 All right, good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. My name is Jim Shove. I'm a senior fellow here in the Asia program. I run the Japan program here, and it's my pleasure to host you today on Victory Wednesday. I thought about wearing my Nationals hat during the entire event, but I'm gonna hold off. I don't wanna jigs anything, but congratulations to them for last night. So something slightly less stressful today. We'll talk about China risk and China opportunity, and it's really my pleasure to talk to you a little bit before we get started about this collaboration with the Japan Forum on International Relations and Professor Kamia, Matake Kamia, who's been the real kind of leader of this project, and we've worked together now for a couple of years on this China risk, China opportunity for the U.S.-Japan alliance. We had a productive workshop all day yesterday with a team of Americans and Japanese scholars, and in its simplest form, this project begins with an understanding that a strong and assertive China presents both risks and opportunities for the United States and Japan individually and collectively as an alliance. Growing economic strength creates business opportunities and the Belt and Road Initiative of China's can really help provide infrastructure and stimulate growth in Asia, but its economic strength can also be used as leverage for political aims or to boost competitiveness at the expense of U.S. and Japanese firms. So we've talked about economic issues in our workshop. Similarly, China's growing military power and sophistication can help in peacekeeping operations, disaster relief, possibly even counter-proliferation, but with the growing tension we see in South China Sea, East China Sea, and elsewhere, it also leads to military coercion and other concerns that feeds a security dilemma in the region. And so we've looked at economic security and also regional order, global order issues in the project. And in our second year, and we produced co-authored between all the different partners, a series of nine policy briefs of papers. All of them at one point were sitting outside, but I think some of our copies have flown off the shelves there, but there is a piece of paper on the table there that lists all of the papers and the authors and the URL where they're downloadable. They're all relatively short, eight to 12 pages and a collaborative effort looking at risks and opportunities from both the U.S. and Japanese perspectives. And Professor Kamiya will talk a little bit more about the origin of the project in that regard. So last fall we focused a lot on North Korea when we had our presentation here with a number of the project members and trade issues are still high on the agenda this year, but today we wanted to broaden a little further and talk about Southeast Asia, the free and open Indo-Pacific in the context of China risk and China opportunity. And also we'll talk a little bit. Some of the members of our Japan team talked with China scholars about our papers to get some of their reaction to what Japanese and Americans think about China risk and China opportunity and there's some interesting things there. So before I introduce our speakers, I'll just talk a little bit about the main theme today. We called this event moving target. And I think it ended up just in the last week or so proving even more so the case. We have the potential for some kind of U.S.-China phase one trade deal that possibly President Trump and Xi Jinping will sign in Chile in just a few weeks. But then we have new entity list designations of Chinese firms, other trade friction and private sector friction continuing. We have the U.S. slapping new restrictions on Chinese diplomats and their freedom of diplomacy here in the United States as a form of what the U.S. described as reciprocity because of the limitations placed on American diplomats in China. The Hong Kong Human Rights Act, Human Rights and Democracy Act, passed the House last week, which if it passes the Senate would present the Trump administration with a real question, a real challenge about whether it would sign that and take the Hong Kong issue more front and center into a U.S.-China relationship debate. And then meanwhile, Japan has been warming ties with China, just resumed some limited naval drills with the PLA Navy between the Maritime Self-Defense Force and the PLA Navy just last week for the first time since 2011. And Xi Jinping, of course, is planned to go to Tokyo next spring. So this idea of moving target and how do we maintain policy coordination within the Alliance I think is as relevant as ever. And I'm very pleased that we have our panel team members here to talk about some of these issues. So I'll introduce our panel members, first of all, our main coordinator and collaborator, Matake Kamiya. He's a professor of international security studies at the National Defense Academy of Japan. He's also director and senior principal research fellow at the Japan Forum on International Relations and as well adjunct research fellow at the Japan Institute for International Affairs. And it's JFIR, that's our primary partner in this project. Professor Shin Kawashima is professor in the Department of International Relations at the University of Tokyo where he specializes in modern Chinese diplomatic history. As a matter of fact, his first book on the formation of modern Chinese diplomacy won the Suntory Academic Prize back in 2004. A terrific China scholar from Japan. And of course, Carla Freeman, our neighbor next door at Johns Hopkins Seiss. She's associate research professor of China studies at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and executive director of the Seiss Forum Policy Institute. And she's also the editor in chief of Asian perspective published by Johns Hopkins. So with that long introduction, now we've got the rest of the people arrived here seated and comfortable. I'm gonna turn to each of our panelists to open with some opening comments. And then we're gonna have a little discussion here and then invite the audience to join in. So Kamiya sensei, I give you the first discussion. Thank you, Jim. So the question is, our main question is, how should we address a continually rising, increasingly self-assertive China? Wrestling with the challenges particularly significant for our two countries, Japan and the United States because we have worked proactively to build and maintain the existing liberal rules based international order for the past several decades through the alliance. If you don't like the term liberal here, you can say that free and open rules based international order, well you know what I mean. Since 2017, JFIR and Carnegie have collaborated together from the small group of scholars from two countries led by Jim Shof and myself to examine the issue, this issue, I mean of how to address to rising, continually rising, increasingly self-assertive China through the lens, two lenses of risk and opportunity. And the team includes not only China experts like Professor Kawashima, but also alliance specialists, specialists on Asia Pacific international security, not only security, but trade and economic and security and wide international relations in the Asia Pacific or Indo-Pacific. So we are the mixture of many type of experts on the issue related to China today. Our project started from the shared recognition among the Japanese and American members of the project that China today represents a far more complex international actor than was the Soviet Union during the Cold War years. In the Cold War years, for many countries in the world, particularly for Western liberal democracies including Japan and the United States, the Soviet Union was simply a security threat. It was an enemy, the degree of interdependence between the Western Soviet Union was very, very low as you know. And the level of human, economic and other types of exchange between them were minimal, almost zero. So the Soviet Union was a security challenge or to put it more candidly an enemy and not a country with which we wanted to promote cooperation. But today's China is different. For many countries in the world, China represents simultaneously a country that poses serious security challenges and presents opportunities for cooperation. On the security front, I don't think that we, I need a detailed explanation, but China today represents a source of serious risk to many countries in the world particularly in the Indo-Pacific region and particularly to Japan and to the United States. As current Japan's National Defense Program guidelines point out, quote, China engages in unilateral, coercive attempts to alter the status quo based on its own assertions that are incompatible with the existing international order and court. As the U.S. DOD's Indo-Pacific strategy report published this June alarms, many in the world worries that China may be trying to revise the existing rules based international order, particularly in the Indo-Pacific. And the risks associated with China's rise are not limited to the security field. In the economic arena, China's so-called predatory industrial policies generate risks to other countries and particularly to the United States and Japan that cannot be ignored. However, at the same time, China also represents a country with which all the country in the world, including our two countries, most want to cooperate when possible. The most obvious opportunity China presents are of course in economic field. Every country in the world is trying to benefit from its economic relations with the world's second largest economy and the source of kind of new emerging technologies. But another more subtle type of opportunity that China offers relates to the maintenance and stability of the international order. Yes, there is an increasing concern in the international society and particularly in our two countries that Chinese assertiveness could lead to the destabilization of the existing liberal rules based international order. But we have to accept the fact that the international order cannot be stable without cooperation from the second largest economy in the world. For example, while the AIIB, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Belt and Road Initiative of China have raised concern about the so-called debt trap diplomacy by China, these two initiatives can have positive impact on the stability of regional order in the Indo-Pacific. If China pursue these objectives, these projects, not only for its own narrowly defined self-interest, national interest, but also to provide international public goods to the region. And unless big countries share their responsibilities to provide international public goods, as I said, I mean international order cannot be sustained stably. And here we have a very difficult situation where China, in one sense, is becoming a source of undermining the existing international order. But we need China's cooperation to sustain the stable international order. And so far, I think Japan and the United States as allies basically share a common perception toward an increasingly assertive China and the policy toward China have been basically well coordinated. Our policies toward China have been basically well coordinated. However, in recent years, some perception gaps with regard to risks and opportunities China poses to the world and to us have surfaced between the two allies, I'm worried. If left unattended, such perception gap could lead to an increasing strain in the US-Japan policy coordination vis-a-vis China. I'd like to repeat. So far, we have been doing basically reasonably well. But emerging policy, emerging perception gap between two of us could lead to a more strained policy coordination between the two countries if unattended. For example, there are differences in gaps in reasons or causes why Japan and the United States is wary of China. While Japan is mostly concerned with security issues caused by China, the United States is concerned with a wider range of China problems. For Japan, the main cause of its wariness over China has been security. In particular, the Senkaku Island issue and China's military expansion. Japan is also worried that the existing rules-based order is under increasing strain in the face of the rise of increasingly assertive China. United States, I think, share these concerns. But for the United States, the cause of its recent wariness over China has been more wide, and maybe we can say more systemic than in Japan's case. Americans worry about China as not only by security reasons, but also by, for example, perception of intensifying competition between the United States and China for preeminence in the world, superiority in technological sphere, including 5G, China's possible undermining of American values in the world, China's attitude toward human rights issues, including the behavior in Xinjiang and more recently in Hong Kong and so on, so forth. So in a sense, the depth of American wariness over China is now greater than that of Japan's. This could introduce some difficulties in policy coordination between the two allies vis-a-vis China in future. In addition, geographical difference between Japan and the United States has also caused some perception gaps between the two countries with regard to China risk and China opportunity. I actually wrote the proposal to get funding for this project in November 2016, very shortly after President Trump won the presidential election that year. And at that time, while Japan tended to emphasize the risk aspect of China's rise, the United States tended to be attracted to the opportunities presented by the Chinese economy. I thought both approaches are, how do you say, insufficient or inappropriate. I believe that both countries should pay attention to both the risk and opportunity China poses on them and to the world. I was particularly worried at that time that Americans at that time tended to dismiss the risk aspect of China's rise. When the Japanese scholar, I actually led a different project with Jim Shof and others from the American side about the future of U.S. Japan alliance. And in 2014, 15, 16, around that time, Japanese scholars tended to point out that the rise of increasingly assertive China is dangerous for the alliance. And the American scholars tended to say that, Japanese are kind of preoccupied with risk aspect of China. You have to pay more attention to the opportunity China presents. Now the picture are totally different. The United States has recognized the danger associated with the increasingly assertive, associated with the increasing assertiveness of China. The United States today is not hesitant to take a tough confrontational approach to China to protect the existing rules based order in the Indo-Pacific and beyond. Japan basically welcomed such a shift in U.S. China policy. Many Japanese security experts have been relieved to see that Americans have finally become serious about China's rise. However, at that time, at the same time, due to the geographical proximity, Japan cannot afford too bad relations with China. So while Japan welcomes the United States who now pays much keener attention to China risk, Japan now also thinks that the United States should maintain an appropriate level of attention to the China opportunity. For example, Japanese and American perception and other understandings of China's influence in the ASEAN countries are considerably different. Japanese have greater understanding than Americans, I think, of the meaning of China's economic expansion in the ASEAN countries to the people in those countries. That is, China represents big economic and technological opportunities for those people in living in ASEAN countries. Those opportunities, neither Japan nor the United States are now presenting to them. Americans who is located far away from ASEAN seems to fail to understand this reality. I don't say that Japan 100% understand how ASEAN countries see China's influence on those countries, but I can say that the Japanese, because of geographical proximity, have more understanding than the Americans about those opportunity aspect for the ASEAN people about China's economy and technology present to them. And I want to emphasize, in order to prevail, we want to prevail in the strategic competition with China. Americans have become willing to do that in recent years, in particular after the Penn speech last year. And Japanese welcome that policy shift in the United States. But in order to prevail in the strategic competition with China, I think the US-Japan alliance needs to attract third countries to their side, not to China's side. In order to do that, it is not sufficient to alarm the dangers or risks associated with China's increasingly assertive external policy. We have to pay attention to the reality that some aspect of China's external behavior is actually bringing opportunity to many countries in the world, particularly to the ASEAN countries. In other words, some aspect of China's external behavior is attractive to those countries. And then accepting that reality, facing to that reality, if we want to prevail in the strategic competition with China, we will have to find a way to operate with China where it's necessary, where it's possible. And also we have to present a better alternative prepared by ourselves to those countries who now have to be attracted to China and have no alternative. We have to attract. If we do not want to see those countries attracted to China, we have to attract them and we need some kind of alternative which is attractive enough to those countries. Many Japanese foreign and security policy experts, including myself, wonder if Americans are paying sufficient attention to this reality. We need to be attractive to the third countries. Of course, we have to alarm to the third countries about the danger and risk associated with China's rise, China's increasing self-assertiveness, but that's not sufficient. Other perception gaps caused by geographical difference include that with regard to nuclear and ballistic missile threat posed by China. With regard to nuclear and ballistic missile capability of China, main source of concern for the United States are China's ICBMs and the ICBMs, of course. But Japan has to also worry about short and medium-range missiles. And after observing the military parade conducted by Beijing on this October 1st, that was spectacular. But after observing that this perception gap looms larger in the minds of Japanese security and foreign policy experts than before. So how can the two allies manage such perception gaps and sustain a good level of policy coordination vis-à-vis China? Actually, our project is a three-year project and we have just completed a second year by publishing a wonderful report thanks to Jim Shoff's efforts and Carnegie's efforts. But our project has one more year to go and we will try to give some answer to this question. How can the two allies manage such perception gaps and sustain a good level of policy coordination vis-à-vis China? We may not be able to fill the gaps, close the gaps, but accepting the reality that there are some gaps and that may be even increasing, widening. We can find a way to manage those gaps to sustain a good level of policy coordination. That's our challenge for the next several months. And I will stop here, thank you very much. Thank you very much, Kamiya Sensei. Let me turn to Carla Freeman to take the next step. Thank you. Well, good morning and thank you. I'll call you Jim because you're my neighbor, but thank you also to Kamiya Sensei for the opportunity to participate in this project. And I also want to thank Kawashima Sensei as well. And I'm sorry she's not here, but the Southeast Asia specialist, Professor Mio Obo, who with whom I co-authored this report. This report is just the beginning of, as Jim said, it's a work in progress, it addresses a moving target at a time where a 24-hour news cycle feels like 24 months. I taught until very late in the evening last night and I walk in today feeling like I know nothing because I don't know what happened the last few hours. But in any case, this is the beginning of a project and we'll keep working on it and I look forward to your comments. In my contribution to this report with Professor Obo, we look at China's BRI as a tool of China's economic state craft toward Southeast Asia, ASEAN, that quite literally recognizes that China and the region have a common interest. They can work together, China can export its over capacity for large-scale infrastructure development and it can help the region address a substantial infrastructure deficit. The ADB has estimated that as an annual shortfall of about $102 billion a year for the next couple of decades. So the region has welcomed the already hundreds of billions of dollars that have flowed from Chinese sources into it since the BRI was launched six years ago. Much of the capital goes to fund transportation links that connect hubs in the region to Chinese cities and that of course is one of the many ways that the BRI is weaving the Chinese and regional economies and societies together and helping to reinforce China's already substantial role as an economic player in the region. In the last decade, in fact, China has become the region's most important trade partner. Its regional share of trade has risen while the shares of the United States, the European Union and Japan, which have historically been the region's largest trading partners have been on steady decline. I say that, but actually our trade with the region grew substantially and I'll mention that, it grew substantially in the last six months. ASEAN has risen to China's number two trading partner surpassing the United States and now Europe is in the number one slot. This trend is in part the result of the fact that the ASEAN China free trade area entered into force about nine years ago, but it has also been accelerated by the US trade war. China is buying and trading a lot more with ASEAN, it rose just, it rose 4% in the first half of this year and that's also pushing progress toward negotiations on the regional comprehensive economic partnership and when that is negotiated and concluded, the negotiations are concluded, that will be the largest trading block in the world, comprising roughly 50% of the global economy. The BRI has also linked the Chinese and ASEAN economies more closely in other ways. It's broadened the use of the Renminbi by ASEAN members through currency swap arrangements with Southeast Asian states. We mentioned the agreement between Indonesia and China but China and ASEAN are also negotiating on including the Renminbi in the ASEAN currency swap safety net along with the Yen actually and that will reduce that arrangement's reliance on the dollar. China is also promoting the digital silk road concept in the region, that idea was introduced as part of the BRI in 2015 and of course the digital economy is on the agenda of the ASEAN summit. The second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation that took place in the spring saw the regional players discussing a lot of new bilateral projects with China and that included new arrangements using Chinese digital technologies. Alibaba is a big player, Tencent, DD Chuxing, they've also invested in ride hailing services in the region, et cetera. So a lot of much bigger role for Chinese technology in the region and that includes also the expansion of use of Chinese technical standards. China has a program to promote Chinese technical standards around the world and the region as it absorbs more and more technology and infrastructure is becoming one of the front lines for that. And it's notable that during the ASEAN foreign ministers meeting in Bangkok this summer China was declared the most important dialogue partner of ASEAN countries that is a significant development, I think. So you have to conclude from all of this that as China stakes grow in BRI participating countries in the region and ASEAN stakes in China economic engagement in the region rise that Beijing's preferences are gonna carry heavier weight in the region's foreign and security policies. And you'll see, I'll note that defense cooperation between China and the region has been growing and is highlighted in China's 2019 defense white paper. And if you compare this year's white paper to the 2015 white paper you'll see that in 2015 China references its relationship to ASEAN in the defense arena as engaging in multilateral dialogues and cooperation mechanisms in this white paper it addresses the bilateral dimensions of defense cooperation with ASEAN countries and also highlights the China ASEAN maritime exercise that took place last year. So there are, China's pursuit of its own strategic agenda in this context is already I think well known to all of you having divisive effects on interregional relations on the South China Sea in the case of Cambodia of course it sort of can be seen as the canary in the mine. Cambodia has on two occasions played a role in resisting efforts to include statements on the South China Sea within ASEAN 2012 no communique was issued. And then in 2016 Cambodia blocked mention to the Philippines arbitration ruling against Beijing in its in the statement. At the same time of course Southeast Asian countries have complex historical relationships with China and they would far prefer to balance Beijing's potentially overwhelming influence by diversifying their foreign partnerships both with allies and with other security partners. So there is a strong case in, so Southeast Asian countries are receptive to greater ties with the United States. And of course the United States has a strong interest in continuing to maintain important ties with Southeast Asia. It's expected to become the fourth largest economy in the world by 2050 and that will exert an even greater gravitational pull on economic gravitational pull in the world. It's already supporting the source of a lot of US jobs. It's the fourth largest export market for the United States already. And our export growth has been steady although not keeping pace with China's economic growth export growth to the region. It's been holding steady since the 1997 Asian financial crisis. It jumped over 10% from 2017 last year. And we should note too that the region's 635 million residents live in democracies although many of these remain quite fragile. But there are clearly strains in US relations with the region. A colleague yesterday noted that despite this administration's criticism of multilateral organizations that kind of criticism has not been leveled at ASEAN. Nonetheless the fact that last year President Trump skipped the East Asia Summit and the US ASEAN Summit in Singapore that was read very poorly in the region and suggested to regional leaders that the United States wasn't putting the same level of priority on relations with ASEAN. I won't speak to Japanese interest in the region. I just want to highlight that in the area of infrastructure because that's the focus of our report, Japan remains an extremely important player. And it is actually its role in infrastructure development in the region remains greater than that of China. Its projects in the region's sixth largest economies represent more than a hundred billion dollars more in investment than does China today even though China has been increasing its investment in this area through the BRI. So that's sort of the context in which we discuss the opportunities and risks of what we assess as potentially weakening American influence in the region against China's increasingly dynamic role in the region. And also a potentially competitive dynamic emerging between the established source of foreign direct investment in infrastructure development Japan in the region and China on the economic front. We identified a number of opportunities for improved policy coordination between the US and Japan on regional development. Obviously the United States did pass the BUILD Act investment and that doubles the US commitment to overseas development financing. And Japan has its own expanded partnership for quality infrastructure and its own projects and coordinating projects coordinated with India. Australia and the European Union also have their own strategies for connectivity in Asia that we might coordinate with. And there are all other opportunities to work together to provide regional public goods in the security arena. The United States did its CCAT exercise this year and in August and that included the partners in the region and as well as Japan and we might be able to expand more activities in that area. And I think I'll just end on a point that is a thread throughout a conclusion throughout all of our reports which is that there are differences in the free and open Indo-Pacific concept which can help organize US Japan cooperation in the region. And the Japanese description of free and open Indo-Pacific is vision or concept and we have a strategy. We have, there are differences in the two approaches to the region and it's important that we cooperate and coordinate and continue this dialogue and I think this project will help us do that. I'll stop there. Thank you very much Karla, it's terrific and it gives you a flavor of what's in their policy brief bridging the Belt and Road divide. Some of the digital connectivity issues and standard setting issues are talked about in a paper that I did with Professor Ase Ito on competing with China on technology and innovation so there's a broad range of topics that we cover in the project. I want to turn now to Professor Kawashima. He authored co-authored with some of the other members of the kind of umbrella paper on managing risks and opportunities for the US Japan Alliance through coordinated China policy and the responding to China's complicated views on the international order paper as well. But Kawashima-sensei. Yeah, thank you, Jim. I'm Shin Kawashima. I'm teaching at Tokyo University. I'm my background and a historian to research for Chinese different history. But China is expanding to the world, so scholars of Chinese history has to go the world, including Africa and Latin America and others. Yes, in this project, I have to emphasize that the US Japan Alliance basically shared the perception and the policies on China. This is a broad condition. However, as Professor Kamiya said, there are some differences on China. And I hear strings on that. China also pays strong attention to these differences between US and Japan. This is a point. So we have to be conscious of these differences. And also, we have to distinguish the good difference and bad differences. But I say that, for example, on Taiwan program, there are some differences between US and Japan. China and USA is much more aggressive or some positive to push to support Taiwan now. However, Japan has to do the same policy as USA. So this March, Taiwan suddenly proposed the one, what is that? Taiwan proposed to make a new security dialogue with Japan, but Japan rejected it. Okay, so yes, however, I think, if Japan adopted the same policy on Taiwan as USA, the security or military tension in this stage will be enhanced, will be enhancing. For such a difference, such differences are good for the efficient difference, I think. However, for example, the other missile problem, okay, and others, some differences are managed. It is necessary for us to manage the others, the bad differences, I think. From China's point of view, such differences are so attractive, okay? It is a point. As you know, China has specific views on the international order. China separates the international politics and the international economy on their perception of norms and order. On the international politics, China supports the United Nations, the UN, China basically advances policies on the UN, on the international politics and security. So China expanded its military service to the Africa based on the PKO and others. Yeah, however, on the economy, China, yes, the three elements in the status that China support the free and based, a rule-based international order. And China support the World Bank IMF, WTO. It's so interesting. And in international politics, China criticizes the US-Japan alliance as the legacy of the Cold War. Yeah, so in 2016, Ms. Fuim, she was the high-ranked diplomat in China. She made a speech at the Chatham House in London. She said that there is the international, not international, world order, as so-called the Pax Americana in the world. Yeah, this world order has three elements. The first is US military alignment. Second is Western values. Third is UN and its institutions. China only supports third part, UN only supports third part, UN only. The other one, the security, US security alignment and the US and values. Yes, China does not support the two elements. It's so clear, yeah. China does not, yes, criticize all of existence norms in the orders. China support the some parts, okay, in the existing order. In the international politics, China supports UN. Yes, no problem, it's okay. China has veto. And the other one, international economic order, China supports the most of existing order. Yes, it is so confusing. From a Chinese point of view, in the economic field, USA, this is a Chinese point of view in Japan, from a Chinese point of view, USA adopts the protectionism on the trade and so on, but Japan not. Japan support the free and the rule-based international order in the international economy. This is a Chinese point of view. So China can be against USA on this point. However, China can support or cooperate with Japan. And so on. And also Japan also welcome, because as you know, Japan, if you check the public poll in Japan, you find that most of Japanese, 90% Japanese people has negative feeling on China. So Japan is so anti-China, however, if we add the next question, do you think that China-Japan relations are important for Japan? More than 90% Japanese answer, yes, important. This is interesting. So China also understand this point. So the Prime Minister Abe also understand such a public opinion in Japan. So Abe administration was founded in 2012. So he expressed the anti-Chinese attitude at first. And in 2014, he changed his attitude of China. And also in 2017, Abe suddenly said that he can, he could support Chinese BRI. If China accepted four conditions, like transparency, openness, and economic characteristics and financial goodness and something for conditions. And afterwards China welcomed Abe's proposal. And after it, so-called Japan-Japan relations will be, no, no, they changed the situation and so-called improvement has been emerging in this couple of years. So next spring, Chile-Brasim season teaching people will come to Japan. However, this situation is realized in the, basically, in the economy, a field of international economy. So on the international politics or security situation is not changed. So if you check the website of the Japanese Coast Guard and download the chart, that shows the number of Chinese public vessels enter the territorial water of the connecting water of the Senkaku Islands. The number of ships are increasing in this couple of years. Yeah, so although the top leaders exchanges are emerging, Abe and Xi Jinping. And last month, the Ministry of the National Security of China detained one Japanese historian who studies in Hokkaido University, academic person, China detained him. It is so shocking news to the Japanese academy. So there's strong some tension in such a political security field. So we have to check the Chinese side. So Carla said, I mentioned about the Southeast Asia also. We have to check the perception of the other side. How does China see our alliance? How does China use our differences? And how does Southeast Asian countries expect or the hope to the US or Japan alliance or China? So we can pay attention to the Chinese perception, Chinese policies and other countries views as my opinion, thank you. Well, thank you very much. That's a great compliment to the other presentations. And your introduction of this complexity aspect, I think is so appropriate. In the United States as well, obviously, our opinions are not monolithic and this was discussed to some extent at our workshop. I think one Japanese scholar summarized it as there's kind of view A in the United States on China, which assumes that China is actively challenging the regional order and will later kind of seek to undermine or create kind of its own vision of a world order, whereas there's kind of view B that says, yes, there's some regional challenge, but it's not, it's within manageable boundaries and that the challenge to global order or seeking kind of global preeminence is certainly not preordained and really depends on US actions as well. We see the Chicago Council on Global Affairs put out a poll that came out just a couple of weeks ago that indicated that two thirds of Americans think the United States should pursue a policy of friendly cooperation and engagement with China rather than work to limit its growth. So this idea of moving target and the complexity of perceptions I think is very apt. I'm gonna open it up to the audience in just a minute, but I wanted to ask the panel of a couple of questions or get your reactions to some of the things that we talked about yesterday. The first is this idea we talked about whether or not Japan could plan to play a bridging role to some extent on some of these issues where there are gaps between the United States and China and whether there would be potentially some growing convergence with China on certain issues that even if today, for example, in terms of freedom of navigation, there are obviously differences of opinion or tensions between the United States and China, of course, but we see in the Persian Gulf and challenges to easy secure transshipment of energy supplies out of the region, China has been willing to potentially be a part of a coalition or contribute to an international effort to protect sea lanes there. Chinese attitudes toward intellectual property rights. We had an interesting presentation where if you actually track US attitudes towards intellectual property rights, we used to steal a lot of technology back in the 1800s and it was only later once we reached a certain level of accomplishment that we decided that it was really important to protect these intellectual property rights. Could this, are there areas where we could eventually actively kind of try to shape or move in that direction? So I wanted to ask about this idea of Japan as a possible bridge on some of these issues in terms of leveraging the good gaps, I guess, in a way between the US and China. I'm not very sure if a bridging role is a proper expression of the role which Japan is willing to play between the United States and China. First of all, I mean, there's a very strong wide consensus among the Japanese public, not only among the experts, but also in the general public informed public that Japan is the ally of the United States and should remain so despite the increasing influence of China internationally. That's one thing. And the other thing is that despite the ongoing improvement in Japan's relations with China, there's again quite a strong recognition that Japan has to cooperate with the United States to protect the existing comfortable international environment for the country. That's a rules-based order, and not us. So I mean, bridging the two countries sounds like as if Japan sees both the United States and China kind of equally, equal distance or kind of thing, but that's not the case. Japan is willing to remain a sincere ally of the United States. Having said that, as I mentioned, Japan sometimes feels that the United States since when, two years ago, around, suddenly became too tough against China. Almost ignoring the opportunity aspect of China presents to the world and to the United States and to Japan and so on and so forth. And from Japan's point of view, that's not a good idea. We have to accept the reality that China is exercising both bad influence and good influence to the international society. And particularly to those countries who are still developing in the Indo-Pacific, I mean like in ASEAN countries and so on, China is attractive in some aspect. And Japan wants to tell to the United States that you have to see more about that reality. And Japan can cooperate with that. I mean, with that kind of thing with the United States too. And that can be described as a bridging role in some sense, but as I mentioned, I mean Japan remains, wants to remain a ally of the United States, not the kind of balance between China and the United States and so on and so forth. That's what I would say. Well, I mean, it's a bridging role. It is a challenge in that China and Japan obviously have their own history and special dynamic and relations between those two countries is often fraught. But I think in the context of the BRI, which was the focus of the report that Mia Ova and I worked on, there is a bridging role to be played by Japan in that Japan is such a significant source of foreign direct investment and infrastructure financing in the region. And it does that kind of development with very, very high standards. And one of the concerns that the United States has strategic concerns aside is that the BRI could result in lower, in core investments that will encumber countries with higher levels of debt, also roll over human rights issues and so forth and that Japan still has a very important role to play and I think the United States can work with Japan, particularly through the expanded partnership for quality infrastructure and its own build act funding to get more involved in infrastructure development in the region and the ADB is also gonna be a player, can be a player there as well. So I think that is a place where we should really focus attention. Sure, yes. Actually Chinese scholars also expects Japan raise the bridging role between US and China and I usually answer this question. Yes, Japan does not have enough power to play a bridging role between the two big countries. However, actually sometimes Japan can play a bridging role between two big powers. For example, F.O.I.P, Finland opening in the Pacific. In China, most of scholars and officials recognize F.O.I.P as just a hostile or the negative toward China, okay. However, and also USA emphasize the elements of the military or security of F.O.I.P. however, Japan strengthens the much more general elements of F.O.I.P. including the economy, economy cooperation or the other part with some cooperation and some regional governance as well. And as you know, this year, ASEAN also proposed ASEAN-styled F.O.I.P. ASEAN version F.O.I.P. So ASEAN version F.O.I.P. shares many, many elements with Japanese side and China recognizes maybe that if F.O.I.P. became become a ASEAN version or general version F.O.I.P, China's B.L.I. and F.O.I.P. can share some elements basically in a regional cooperation and they call me I think. So Japan has pushed the other one such a general elements and F.O.I.P. So I think yes, I don't know whether Japan has intention or not, however, yes. If Japan, sometimes Japan plays a bridging role between the U.S. and the China I think, yeah. Well, thank you. And I mean, to some extent it's a modest example perhaps but when Japan was hosting the G20 most recently together with the United States and some other countries, the EU, for example, they were able to get China to sign on to G20 principles for infrastructure investment or I forget exactly what the term is but that's a potential example there. It's also interesting because this came up in the Chinese views of international order versus kind of world order or China positioning itself as or viewing itself as in some ways a protector of international order trying to cast the United States currently as a destroyer of international order, particularly in the economic context and the use of tariffs, et cetera. So TPP-11 or the efforts at trade liberalization building in East Asia, in part led by Japan, the regional comprehensive economic partnership RCEP. China certainly feels like TPP is kind of potentially negative vis-a-vis China but maybe there's some opportunity to participate in this regional order as well. So it's interesting to see how these things unfold. That said, another issue that was kind of brought up yesterday and this will be my last question for the group but this growing gap between national democracy or national governance and national economy or economic governance. So when we were looking at all the different kind of supply chain migration and changes and influence of exports and imports and investment back and forth, sometimes we tend to look at this data in a very national view, country exporting this amount to electronics or something to country be. But the reality is the economic piece is much more integrated and goes beyond borders because of the supply chain relationship. So just adding up what one country is exporting to another country doesn't actually capture how many companies within that country are actually have their national headquarters back in Japan or in the United States. And yet China in particular is looking to govern issues of politics and national governance in a purely border kind of defined way. And we see this then overlapping in areas of the NBA, you know, saying something about Hong Kong or maps related to in a Disney movie and with a nine dash line or references to Taiwan in an airline magazine, et cetera. This effort, this struggle between kind of national democracy border defined and the economic issue. So how is this kind of viewed between the United States and Japan or in the context of risk and opportunity in your mind? Please. Yes, as you said, real economy as a globalized so Japanese companies make investment in China and USA and other areas. So it's nonsense to strengthen the nationalized context. However, on the discourse level, the especially China strength of the national economy, China's GDP, China something to mobilize some nationalism and also technology. The development technology is basically globalized. However, China recently utilize the science technology as the base of the nationalism. So we have to, yes, distinguish and make it clear that the real economy, differences between a real economy and such a discourses or discourse politics, I think. So if we are confusing on this point, it is so easy for us to be influenced by such a discourses. I just, I haven't, I missed that part of our discussion yesterday and I haven't reflected on it, but it seems to me that in China's behavior with respect to the NBA and some of these other axes has been almost enabled by the weaponization of trade and economic issues. And so we have this economic nationalism intertwined with efforts to promote Chinese interests as we are also using our economic heft to advance our national interests in a way that we hadn't before. So there isn't that line between the economy, the globalized economy and national security interests that there was before in the last two years, really. Please. I think there's a serious asymmetry between China and us, the real democracies, with regard to the, how do you call it, intrusiveness of national border. And China obviously has been trying to utilize the asymmetry for their advantage. And the biggest challenge for us is that during the Cold War era, and probably until the end of 20th century, we assumed that real economic prosperity cannot be achieved without more intrusive international, national border. I mean, in other words, I mean, you have to be democratized. You have to become more liberal to become really prosperous. But China is the first country which breaks such past common sense. China is not liberal, China is not democratic. China's national border is quite, how do you say, less intrusive than our national border. But still, China achieves a quite a great prosperity. Some cases, I mean, some aspect of China's prosperity surpasses our national prosperity, our prosperity. And we are facing a very difficult situation. And I think it adds to the complexity of managing this between the US and Japan Alliance because there is no kind of office of China policy in the United States that really connects the trade, export controls, economic, diplomatic, security, et cetera. So within the alliance, if you're gonna coordinate this, it's either with very dedicated and interested people at the NSC to NSC level, or you have some mechanism by which there's sufficient coordination and communication at all these other different levels. But I wanna give the audience a chance to ask some questions as well. So please wait for a microphone, let us know who you are and ask your question and I'll start with Gil. Gil Rosamond, the Aasan Forum. I wonder if we could hear more clearly what are the differences between Japan and the United States on policy towards China. We heard on BRI, we heard about Taiwan. And also, wasn't there a response in many Japanese publications in 2017, at least, that it was so wonderful to have Trump instead of Obama because he really carried out freedom of navigation operations and he was more serious about dealing with China. When did that actually change that China, that the Japanese decided way, hey, the US is really not handling China properly and on what issues can you identify? Yes. For example, about the BRI, Japan does not criticize all of BRI. Yes, Japanese scholars and officials understand some, yes, dangerousness of Chinese deep trap and Chinese military ambition and so on. However, Japanese companies or Japanese economic society wants to get some interests from BRI. And also the Japanese economic society is interesting in the BRI itself on the economic field because there are so many, many big infrastructure projects. So Japanese companies wants to get some economic interest. Okay, so Japan wants to, Japanese government wants to manage the dangerous parts of BRI. So I will propose the four conditions to share with China to manage it. I know it is so difficult for Japan to manage China, but yes, Japan proposed four conditions. So the, but USA's attitude towards BRI is different, I think, much more aggressive, much more negative. Yes, so there are so many differences. Well, and I go, please, and I'll add some of my mind to the list. Yeah, I mean, I'd like to add one thing that is, yes, I mean, Japan has, as I said, I mean, Japan has welcomed US shift in the shifting US-China policy and other Trump administration in the sense that the US has become serious enough to be the increasing assertiveness of China which Japan has been worried about for many years. And during the Obama administration, Japan was often frustrated with the kind of too soft an attitude toward China taken by the Obama administration. Actually Obama administration, China policy fluctuated from the engagement side and hedging side and that actually annoyed the Japanese. And in that sense, I mean, the Trump administration, China policy has been welcomed by Japan. But since 2017, I mean, the basic, I mean, the basic, as I said, direction of US policy is still welcomed, but what US is actually doing to taking, what kind of measures US is actually taking toward China, that has become kind of annoying to Japan again. I mean, again, as I said, I mean, it seems sometimes to be too confrontational or too kind of too much focus up on the risk and too much, too less focus on opportunity. And Japan believes that, you know, both side has to be paid attention by not only by Japan, but also by the United States. For example, I mean, FOIP, Free and Open Pacific Strategy or Vision. The US FOIP seems to be kind of too tough, too confrontational against China from Japanese point of view. Of course, Japanese FOIP includes an intention to check China's increasing assertiveness and that's obvious. But my observation is that Japanese government and the other administration knows that in order to make FOIP successful, our efforts, I mean, efforts by Japan and the United States alone is not sufficient. And two countries, two allies has to attract other countries to their idea of FOIP. And in order to attract those countries to those third countries to the idea of FOIP, they have to, Japan and the United States show, when it is possible to cooperate with China under what condition kind of things. So Prime Minister Abe has been taking somewhat more cooperative approach toward China than he did some years ago. But that not means that he became kind of conciliatory toward China. He want to check China's increasing assertiveness, that's not been changed. But in order to check China's increasing assertiveness, Japanese understanding is that Japan needs a cooperation from third countries, not only from the United States, but also from ASEAN and other countries. And those other countries do not want the United States and Japan to take a two confrontational simplistic approach toward China. I think that's the point. I would, I mean, I guess I would underscore, certainly there are a lot of commonalities between the US and Japanese views. And so we tend to focus a lot on the gaps or the subtle differences, but there are a lot of common views. But certainly in the area of trade and technology, so some of the areas that the US is going in with regard to export controls, with regard to investment restrictions, there's a lot of concern, I think, in Japan about not only how this will, what kind of impact this will have on China in terms of how China reacts, but then also to what extent Japanese firms get caught up into some of that as well. A few subtle differences, I think, on North Korea policy in terms of how to approach the role of China, vis-a-vis North Korea, at least currently. And then also in some of the security areas, obviously we have a lot of common views on security issues vis-a-vis China. And I think many in Japan actually were not critical of the US withdrawal from the INF Treaty, for example, primarily with the idea that maybe this would allow the United States to apply some kind of a check or pressure or leverage vis-a-vis China on theater missile developments. But it's not clear to me that, but I think there are some subtle differences there, too, and we haven't even really had a mature conversation within the alliance of exactly where do we go from here and what's the balance between how we address Russia, vis-a-vis China in the region. So those are just some other examples. I mean, the 5G, other issues, again, Japan largely in sync with us, but not necessarily out there going and trying to pressure other countries to avoid or abandon 5G at the expense of being able to trade with us or have shared intelligence information, et cetera. One really quick point. It seems to me that the harder line that the United States has taken in the region has enabled an improved relationship between China and Japan because Japan has to live in the region and has to work, has to deal with China. And I think it has been able to carve out a different space and distinguish itself in some areas from the United States' harder line approach. Thanks, Jim, and thanks to the presenters for some excellent talks. My question is about, oh, Dan Bob with the Reichsauer Center at SICE, sorry. My question is about some potential problems in the alliance that may have implications, not just for US-Japan relations, but for China. Couple things. First, the president has long held for more than three decades some real questions about alliances themselves and has often talked about going back 30, 35 years how our allies have not paid up enough to support the troops that we have stationed overseas. Next year, the host nation support is gonna come up for negotiation and the president has talked, I believe, about costs covering the entire cost to the United States plus an additional 50%. I wonder how those negotiations may fair and what that might imply. More importantly, on a second issue is North Korea. The president really does seem to want a deal and as the election comes closer, I think his desire for a deal with North Korea is gonna increase. If the president were, for example, to accept a nuclear North Korea, what might that mean for the alliance and implications for China? As I'm sure you're aware, the president has talked previously, particularly during the 2016 campaign about how it would be a good thing if South Korea and Japan, he also talked about Saudi Arabia getting nuclear weapons. We've got the Turks now who want nuclear weapons. So if I could get some sense of what those two issues might, what the impact might be on bilateral relationship but also on dealing with China, I appreciate it. Thank you very much. My name is Sobamura from Yassai-Shinbun, Washington, U.S. I just touched up on this issue but it hasn't been long time said that United States have alliance but China doesn't have alliance. But as Jimson just touched upon that, China and also Russia have more closer relationships the last couple of years, especially in the military basis. How does it make impact on the U.S., Japan policy vis-à-vis China is my question. So three different little kind of questions. I open them up to the field. To the first two questions. First of all, I mean the Trump idea that the U.S. Japan alliance has been unfair alliance. That's not accepted by the Japanese because both countries receive different benefits but the benefits from the alliance. That's one thing. I mean Japan is protected by the United States to a large extent that's the reality but also Japan allows the United States to station a large number of forces in its own soil while during the peacetime and accept the military basis there and that has a significant strategic meaning for the U.S. world strategy. Having said that, Trump's dissatisfaction that Japan is not doing sufficiently, that has some appeal to the Japanese public in recent days. Yes, I mean Japan's defense spending is still less than 1% compared with its GDP and increasing number of Japanese fears that on that point alone, Trump is somewhat reasonable. But having said that, Japanese are very worried about how do you say Trump's attitude which seems to have, seems to accept or admit sufficient significance to U.S. alliance in its foreign policy. About nuclear North Korea, that's a disaster scenario for Japan if the United States or China or international society accepts the nuclear North Korea. I probably have said this in this conference room or somewhere at Carnegie in different room before last year or sometime but I repeat. I mean international order in East Asia has been rested upon what I call a nuclear order in East Asia and nuclear order in East Asia has rested on the nuclear order in North East Asia. That nuclear order in North East Asia has rested upon one assumption that Japan who can become, who can go nuclear if it wants remains non-nuclear. And Japan has maintained a non-nuclear status more than 50 years since it achieved economic superpower or big power status in the late 1960s. But Japanese self-restraint rested upon another assumption that as long as Japan maintains its non-nuclear policy the international society will not accept any other countries in the region to go nuclear. And that's now very shaky because North Korea has obtained nuclear weapons and the last straw could be the acceptance by the international society of giving a nuclear weapon state status by international society particularly the United States to North Korea. That will shake, that will undermine the very foundation of Japan's self-restraint. I believe that the Japanese dislikes, hates nuclear weapons so strongly that it's not very easy for any Japanese government to decide that the country go nuclear, but I can say that the foundation of Japan's self-restraints will become more shaky and the debate could happen and so on and so forth. Anybody want to touch on the Russia-China question and implications for how to approach China? Yes, thank you so much. Very, very stimulating questions about North Korea. Yes, as Kamiya-sen said, they are the world's scenario for Japan that the USA compromise on nuclear and also the long-range missiles. USA only manage longer than missile but that compromise on the middle and short-range missiles is just for Japan. The problem, okay. Actually, Japan worry about on this point because when USA was eager to manage the North Korea program, that would be when North Korea announced it exploit the long-range missiles. Before that point, USA was not so eager to manage at this point. So what seems to me, this is okay to the Atlantic Ocean. USA is not located at the East Asia. Yes, Japanese people worry about this point. Secondly, yes, I heard one interesting rumor, not information, that China and Russia have intention to enhance its cooperation level and the military cooperation level to the alliance, military alliance. I think there's a rumor about that. There's something, there's atmosphere on such a level. If the USA, Russia and China will enhance its military cooperation, there's a big problem for Japan and also we have to pay attention to the situation in the Japan Sea and Ohotsuku Sea and other northern part of Japan. And also they will cooperate on a, not cooperate on a navy, but also army in the Central Asia maybe. But cooperation in the Central Asia between Russia and China will influence on the situation in the Indian Ocean, the Indian Ocean, I think. So far, China just keeps upgrading its strategic relationship with Russia. But there is a debate inside China, and many of you will know, led by Yan Xia Tong, the scholar in China about the utility of an alliance with Russia. The repercussions would be tremendous for the whole region where that to happen. And I guess I could imagine something like that in the context of some kind of Taiwan scenario event. But what does Russia get? And it's just, it's a hard to kind of game out, but something to think about because it is under debate in Chinese policy circles. Well, and I think in the context of our discussions yesterday, it would be a fundamental shift if it really moved in that direction. This idea of convergence, this idea of bridging, this idea of finding areas of cooperation becomes so much more difficult in that context if you're thinking about it in the context of a Russia-China alliance. But hopefully that's just a hypothetical situation. We've kind of reached the end. I might be able to squeeze in one last very quick question, if I can. I have a, let me call on you here. Got a microphone coming. Or you had some gender diversity in our questions here. Thank you so much. My question is so general. The first, oh yes, my name is Rijo Aizawa, grad student at Elliott School and research intern at Hudson Institute. And the first one is how do Chinese international commercial courts work and support their OBOR projects currently? And the second one is how should we, the United States and Japan evaluate or deal with their international courts because the court seems to lie over both Chinese risks and opportunities for us. I'm not very familiar with the court questions. That is a work in progress. None of us know very much about it. It's a good area to look at more closely, but the court would be in China, this is a way of adjudicating disputes within the BRI, sort of if you call it a framework, but these would be part the court, or this body would be integrated into the Chinese court system. So it's intriguing, but that's about the extent of my knowledge. We mentioned this in our report and there's a citation to a little bit more information. But it's part of China's effort to now develop some institutions to support the BRI and there are a number of those underway. Shodan, oh, Shodan-su. China opens the Judical Center at Shenzhen City to manage some, yes, a judicial problem in the BRI. Yeah, and also China, yes, utilize its own aid or financial investment in the BRI to expand its own commercial court. That is a big problem. However, it's a different for us to control it. From lots of companies in lower developing countries point of view, they do not have other scenario. If Japan can provide huge investment towards, yes, loss instead of China, it's okay, no problem. However, Japan does not have enough money. In me, yes, financial power, yes, now. So from Laos point of view, it is, yes, they are compared to accepted Chinese money. They do not have other scenario. It's a big point. So what we can do? We can, we support the, some, yeah, human resources to, yeah, support their, yeah, a capability to manage the financial program or commercial law. So we have to consider what we can do. Yeah, especially if we can leverage the UN system or a multilateral system a little bit, I would think. The way the AIIB has found ways to collaborate with the Asia Development Bank and others, perhaps there's a way that we can steer that kind of international standards in that regard. Well, we've reached the end of our time. I wanna thank our, well, I wanna thank all of you for coming here today and participating. And I wanna thank Japan Forum International Relations and our panelists today for their participation and presentations. Please join me in thanking them. And they're still.