of how sensitive the conversation is. Obviously the US-China relationship has sensitive aspects to it, but the space sector is one of the most sensitive. And so we see that when we see people hesitant to engage directly. But then we also know that we tried to have conversations on the Chinese side as well. And we saw the same concern, the same sensitivity. And so unfortunately it's one of the things that we share. But it is a challenge. And so while I'm talking about that, I would just like to very quickly say that we really appreciate everyone's efforts in trying to have these honest conversations and that as I present the rest of this research to you, there may be some aspects that are not pleasant to hear and that maybe are irritating and unpleasant. But it is our hope that we have honest, open conversations so we can reduce miscommunication and build trust. And sometimes that means saying the things that people don't really want to hear, but we believe have to be heard. And so that is our motivation for this moving forward. And I hope you will be patient with me as I do so. So to get into that, I will now talk about our main findings, the primary things that we gathered from this research. And what I'm going to show you are the key gaps in understanding. Describe the main areas where US stakeholders can be better informed in the areas that we view as the most important to try to help reduce misunderstanding and miscommunication. So I will present these in the form of questions. These are the main questions that we would like to focus on in our work to make sure that US stakeholders better understand things. And I'll kind of explain why those questions are the ones that we chose. So the first question, is there a private space sector in China? And if so, how is commercial space defined in the Chinese context? The reason for this is that based on our interviews, China's space sector is largely viewed as monolithic. And by that, I mean that a lot of US stakeholders are spoke to. Without a lack of nuanced information, these stakeholders perceive competition with China rather than Chinese companies. So the entire sector, which is obviously full of a wide range of entities doing various things, are simplified and perceived to be just a product of the state. So I have this quote here from a venture capitalist. This perception that I have that I know others share is that these Chinese commercial space companies are really state-owned actors. So there's a lack of awareness and a lack of full understanding on whether or not there really are private or fully commercial entities in the Chinese sector. We asked one question to give you kind of an idea of where the uncertainty really is. We asked one question during our interviews. Do you perceive there to be commercial space companies in China? Again, we spoke to 15 individuals, four were confident that yes, there definitely are what they would consider to be commercial space companies. Four said no. They were confident that they are not what they consider to be commercial space companies. Then the majority seven were unclear. They didn't have enough information. They didn't feel confident in saying yes or no. So this kind of shows that the large aspect of this is that there's just a lack of certainty. People we spoke to are not confident and knowing whether or not what they view as traditionally commercial exists. And part of that is hard to define what commercial really is, but then part of it is just a lack of awareness of how companies in China operate. The second question, major gap. What is the nature of internal competition in China's space sector? And the reason that we wanted to dive into this is that there was also this common perception that Chinese companies act in unison and that because of a lack of awareness of what the challenges that Chinese commercial firms face and what the motivations really are, there is a common perception that Chinese companies are driven by a single government strategy rather than market demand. So that everyone, that all of the companies are coordinated to act in a single mind, essentially, rather than of a wide variety of companies working for their own goals who have this quote. I wouldn't be surprised if the government vision in Chinese companies tends to have a stronger role in how these companies evolve. Again, showing that there's this idea that the Chinese companies are, I don't want to say control, but our lead is kind of the common perception. And this is something that we think could be better illuminated. Third question, what is the role of the Chinese government in ownership and control of commercial or private space companies? As may be clear, it's widely suspected that the Chinese government directly controls all space companies. I'd be very interested to understand exactly what kind of relationship exists with these quote unquote independent companies and the government itself. So the challenge we see here is that without understanding Chinese government or Chinese company ownership structures, a significant number of US stakeholders assume Chinese government ownership and control. And obviously, this is something that we've found to be a little oversimplified, but it is a widely held view. Finally, what resources do on will Chinese private space companies have access to. So this is another interesting aspect of something that was commonly perceived is that Chinese companies are perceived as having better access to capital and government support than their US counterparts. So the view is that Chinese companies have access to unlimited government funding and have access to a much more patient system that will support them more effectively than in the United States. So with quote from a space focused venture capitalist, I can't invest in an asteroid mining company that's not going to be profitable for 15 years. I can't do that. The Chinese can. So that patients couple with the capital will make a big difference in the space sector. So again, this is the idea that in China, there's a wide understanding that Chinese history is very long and very old. And I think this is translated to an oversimplification in a lot of people's minds that China operates with a much longer term view than the United States in all aspects. And US debt holders view Chinese capital, so venture capitalists and funding to not be restricted by market demands in the same way that US investors are. So as that quote was saying, in the United States, someone cannot invest in a company that won't be profitable and won't return that money for a significant amount of time. But the idea is that in China, people can do that. They don't care about the same thing. Obviously, the reality is much more complex than that. But again, we have the challenge of an oversimplified narrative. And this is something that we want to dive into. So the main conclusions moving forward. So again, we'll repeat US commercial stakeholders welcome competition, but they want to understand it. And that was a very clear emphasis. However, clearly, as we've seen, and I just kind of presented to you currently US stakeholders, not everyone, but a significant number, generally have an oversimplified understanding of realities in China's commercial space sector. There's a lack of awareness, there's a lack of good information. And without better information, US stakeholders may make worst case assumptions and overly reduce reality to something so simple that it doesn't reflect reality at all. Ways we can improve understanding and reduce miscommunication. This is what we see is how to fix this problem. We see this as a challenge that makes it really difficult to have an honest conversation. So what we want to do is improve the conversation. And that's what we're trying to do with this dialogue. And this is what we're trying to do with this research. So we see two ways forward. First, more open and collaborative research. We would like to see this research project be the beginning. We would like to see more in depth work on this, both from us and from other organizations. We've had a lot of interest on the US side. We've had a lot of individuals reach out to us and participate. And this research has been quite welcome. I think people in the United States want to be better informed. They don't want to be ignorant to the realities of what's going on. And they just want an honest view. So that's what we're trying to do. And I think moving forward would be really wonderful if we can do some collaborative research with our Chinese counterparts to try to have a fuller picture and do everything we can to help bridge this understanding. And then finally, the other big thing as we are really keen on today is to work through dialogue. This was something that was surprisingly positive, not surprisingly positive, but was quite positive during our research is that most of the people we interviewed felt very good about the idea of dialogue and wanted us to keep doing it. We have two nice quotes here. Any opportunity where we can better understand why people think the way they do and what values people hold so we can better manage our own response. And I think that is valuable. Dialogue is always valuable. More information is always a good thing. And having a better understanding is always a good thing. It can help avoid missteps. So again, to be clear, on the US side, the stakeholders we spoke to want to be better informed. They want to have a good idea of what's happening and they would like to see the effort be done to make sure that they have that. So in conclusion, wrapping this up, I just want to say thank you all for paying attention and thank you all for engaging with us. Again, I'd like to thank our partners in this, the Secure World Foundation and the Chinese Society of Astronautics. I look forward to working further with everyone on this on these issues. And I hope that what we've done is we've presented a small step forward to help make sure that we have a smarter conversation. Thank you very much for your time and I hope you all have a great rest of your conference.