 Well, Professor Jim Steinberg, it's a great pleasure and an honour to have you on with us at the ANU, former Deputy National Security Advisor for the Clinton Administration, and Deputy Secretary of State under the Obama Administration. You've just been sharing a panel on security in Asia with Professor Evelyn Goh from the Strategic and Defence Study Centre at the ANU, and the former Secretary of Defence and former Secretary of DEFET, Dennis Richardson. What's your take on the big issues arising from that discussion on security in Asia? I think two big takes, which is one, there are a diverse set of challenges facing the region, some of which involve states and some of which involve non-state actors and global public health issues like that, but that we're in an environment of great change and there's a lot of uncertainty about the direction of major players, including the United States. And I think that sense of uncertainty creates a degree of anxiety that leads everyone to wonder whether the relative peace and prosperity of the region can be sustained over the long term. And there were three or so powers that struck me as standing out in the discussion there. We talked about North Korea, we talked about China, we talked about Indonesia in the context of Southeast Asia. The perceptions of those countries in the United States and in Australia seem to differ on a number of issues and yet are congruent on others. I wonder if you can just explore for me a little bit on the sense of what we're saying there about North Korea and the challenge we face today. So I think everyone understands that the North Korea Missile and Nuclear program is very dangerous. It's dangerous for a variety of reasons. Probably less off the top of your headway of the sense that somehow as a bolt out of the blue that North Korea is going to launch a nuclear strike on South Korea or Japan or the United States, but more on the sense of the effect it has on the broader stability of the region, what it does to the policies of countries in the region if they have to contend with a nuclear in North Korea. The danger that it will use its nuclear weapons not as a sword but as a shield for other kinds of provocations. And that creates a degree of uncertainty that it's very uncomfortable for countries to live with and a desire somehow to stem that without simply acknowledging that North Korea should be allowed to have a nuclear weapons program. Now you were pretty sanguine about the relationship with China. You seem to indicate drawing on the parallel of the experience with the downed surveillance aircraft in 2001 on Hainan Island. You seem to suggest that there were some pretty robust mechanisms in place for handling a crisis with China. No actually what I was suggesting is that in the past we had had those. But I'm worried that we are beginning to lose those. And I think that there was an understanding for an extended period of time that even though there were disagreements and contention between the United States and China going back say for example when I was in the Clinton administration when China was firing missiles near Taiwan during the Taiwanese elections in 1995 and 1996 even with those missile firings that both countries understood that we had to keep these within bounds and similarly during the Bush administration with the EP3 incident. My concern now is China has grown stronger that it's not clear to me that we have those same kinds of mechanisms and understandings and I think that's the it poses a much greater danger to the region if there isn't some understanding on both sides about how far they're prepared to push the system. And there was a concern about the transactional nature of the Trump administration and what that might mean for not just the relations with China but across East Asia including allies like Australia. I wonder if you can comment on that. I think in the long term that stability in the region depends on countries not trying to win each engagement and who can win the most get the best deal but rather a broader understanding of shared interest and the common need to not just vanquish the enemy or get a better deal than the other guy. When you have a transactional relationship every time if you don't win you've lost and that means it's all zero sum I win you lose. Countries don't like to be put in that position. It needs to be a way for everyone to win or for everybody to have a stake in the system going forward. So that transactional kind of relationship is being sold as securing American interest but actually I think is a long run undermine American interest. And from an Australian perspective we had former Secretary of Defense Dennis Richardson talking about the relationship with the United States. He was reasonably upbeat about being able to manage that in the context of the competing dynamics in Asia. What's your take of the relationship with Australia and the United States? You know I think there's a core relationship there which is extremely important. There are both shared values and shared interests. And I like very much what Dennis Richardson had to say about Australian strategy which is that a strong and robust security capability of Australia is not inconsistent with a strong relationship with the United States. It's actually in the interest of both countries that Australia have the means to be effective in managing its own security and then buttressing that with the alliance with the United States. And near the end we talked a little bit about relations with Southeast Asia particularly the Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN and the perhaps mechanisms that are maybe a little bit dysfunctional at the moment in terms of getting ASEAN to work together. I wonder if you can comment on the dynamics of that discussion. Well there's been a lot of concern because ASEAN way, the idea of consensus does make it harder to reach decisions. It makes it at risk of having least common denominator decisions and it makes it at risk of having vetoes by small states especially on issues that involve China where China can use its influence with countries like Cambodia Laos to disrupt the ability of ASEAN to reach agreement. My own view is that the overall approach of consensus is beneficial. We don't want to see voting where some countries are outvoted and therefore don't feel a commitment to try to work together. But on the other hand it is also important for ASEAN to look for creative ways not to let one or two countries be unduly influenced particularly by China and to block what the vast consensus within ASEAN is to go forward. There are creative ways to do this that don't require formal voting but have a basic way of saying to dissenting countries you don't have to sign on but you can't be the ones who stand in the way of going forward. Jim Steinberg you've contributed to an exciting discussion here as part of the Crawford Australia Leadership Forum. Thank you very much for joining us and it's been terrific to have your input on a very important topic for Australia for our place in the world and the future together. Well it's a great gathering with a terrific group of participants and I'm delighted to be here.