 So good morning, thank you everybody for coming. I'm Michael Green, Senior Vice President for Asia, Japan Chair here at CSIS and Professor Georgetown. And we are going to spend this panel discussing developments in maritime Asia, the importance of maritime security in the Western Pacific and introducing you to a new interactive website that we are launching at CSIS today to track and analyze developments in the Western Pacific and in the Indian Ocean. And we'll involve you in this process. You'll find on your chairs these white boxes. They are not mute buttons. You're gonna have to listen to us. There are multiple choice clickers. So we've used this before. Some of you may have experienced it and we'll set up some of the questions as we go forward by asking audience opinion and then asking our experts on the panel to comment. We're joined by the most experienced and wise team of thinkers about maritime security in Asia with experience in diplomacy, national security, defense, analysis. To my immediate right, Ambassador Richard Armitage, former Deputy Secretary of State in the Reagan Administration Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs when the maritime strategy was developed and we confronted some of the problems we again face today in terms of offshore island chain defense and making the Pacific secure. And then my good friend, Kurt Campbell, he didn't just wake up, he's going a beer. I'm not, I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. You knew we were in Paris. No, I grew my beer. I grew my beer. I grew my beer after I left the NSC and I came to a panel with about this many people and Rich introduced me as our representative from the Taliban. Then he asked me if I was growing the beard because I was afraid the bad guys were going to win. Amazingly, my wife thought it looked cool. I won't ask her what his wife thinks. Bonnie Glazer is our Freeman chair, expert on Asian security here, has done a lot of work on confidence-building measures in the East and the South China Seas, the Taiwan Strait. So we'll get to each of our experts in turn on some of the specific developments that are happening right now as President Obama is in the region and as we focus on some of the security concerns, energy, history and the complex interplay of factors that make maritime Asia so interesting and important today. I want to first set up the discussion though by asking the panelists, beginning with Rich, to say a few words about why it is that we are, again, talking about maritime security in such a serious way, not just here, of course, but in the region, in the administration, there are periods in our history where the Situation Room of the White House was full of people talking about the first island chain and the second island chain, about the Indo-Pacific, think back on Mahan 100 years ago, of course there was no Situation Room then, or the early NSC meetings with George Kennan and others plotting containment. If you look at the declassified documents, it's interesting how many times the security of the Western Pacific, the Indo-Pacific comes up, and then of course in the Reagan administration with the maritime strategy, which Rich was involved in. So let me start with you, Rich. Why should we be focusing on this issue? Why is this issue back in our national security consciousness and in the region? Mike, it's kind of like being in Asia. We never left, we were never not back. What Alfred Thayer Mann wrote well over 100 years ago, as true today as it was then, and of course he was basing his writings on the views of 17th century English and Dutch warfare. The fact is that if Asia is the most important strategic area to us in terms of economy, in terms of hunger for raw materials and thirst for energy and all of those things, puts a premium on controlling the sea lanes. And as Alfred Mann taught us, that those who control or dominate the seas will have the most effect on the world stage, or as he wrote it, to have the most influence on history. So if it's true that Asia is the most important region, I believe it is, this puts again a premium on naval power. It also is the reason why many of our friends in the area, such as the Australians, are apparently going to purchase one submarine a year for the next six years. Everything, all our equities are in Asia, and so we have to have our naval equities there as well. Kurt, there's a naval dimension, there's a diplomatic dimension. You spend a lot of time on maritime issues. You have a Navy background, but as a diplomat, as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia Pacific Affairs, I know you spend a lot of time on this. What was your sense of why we're focused on this? Thanks Mike, and it's great. I'm very pleased that CSIS is taking this on. Just a moment on the first question. I actually think that what we are seeing in Asia in particular is two paradigms in conflict right now. One is that there is a very clear interest in Asia, across Asia, to have open lines of communication at sea, both for the transshipment of goods coming to the United States and Europe and elsewhere, but also with respect to energy supplies coming from the Middle East. So there is actually a united view in that respect that these sea lines of communications are critical. They support the lifeblood of Asia as a whole. But secondly, in conflict with that, are growing nationalist claims around resources, around island chains, around disputed territories in which a number of states are seeking to enhance their territorial standing and often in disputed areas and in ways that have undermined the larger purposes that in fact many countries in Asia share in the first paradigm. And I think what we're seeing is the conflict between those two and they are playing out most principally in the South China Sea and the East Sea as we speak, Mike. My own personal experience is that there are a lot of issues in diplomacy that you can work out, that you can sit down across the table with your diplomatic friends from China or Southeast Asia, Japan, South Korea, and find common ground, find ways to basically put larger challenging problems in a different context. My own experience, Mike, is I've never worked on a set of issues in which I saw more white knuckles, in which senior diplomats recognize very clearly that a misstep on any of these issues would mean that they'd be out of a job almost immediately and that they faced unbelievably difficult impulses with respect to engagement from senior leadership as a whole and as a consequence there's almost no flexibility across the board and the best that we can often do in certain circumstances is essentially try to put things on hold and export extremely difficult problems into the future. Bonnie? If we look at the situation maybe five years ago, China's capabilities in terms of its law enforcement ships and its naval ships were far less than they are today and China had more of a coastal navy just beginning to move beyond its shores. That has substantially changed today and so I think that this is posing a lot of challenges to the US Navy at coast guards in the region where there is a perception of uneasiness about what the strategic intentions are of China. This recent round of tensions I think was very much triggered by the May 2009 deadline that was set by the UN for submission of claims of extended continental shelf. This is where China submitted its nine dashed line map and so this is not all about China but I do think that because of China's growing capabilities and a growing willingness to assert its claims in the South China Sea and the East China Sea that that has created a lot of anxiety and it's been very difficult to move toward what is a stated shared desire to engage in joint development and actually put these disputes on the shelf. Thank you, let me now turn your attention to the screen and introduce you to this new project we're starting called the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative. We wanted to try to develop a platform utilizing technology and our expertise, inviting experts from the region to give different perspectives on these issues to have one stop shopping for policy makers, risk analysts, graduate students to try to have a place where they can get authoritative comprehensive analysis views from different countries in the region and experts and so we have developed this AMTI under the direction of Mira Rapp Hooper who will run you through in a minute but first let's introduce the project itself. No single region will do more to determine whether the 21st century is a peaceful and prosperous one than East Asia. The Maritime Pacific hosts abundant natural resources and much of the world's trade passes through its waterways. Increasingly however, states competing territorial and maritime claims have raised the risk that an isolated incident at sea could become a serious global conflict with little ability to monitor events as they occur and no reliable authority for information on important developments, maritime competition in the Indo-Pacific is increasing in an environment of relative opacity. The Center for Strategic and International Studies is pleased to introduce the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, an interactive website that aims to promote transparency in maritime East Asia. AMTI serves as a central source for information, analysis and policy exchange. AMTI is a regularly updated web magazine that allows users to navigate the most recent updates in this dynamic policy space. Users can track developments as they unfold using interactive maps and explore the region's rich maritime history through a unique timeline. AMTI features original analysis from nearly 20 top maritime security experts in the US and Asia. Using the AMTI Atlas, users can visualize just what is at stake in this vital region and navigate information about shipping lanes, natural resources and other salient geopolitical factors. AMTI is also a central resource for researchers who can use the documents library to explore annotated primary source documents on maritime claims, international law, natural resources and territorial issues. When a new issue of AMTI is released every two weeks, all content remains fully accessible and searchable. And with the integrated social media icons, you are only one click away from sharing your findings with your network. By serving as a central source for reliable information and high level policy exchange, AMTI hopes to help turn potential conflicts into opportunities for confidence building and cooperation. Welcome to AMTI. So in a minute, Mira is going to run through how you use the website and it will be up and running today. And you'll find it is very, very data rich, very searchable and that there are commentaries and analysis from senior experts, Gary Ruffhead, former chief of naval operations and so forth that come out regularly trying to put these developments in context so that we can have a civil, well-informed strategic discussion about them. And we want to include you in that process today and that's why you have your clicker. So I want to ask the first clicker question and then we'll turn to the panel as we analyze something that is happening right now. As you know, President Obama is in the region for the APEC Summit, the East Asia Summit and then the G20. And Prime Minister Abe and President Xi Jinping held their first summit meeting. And so what we wanted to ask you is, and some of you are already voting and that's good, vote early and often. What does this Abe-Xi meeting mean? Is it the start of improved diplomatic engagement in the East China Sea? A is yes, the meeting will be the start of sustained East China Sea engagement. B is relations may improve somewhat, but I'm not too optimistic. And C is East China Sea talks won't last. The issue is too controversial for Japan and China to make headway. So this keeps changing. It's because B and C are very similar. Yeah, so people think about it. But in general, it looks like 20, 22% think this is a turning of the corner on this issue. A significant majority think it's a slight improvement and then a considerable number of you think it just doesn't make a dent in the problem. So let's turn to the panel for some further analysis beginning with Rich. Well, Mike, I think I'd put myself in the C category if the picture we saw in the paper, which the two principals were trying so hard, not to smile, which caused us all to smile. They looked like they were smelling each other's socks. But look, it leads me to the conclusion. Look, next year is the 70th anniversary of the conclusion of the war. And it seems to me very unlikely that China is gonna allow Japan to have a ceremony of the last 70 years of her life, which has been noteworthy in every respect is a beacon of respect for human freedoms and human rights. I think it's too good an opportunity for China to miss. So I would say my answer is C with a time period. It's not gonna improve for the next couple of years in a major way, I don't think. And I don't think it will improve until China is able to demonstrate enough confidence that they've got their whole internal situation under control because they need, I think, an outside factor such as some nationalism directed against Japan, a Japan who in their words doesn't accept the verdict of Potsdam or the declaration of Cairo and are revisionist. So, Kurt. Thanks Mike. I think the key in these things always is that if you're asked questions, always go back at the questions to refine them. But what I would do if I were to outline this, Mike, is that I would make sure that you have B and C a little bit more stark. So I would make B, relations may improve somewhat, but the underlying factors will remain. And that's where I would be actually. I think there will be, I think there is a view among many of the leaders in Northeast Asia that this rather substantial trend towards open confrontation and conflict in the current environment is not in their best strategic interest. So I think they will take steps to mute that. I think there will be a modest improvement in China-Japan relations. I also think that we might see some signs of improving dynamics between Japan and South Korea. And I think the likely trajectory is an improving dynamic on some trade issues associated with TPP, but I believe the underlying dynamic, Mike, is still one of concern. Some masked antagonism and very different views about the future. But I think we will likely go into a period, at least for the next year or so, where some of the most difficult issues will be muted. The question really focuses on the East China Sea. And I would put myself in the B category, but with some caveat. And that is that Xi Jinping appears to recognize the risk of a military accident in the air or at sea. This is why we have seen some progress in the US-China military confidence-building measure area, which we'll talk about later, I think. But it also, I think, explains why China and Japan have now agreed to resume the talks that actually substantial progress was made on in 2012 that will put in place things like hotlines, understandings on frequencies of communication between Navy captains. There have not been discussions so far about potential air communications, but I think that that is potentially in the cards as well. So I'm hopeful that we will see some progress in terms of managing these issues, but the underlying drivers and dynamics of the problem, I think, will persist. So you'd put yourself a little bit towards the blue, sort of in between red and blue, a kind of purple. If you want to make a purple shore, we'll go with it. Okay, we're capable of doing colors, but not right now. So generally, the audience and the panel does not think that this resolves the underlying sources of tension over the maritime domain at the East China Sea. I would add that in our website, you'll also find a picture of Mr. Abe and Mr. Xi meeting. They do not look like they just smelled each other's socks. They're looking at each other, they're not smiling, but they're looking serious. It's one reason why we think this website could be helpful because the media will frequently take the shot or the image that sells newspapers that's the most dramatic with all respect to our friends in the media. We want to try to ground the discussion in an analysis of what's happening and you'll see it's not as smiling, loving, Thanksgiving homecoming kind of photo, but a business-like exchange when the two shake hands. I also have a piece in this first issue analyzing the Abe-Shi summit and I guess I come out somewhere where the panel does as well. There were tactical reasons why I thought Xi Jinping needed to do this summit as the host of A-Pick. It would have been poor form, frankly, in the eyes of the other leaders to not meet the Japanese Prime Minister. And Japanese Foreign Direct investment in Japan on a year-to-year basis plummeted almost 50% last year. So the economic interdependence and the need for investment is a bit of a factor, but at the same time, as you'll see on our website, the operational temple of the PLA and of the Chinese Coast Guard has not gone down at all. In some respects, as you'll see, it's increasing a bit. So I think that bears out what the panel is saying. But what's interesting to me is that, as Kurt said, both leaders had a reason to, and as Bonnie and Rich pointed out, to put some cap on some of the tensions to control some of the risk and handle it with some diplomatic skill. I mean, if you read the joint statement, it is not a resolution of any of the issues. It's a skillfully crafted piece of diplomacy that reflects the willpower of both governments to, if not resolve this, at least lower the temperature. I don't think we should make too much of this meeting. And the reason is this was not a heads of state meeting it was heads of economies. And for Xi Jinping to be polite as a host is the minimum, the minimum that one could expect. So I don't use the term summit surrounding this because it's not a head of government at meetings. It's a head of economies. Something's different, sorry. But I think what Rich is saying is important here, though, but the reason that that terminology matters here is I think that the factor that really comes to play in a lot of this is that each of these countries are facing absolutely critical economic dynamics, China, South Korea and Japan, and they have powerful larger reasons not to see these tensions get out of hand in the current context. You know, the rumor in Tokyo today is that the Prime Minister's going to call a snap election in December. So it's interesting that preparing for that snap election his government has chosen to calm ties with China not to somehow exploit tensions. I think that's somewhat encouraging. It will be interesting, I would say, to see how Beijing reacts if Prime Minister Abe prevails in the polls which most experts would expect and his Prime Minister now for even longer than expected. So this is unfolding in dynamic, yeah. Sorry. Go for it. There's another factor if Mr. Abe prevails which I would certainly expect him to do. He'll be there for four more years that may cause the Chinese to recalculate a little bit. I don't know. But China and Chinese visitors to us and that come pretty regularly say we've got a big Abe problem. And when Chinese representatives say that they're wrong, they have a Japan problem now. His public opinion in Japan has changed rather dramatically against China because of the aforementioned activities in the South China Sea and the East China Sea. So I hope our Chinese friends understand it's not just an Abe problem. It's a Japan problem right now. Mike, can I say one other thing? I think it's also, you know, it is true that the framework that was announced between Japan and China is very deft and it avoids some final conclusions and it basically establishes a process. But I would say that the underlying, and I don't like to say who wins, who loses in these engagements, but it's very clear that the Japanese diplomats played a very tough game here. And I think Chinese friends believe that the Japanese would back down on many of the considerations over the course of the last couple of months and they did not. And so in many respects, I think the fact that the Chinese leadership agreed to have this meeting to do this in some respects is a victory for Japanese diplomacy. I think it basically sets a framework where Japan is gonna take a very clear and firm line on many of these issues going forward. Just to very clearly state why I think the Chinese actually see this as a diplomatic victory, is that the Chinese have in their view effectively contested Japanese administrative control over these islands and they believe that this agreement, along with the resumption of the discussion on conflict avoidance measures, is actually an admission by Japan that both countries now exercise administrative control over those islands. Now, not agreeing with it, but that's the way the Chinese say it. This is the interpretation and explanation within China. So like any tough diplomatic wordsmithing, it creates as many problems as it solves. So stay tuned and you know where to stay tuned. Let's turn to the South China Sea. The ASEAN Regional Forum, the East Asia Summit, these multilateral meetings of foreign ministers of heads of state have become an arena now where these maritime issues are playing out. So I wanna ask about President Obama's next stop, which is to Myanmar or Burma for the East Asia Summit where in the past, the South China Sea issue has come up, as Kurt knows very well. So this is another question for the audience. At the East Asia Summit, will states make progress towards freezing potentially destabilizing actions in the South China Sea? Yes, EAS is the right place and time to make real progress towards a South China Sea freeze, B, somewhat there may be some useful dialogue and C, no, this East Asia Summit will not change developments in the South China Sea at all. We have an audience of cynical realists and 1% are liberal idealists, but it's doubled to three, but it's tripled. So hope springs eternal. So Kurt, let me start with you because you have worked these issues in the ARF, in the EAS. It's very intense behind the scenes. Is it productive? Can we expect something? My own view is when the ASEAN Regional Forum started and we began these meetings, Mike, in the 1990s, the primary focus was there was a dinner entertainment and every nation worried about the dancing and the singing and it was quite ridiculous actually. But in the last seven or eight years, beginning in the Bush Administration, the ASEAN Regional Forum has taken on much more significance and the dynamic behind the scenes in these meetings is as intense, intense as any set of multilateral meetings I've ever been in and I think they're important and I think the fact is that the United States has really mixed it up more, has worked much more with friends and others in the context and so I actually think the ASEAN Regional Forum has become a very significant and if you believe that the development of multilateralism or multinationalism, the gatherings in Asia matter, which I do, I think the beginning framework of that is taking place in the ASEAN Regional Forum and we've seen some major initiatives that have taken place there. The 2010 meeting, the so-called ASEAN Regional Forum statement around issues associated with maritime security in Cambodia a couple of years later, China's efforts to basically undermine any consensus document. So Mike, these are quite important. I would still say that at the East Asia summits, the summits themselves, the characteristics of these dynamics has not yet formed really and so it's one thing to have foreign ministers and others mix it up, right? Of which countries are much more comfortable. I think when countries expose their leaderships in these dynamics, it's much more likely that they will be careful and stayed. At a few of these stages of summit meetings that I attended, you did have some interesting back and forth and some questions but basically the environment is still too leaders still read from prepared texts, there is still not as much comfort at the give and take but I think over time as these meetings become more regular, they are longer, I think it's likely that you'll have more substantial engagement but I think where the group has come out is about right. Bonnie? I would certainly agree on the evolving importance of the East Asia summit and of course the Obama administration has attached a great deal of importance to institution building in the region and in fact the East Asia summit will have its 10th anniversary next year and I understand one of the things that the United States hopes to talk about this year is where to take this institution going forward. There's a lot more I think that the institution can do. It is still pretty much as in Asian tradition I think a talk shop but an important one. On the issue of whether real progress will be made toward freezing potentially destabilizing action I am certainly with the majority here. I think that there really is a competitive dynamic underway that is very, very difficult to tamp down. We could cite for example the land reclamation activities that China is undertaking in the South China Sea. Every nation other than China with the exception I think of Brunei has an airstrip in the Spratlys and China does not and it is now building airstrips and other capabilities which I think will be used for military purposes among others. So I don't think that the Chinese are willing to accept a freeze of so called destabilizing activities. So I still think that management is the order of the day. There has to be more discussion about the code of conduct putting in place real binding measures unlike the 2002 declaration on the conduct of parties in the South China Sea. But I don't think that the prospects for achieving that in the very near term are good but hopefully if ASEAN really stands up and makes more demands of China to move faster then maybe eventually this can be realized. Mike can I say one other just I do think though that and Rich sort of got to this point a little earlier it is likely that we're heading into a period where some of the key characteristics of the kinds of diplomacy that we've had with China may be evolving. We may be moving into a new period and we have to explore that quite directly. So let me give you an example. In the past one of the abiding beliefs in the international community and particularly in Asia is that when China was confronted by a group of nations that had a strong view on a particular matter that that sense of a collective view often would be enough for China to say look we've got it back off now because we've alienated and we've caused a group of nations to take a public stand that is perhaps contrary to what we want to see right now. And so we've often seen in the past that ability to coalesce a group of nations or actors has been enough at least in the short term to have China reevaluate, right? Now it's not clear in the government of Xi Jinping where whether those incentives are going to matter as much. That's just one example. A second is it has often been the case when we've had various problems that take place which can talk a little bit about the EP3 or other problems. It has been one group or another in the Chinese government going out and doing something either with a decree or a military action of which the leadership may have not been fully involved with or even understand. And then we work quietly with Chinese friends to get out from under a problem that perhaps a group in their government has inadvertently or directly created, right? So you try to actually work to save face, come out with an outcome that preserves the interests of all sides. But what we're increasingly finding on some of these matters is that whether it's a, you know, a ADIZ or that these steps are now fully coordinated at the very top level. So they are not accidents or steps uncoordinated by aspects inside the Chinese government. And so in many respects, what's happening right now is the diplomatic playbook that has served us relatively well for a period of time is really in fairly substantial need of revision. Well, as an out of work Republican who spends the majority of his time criticizing our president, I think on this issue I should give the president his props. He has shown up at the East Asia summits showing up matters and counts. And if you're gonna rebalance that, you have to do it. And these trips are not easy for our president. So I wanna acknowledge that. He stood up big time on this, in my view. Second, it's on this specific meeting in Myanmar. I'm afraid we're doomed to have it overshadowed by the treatment of the Rohingyas and human rights problems and alleged backsliding by the government of Myanmar. So I think at least for the US press that will be probably the dominant feature. But it's hard for me to see how a summit like this can really make progress on issues in the South China Sea when there are so many questions that none of us have the answers to. And there's nobody closer to these issues than Kurt, Bonnie and to some extent me. But we don't have the answers to what China really thinks about the nine dash line. Is it a core interest? Is it not? Maybe this week it is or next week it will be or something. Xi Jinping gives a speech in Shanghai at the Chico meeting, a conference building and interaction Central Asia meeting. And basically says Asia is for Asians. Well, wait a minute. We want to be part of the life of Asia in a way that's comfortable with the nations of Asia. But that statement seems to rule it out at least to some extent. So there are all these questions out there. So how can you make progress at a summit like this when everyone there has the same questions? Kurt, let me follow up on this bit with you if I could. Two questions. One, I hear you that BAS, the East Asia Summit is not as good a place or may not be the place to advance some of these tough issues because everybody wants the head of state to look good. And we have an interest I assume in not breaking this process because there's long-term utility for us in this venue. But in the ASEAN Regional Forum, we can and others are willing to push harder. Can you describe two things? First, in the ASEAN Regional Forum setting, has the dynamic become one where we are leading ASEAN member states that are concerned about this? Are we backing them up in partnership with allies in like-minded states? Are we responding when Beijing is getting other states within ASEAN to undercut consensus? I mean, how does that dynamic work? And then the second question is if we can't do these kinds of things at the East Asia Summit, how do you convince a president to keep going? Yeah, look, let me take the last question first. I mean, I assume that one of the things that all of us have shared with respect to high level diplomacy in Asia is that about a week or two out from all these visits, whether you've got a Democratic or Republican president, is that invariably there are the political counselors in the White House that basically come up and say, wait a second, you're gonna be gone for 10 days and you're gonna go to these various places. This doesn't make sense. We should think about canceling this. And it's enough to make you just wanna roll over. It's very stressful. And the truth is we've basically over a period of 20 years, essentially we've got a pretty good attendance record, but as Ambassador Armitage says, it's gotta be perfect. And so this has to become basically like the kinds of diplomacy, frankly, that we do in Europe. And one of the reasons why it's important to embed Asia with these larger diplomatic engagements is that you'd be astonished as you get into government how the calendar drives time, attention, and focus. And I think in the past we have been in an environment where we thought that the lack of this kind of architecture gave us flexibility and opportunities in Asia and didn't lock us down. I think we're in a different situation now in that the group that we're trying to actually convince in many respects is ourselves, right? We've got to actually make this commitment going forward in an environment where trust me ladies and gentlemen, the day to day urgencies of dealing with ISIS or what's going on in Ukraine or whatever really drives out some of these more important long-term factors that drive us to Asia in the 21st century. So Mike, it's not easy, but I believe that one of the things that's most hopeful is a gathering like this. I can remember just a few years ago, you could basically shoot a cannon off in a room like this and no one be injured because there would be very few people here. And so the truth is there is a growing recognition of the importance of those issues. That has a tendency then to manifest itself more generally in the political dynamics that animate any presidency. On the first issue, Mike, you laid out all the things that, you know, the possibilities. The truth is it is a combination of all those things. You've got to lead, you've got to respond, you've got to actually help seed ideas that will be led subsequently. My own experience in successful initiatives associated with Southeast Asia and the ASEAN Regional Forum is that if you come up with a good idea, or what you think is a good idea, the most important thing is to develop friends who also think it is a good idea and are prepared to either lead with you or take an initial leadership role which you can then support substantially. It is also the case that one of the most important ingredients in effective management in these environments is that you've got to demonstrate quite conclusively that you're prepared to work constructively with China. It's an absolutely essential feature. So one of the challenges that many Americans who do not understand Asia think about is that we've got this sort of black and white Cold War dynamic in Asia where these countries are taking sides, far from it. All of these countries want a better relationship with China and they want to see the United States working towards a better relationship with China at the same time that we are trying to develop closer relations with Southeast Asia. So Mike, it's multifaceted, it's nuanced, a word that doesn't often go hand in hand with American diplomacy. And it is sustained and it demonstrates, if I had one issue that I'd like to see a little bit more of, frankly, is I think the most important effort in rebalancing is more focus on Southeast Asia. And that means not just Southeast Asia as a group of nations, but the individual countries in it, Indonesia, Myanmar. I agree with Rich that in all likelihood there will be more focus on some of the downsides. But the opening in Myanmar is dramatic and substantial. And we should continue economically, politically to see that through despite the shortcomings that are inevitable in such a challenging set of circumstances. So my hope is that in the midst of criticism that will invariably come, there will also be a very strong recognition about why this opening is in the best strategic interests of all concerned, including the people of Myanmar. I remember that sinking feeling, I'm sure Rich does too, all too well. This is a bipartisan problem when the internationalists or the State Department of the NSC sets up this fantastic engagement strategy for Asia and then the domestic political people say, that's the week we're doing education policy or healthcare policy. So for those of you in or planning to go into the US government and get your arguments ready early. And if I could say just to my thing and what happens when that, so you're often sitting in a conference room or something and you've really, you've stayed up, get it ready and you put it on the table and then someone in very, if you're an assistant secretary, everyone's more powerful than you are, but someone probably substantially more powerful stands up and basically explains why this trip doesn't make sense or we can't go. And so the first thing you really want to do is just really kind of start yelling and explaining how important this is, but there's no quicker way to make yourself completely irrelevant than doing that. So you've got to kind of take a couple of breaths, kind of explain why it's important, seek allies. It's very much like the diplomacy in ASEAN, right? But the allies that you seek are very often not the allies who are seated in the sit room or wherever you're meeting. It might be across the aisle. Yeah, or the business community or the military. Or the business community, those are the allies that can actually really move the political needle, which is what you need moved. Or even the media or even universities and think tanks. And especially I would argue the American people because public opinion polls have really shifted in the past few years. You got to credit Mike and Bonnie and CSIS. This is incredibly helpful and the work that they have done creating this larger understanding about how American attitudes on Asia is changing is incredibly helpful and it matters in Asia. They pay attention to these dynamics. So beginning in the Bush administration, a plurality of Americans in polls started saying Asia's the most important region. It had been Europe for decades. And then over the past few years, a clear majority in polls consistently say Asia's the most important region. So the case is easier to make. But you got to be ready to make it when you're setting up these trips. And the other takeaway is, if we had asked about the ARF, which is not happening this week, the other regional forum of foreign ministers, maybe the numbers would have been a bit higher for A, but not a whole lot I suspect. So the point here is you can't play the tactical game. This is the long game. It's about engagement. It's about shaping partnerships and having partners, having everyone in the region expect you're gonna be there, you're gonna care. And if you're playing the sustained game, you don't have to go for the Hail Marys. You don't have to go for the big, dramatic results-oriented moves because you've put the investment in over time. And I think that's the takeaway from this one. All right, one more for the audience. Precisely because the diplomacy is only sort of shaping this in a very slow way and the operations at sea are increasing dramatically. Confidence building measures are critical. And there was an important announcement, I think, in China, between US and China about US-China CBMs. And the question is, will US-China mil-to-mil notifications and a potential US-China code of conduct reduce the risk of escalation in the maritime Pacific? Yes, these will be first steps towards more defense-related cooperation. We're talking US-China here and potentially more broadly. B, not really, advanced notifications probably won't change much. We've seen this show before. And C, not at all, this agreement may even make things worse if one country fails to follow through. That's a pretty optimistic or positive view of what we're hearing out of Beijing about US-China mil-to-mil. Bonnie, you're following this very closely. So a little bit of background here. We have to credit Kurt Campbell for being quite prescient about the real nature of this problem when he was deputy assistant secretary of defense and concluded with China the military maritime consultative agreement which really presented the opportunity to come to some understandings with China about how we might avoid accidents in the region. It's taken a long time, I think, to actually put some meat on the bone of this agreement. But President Obama and Xi Jinping have actually now signed these two agreements. Now, President Xi Jinping, when he met Obama at Sunnylands last year, put these two agreements on the table. I think it was great to see him take ownership of an idea that really came from the United States. But I think that's what you wanna see in diplomacy, both sides sharing the same objective. Unfortunately, in your B option there, there is a bit of a mistake. The US and China have not agreed on advanced notification. So what has been agreed upon, the first is notification of major military activities. That means reports like the QDR, China's defense white paper, it means exercises, but it is voluntary and will take place when each side feels it is appropriate. So in fact, could be after an exercise takes place. Both sides, I think, understand the need over time to move toward a commitment to prior notification, but that is not part of the understanding today. The United States also hopes to include ballistic missile firings in the future. The Chinese have not signed on to that yet, but I would note that Russia and China do have an understanding on ballistic missile firings, although it's easier because they agree to notify on firings that are in the direction of the other side, obviously much more complicated between the US and China. The second agreement is on rules of the road at sea and in the air. What has been agreed upon so far is the naval surface ships between the two sides, and they are not creating any new rules. They are drawing from what has already been agreed upon with the international community, and earlier this year at Qingdao, more than I think two dozen nations agreed on the code of unalerted encounters at sea called Q's, and that is part of the basis of this understanding. It will be harder to talk about air and air encounters and air to ship encounters, but that's what's on the agenda. And as I said earlier, I think Xi Jinping is quite serious about promoting confidence building measures and particularly conflict avoidance measures and better understandings between the two militaries. I would just close by saying, we of course have to remain aware of the fact that in the background, the militaries are engaged in a very intense competition. The Chinese are developing capabilities that will make it more risky for the United States to operate within the first island chain, anywhere close to what China calls its near seas, and we call this anti-access area denial capabilities, and the United States is working very hard to maintain access within those waters and airspace. And so this competition is going to continue, and if we can put in place measures that will make accident less likely, that's a good thing, but nevertheless, I don't think it's going to solve the larger problem. Well, let me follow up with two questions, and then Kurt. So when Admiral Greener, the chief of naval operations, he spoke here in fact and explained Q as, he pointed out that it did not cover white holes, it didn't cover Coast Guard. Most of the close-in ship-to-ship encounters are not grey-hole navy ships, they're white-holes. So does this get us anywhere on that? And also, you'll recall that after the announcement of Q as a senior Chinese military official came out and said, of course it doesn't apply in our near sea or in areas we consider sovereign. Is this something we're going to see repeated this time, or do you think this actually gets us traction? The United States and China have started exercising these regulations under Q as, in fact, there's also been a China Indonesia exercise as well. I'm not convinced that the authoritative Chinese position is that this doesn't apply in their near seas, but we need to clarify that, absolutely. It is a problem that white-holes are not covered by this agreement, and there is, I think, already an effort underway by the United States to talk with China and other coast guards about how to put in place either similar regulations or to apply the existing ones to the law enforcement ships that are operating in the East China Sea and South China Sea. There is a North Pacific Coast Guard Forum, which might be a venue where these kind of issues could be discussed, but if there is a limiting to just the Navy's, then I think that is a missed opportunity because, yes, as you say, Mike, most of the activity, especially if you look in the East China Sea between China and Japan, is really between these white-hole ships. Of course, they're not so small anymore. China's new Coast Guard ship is about 10,000 tons displacement. Most of these are their paramilitary vessels, and they have more and more conventional military capabilities, particularly in China, and this is going to drive other countries to develop similar capabilities in their white-hole ships, so this is a problem going forward. I like, I think Bonnie's analysis is just spot on and very good, but I do think that the decision on the part of China to move in this direction is very significant, and at the core of it, I think are some recognitions that we have to appreciate and understand. For decades, when we've tried these sort of efforts in the past, China has demurred. Even the military maritime agreement, which was signed in 1998, is rather bereft of details of the kind that I think we've seen concluded in Beijing over the last day or so. I think at the core of this are some things that the Chinese side in Xi Jinping now recognizes and is prepared to acknowledge. So for the longest period, I think China's interest was not to acknowledge that it was a large military player and that they wanted to avoid any framework that it would be perceived that somehow China was a latter day Soviet Union. In fact, if you look at the models of many of these agreements, the 1972 Incidents at Sea Agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union, the dangerous military instance agreement, I actually helped negotiate that when I was on the joint staff with the Soviet Union. Many of those frameworks, Don Lauren, one of the authors is here, many of those frameworks had been applied in certain ways to the U.S.-China relationship. For the longest time, China wanted to avoid that, and I think part of it was they did not, for a period of time, want Americans to see China as a rising military threat or power, right? I think China is now much more comfortable acknowledging they are a big military player and you have to deal with us. So the big transition point is not the, oh no, we're weak, you don't have to think about those in those terms any longer. That's more a framework of the past. The new framework is, yes, we're a strong nation, we're a military player, and you better acknowledge us. And so I think that's the first factor that's changed, and that's a dramatic difference from the overall strategic approach, which is look, don't bother us, we're just a nation quietly building up our military, you focus on other things. The second dynamic that I think is very important is a recognition that these issues can get out of hand and that they can spin out of control rapidly, rich, lived through one in 2001, and that this is something that the Chinese leadership recognizes is exceptionally important to get your handle around. And so I think Xi Jinping has acknowledged that and that these agreements at the core recognize how important it is to avoid inadvertence and miscalculation and to put in place things that could potentially block escalations. That's the second thing. The third thing is, I sensed in much of my diplomacy with Chinese friends until quite recently some anxiety about how the military operates within the Chinese system. Some nervousness about can you keep these guys in a framework that we're comfortable with? What Xi Jinping is demonstrating quite clearly is that he's comfortable giving orders, taking control, and indicating that he is in charge of the military. And so he, as a consequence then, is more comfortable with the military in certain engagements overall. And then the last reason, I think China recognizes that over the course of the last couple of months that they, on a variety of fronts, have taken steps that has created anxiety in the neighborhood, and that ultimately that anxiety is not in their strategic interests. And by being able to engage in these sorts of things, it potentially brings the tension down. And last, very clearly, China is demonstrating that it is a co-equal with the United States on military and strategic issues, and that is important in the domestic context as well. Rich, we were in a pretty bad place in 2001 in terms of channels of communication and CBMs. Are we in a better place today, or not even close? I'm not sure, Mike, we're in a better place. I'm in complete agreement. I thought it would be laid out wonderfully. Bonnie, Kurt, you're dead on, and I guess it's my job to throw a little cold water on things today. And this, just from practical experience, probably, I hope Kurt will back this up with his own more recent experience. First of all, there is a great inequity in the US. China relationship, and when it comes mill to mill, because if China wants to know something about the United States, all they have to do is pick up any one of our service papers or journals. Now, the transparency is pretty much there, and if you don't get it there, you get it congressional hearings. We don't have that, so we're on two different planes. Second, it has been my experience when we have breakthroughs or these things that happen in the mill to mill relationship, whether it's exchanges way back in the early part of the 80s or whatever, that it's very difficult for a civilian side of the house to keep on top of all the services to make sure that whatever they're doing and conversations they're having with Chinese intelligence meshes with the overall strategic approach, political approach of the United States. It's very difficult. I don't mean the services alone operators are lone wolves, but they're pretty goal oriented. And I'm told to try to develop a better relationship with China, they're gonna do it, but it's not always in sync with where the civilian leadership is. I just wanna throw that out there because it has historically been a problem. Manageable, yes, but a problem. All right, comment on that. I completely agree with that, and it is a challenge, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense has enormous responsibilities in making sure our engagement goes appropriately, and we recognize what is of key value. In the past we've done exchanges of chefs and bands and students. Those are not unimportant, but the most important thing is to ensure that our senior leaders, our senior military leaders have exposure and engagement under the appropriate framework with their counterparts. They get to know each other, they are able to explain quite clearly what they're about and where they're going. And that's what we should aim for. I also have to say, I agree with Rich, I think the truth is this is a modest step. What at the core of a lot of these military issues are some fundamental differences, right? So if you look at how we go about certain things and how China, it's quite different. So for instance, when we bring visiting delegations, Chinese delegations, military delegations of the United States, we show them everything. But it's not just because we are transparent. It is because at the core of an American conception of deterrence is we'll show you what we got. We'll show you what we got. So are you sure you wanna take this on? And then the return trip is we go and we see some decrepit airplane from the 1950s. But at the core of that is a different Chinese conception of deterrence, uncertainty. Do you really know what we have? Which they believe leads to greater uncertainty, which then enhances deterrence to very different concepts. Secondly, what China wants ultimately is for the United States to stop flying these missions near its borders with such regularity. And we should recognize that quite clearly. And so what they worry about with these agreements is what they essentially do is to create systems where American operators feel more confidence that if they drive close to our borders and something goes wrong, there'll be something get out of jail free card. They're like seat belts for a speeder. And in truth, Chinese friends do not want American operators to have that confidence operating so close to their borders. They want some uncertainty there. So there will be some dynamic here in which China will still wanna send a signal these operations are not in our strategic interests overall. And I think lastly is, you know, Rich is completely correct about, you know, look, if you wanna find someone who's pretty confident about his or her contributions to what can happen in the Asia Pacific region, I'll show you a four star, right? And so almost every four star in Hawaii has wanted to establish a line of communication that is somehow gonna enhance security with his counterpart in China. And every Chinese government has said, no, we're not gonna do that. Because in the Chinese system, the four star who's responsible for that particular area doesn't have that frame of capability to have that kind of freewheeling conversation with his counterpart. So ironically, in some respects, China has much more control over these kinds of civil military relations than we see in the United States. So it's a very complex dynamic of which what we really need are more strategic interactions that hopefully lead to more transparency down the line. Okay, great, if you're interested in this topic, you can swim around to this website all day. So I have, and it's a lot there. So I wanna give Mira a chance to show you how it works and some of the functionality and tools and analysis. Good morning, everyone. The premise of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative is that the more information that is publicly available on maritime security issues, the better our chances of fostering cooperation and preventing conflict. One way we fulfill this mission is to bring you the latest information updates from the region using interactive maps. As you can see, our maps in this issue cover some of the important policy developments that we've just been discussing here. The Abeishi meeting at APEC, US China Confidence Building Measures, recent development efforts in the South China Sea by both China and Taiwan, and several more stories. Another way that the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative will be promoting transparency is by promoting policy exchange. We will feature original analysis by top maritime security experts around the world. This, of course, includes our leading scholars here at CSIS, but also includes experts based in Asia, including from China, Japan, Korea, Australia, and many other countries. This analysis will always be timely. This issue's stories include pieces by Mike Green on the Abeishi talks at APEC, by Bonnie Glazer on US China Confidence Building Measures, by Rory Metcalf of Australia's Lowy Institute on the East Asia Summit and the South China Sea, and a piece on Indo-Pacific strategy by former Chief of Naval Operations Gary Ruffhead. So you will, I think, find on this website opportunities to not only check what's happening, but to easily click to a very large trove of documents we've collected in cooperation with governments in the region that have their positions on issues, UNCLOS and international law documents, and can very quickly go to these background documents which we've annotated so you can find the highlights, or to historical context how the issue has unfolded, or to the expert commentary, we'll have that expert commentary every two weeks or so, or if there's a really hot issue on a shorter fuse, and of course that'll all be archived. So our hope is that as a professor, I know one thing, I'm definitely going to use this for in this class, but our hope also is that journalists, congressional staff, diplomats, people doing political risk analysis will turn to this, and frankly help us to populate it by suggesting data we haven't thought of, by suggesting topics we might ask our experts on international law or in China to write on. So this will be an unfolding kind of organic process and we hope everyone will not only check out the website, but also give us ideas. Mike, can I ask, I think this is fantastic. It's one of the best products and concepts I've seen. I just really commend you guys. I'm kind of kicking myself, I hadn't thought of it myself. This is a great initiative. Have you thought of trying to create some sort of chat room or some kind of initiative where people can discuss and debate some of these issues at their own perspectives? So I'll tell you the truth on that one. We considered a number of things which we have not yet done but are still thinking about. For example, using crowd sourcing. So you have a development in the Indian Ocean and you have, if you know how this works, you have people in their basements all over the world using Google Earth and stuff trying to collect data. It's very labor intensive, it turns out. So you have to actually call all that information. But that's something we're thinking about. Another aspect we're thinking about is whether we could have confidence building exercises. So right now we're trying very hard to make sure that we lay out a comprehensive assessment of what's happening and minimize disagreement over that as much as possible by interacting with experts in governments in the region and offering individuals to give national or personal perspectives and make sure we can start to paint the landscape in the issues in a way that leads to a more forward-leaning dialogue among experts. That's our main mission right now. But at some point we may consider creating some kind of interactive process with experts that looks at confidence building exercises. Almost a gaming software where we could get experts across the region to speculate on steps that would help build confidence transparency. But we're not ready for that yet. Our first mission is to get this as a platform that people will find objective and to do that we're gonna, I think you will find it subjective but there are gonna be disagreements and we're gonna keep evolving this to try to get an assessment that is a consensus view and where there isn't consensus give people an opportunity to give national and personal perspective if they're experts. So yes, we're thinking of one of those things as you can guess this took a lot of work and kudos to Mira and to Paul and to Will Coulson who have put a lot of time into getting this with help from Bonnie and others. So excellent suggestions and frankly if you want to send us more suggestions or if you wanna send us funding because all of this will cost us more. You can go to amti.csis.org. Is that up there Mira? Yeah, and we're now live. And then you'll find on there also you can ask the panel that's put so much work into this issue up until now and has given us a great window and to whom we will turn I'm sure as we continue building this website. So thank you very much and thanks to our panel. Thank you.