Transcripts For CSPAN2 Condoleezza Rice Et Al. The Struggle For Power 20240713

Its a great pleasure to see this crowd. You will all get cspan so be on your best behavior. We are here to launch a very important book on the future of the u. S. China relationship called the struggle for power u. S. China relations in the 21st century. I want to say word about that but first i want to recognize some very distinguished guests. I want to recognize the cochair of our Organization Former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice who was here with us. [applause] and youll be hearing from secretary rice in about half an hour. She will be one of our conversationalists. Our other cochair, harvard ever does professor, could not be here with his buddies very much part of this effort. I want to pay tribute to our former secretary of defense and a very good friend of mine, secretary bill cohen and mrs. Janet cohen. Welcome secretary. Janet, welcome. [applause] i want to pay tribute to one of i think one of the people who for me a bodies bipartisanship whos involved in every effort to bring people together across partisan lines and thats steve hadley, our former National Security adviser who was here today as well. [applause] our director is anja manuel, my close friend. We Work Together. You will be seeing anja on stage is one of the people during the interviews. Our subject is china. I think all of us agree that our relationship with china is going to be the greatest challenge that we face as a country in the next several decades. Its an important moment in that relationship. We establish full diplomatic relations and march 1979. Jimmy carter and deng xiaoping. For most of that time in both republican and democratic administrations we all felt in both administrations that we were seeking cooperation with china. That was the basic strategy and the chinese felt the same way. In recent years theres no question that both countries have swung from cooperation to a strategy of competition. That competition gets to the heart of our Vital National interest overseas. We are competing for Strategic Military dominance in the indopacific where the United States has been a dominant part with our allies japan, south korea and australia for 75 years but the chinese are making a a concerted effort to cut into that american and alliance military power. We are competing to see who will dominate the next generation of military technology, and two years ago the Aspen Strategy Group spent three days thinking about that subject. Ai is going to be militarized. Quantum computing is going to be militarized. Biotechnology is going to be militarized. Which country will get their first in the new generation military technology that will define power in the world. In the next several decades. Were also competing as the number one and two economic powers in the world. Using President Trump with his trade negotiations with the chinese in the first phase of deal. That was announced just last week but certainly competing for economic primacy and from the perspective of the United States and i support what President Trump has tried to do to get at the heart of chinese difficulties, will the chinese agree to live on a level Playing Field in terms of trade with the United States, with japan, with europe and the European Union . Finally, if you think about these battles i have just talked about, strategic predominates in the indopacific, military technology, trade, theres a fourth battle and i want to talk to secretary price about this, the battle of ideas. Xi jinping is bringing with selfconfidence about the authoritarian model of how the country has organized a think it should be exported and he thinks other countries should adopt it and Vladimir Putin thinks the same way. Mohammed bin salman and president erdogan think the same way. Americans disagree. Europeans disagree. Japanese disagree. Its not a cataclysmic battle of armies. Its a battle of systems and ideals about how we think society should be organized. The one cautionary note, we spent three days, republicans and democrats and independents together debating this issue. We produced this volume that all of you i hope have a copy of. If you dont there are Copies Available just in the back which is being launched today. We produced it on a nonpartisan basis. The ethos of our organization is where americans. We believe in our country first. We do not believe that partisanship should interfere with our analysis of big strategic challenges like this. But they cautionary note would be this. Are we overestimating chinas strengths and underestimating chinas weaknesses . Are we even underestimating the ability of the United States and its allies, europe and in asia, to cope with this threat peacefully and successfully . We had someone here in condi rice and spent the better part of her academic career, early career think about an empire that crashed, the soviet union. There were times when we were working together, steve, myself, senator cohen and maybe the 70s 80s when the overestimate the strengths of the soviet union. Do we have selfconfidence to think the United States and its allies have we forward for success in the 21st century . I commend commend this volume to you. We have republicans, democrats and independents riding auditor today we will hear from four people. My colleague anja manuel will interview Michael Pillsbury mike is an advisor to President Trump, a china specialist, hes really smart. Hes at the Hudson Institute and it was a pleasure to spend three days with mike earlier this year. Second interview i will interview my close friend and former boss, Condoleezza Rice, about these issues. The third interview im going to interview Kathleen Hicks who is one of i think the smartest, young strategists we have in the United States on the position of the American Military and our ability to respond to these threats. Shes at csis where sector cohen is on the board. And fourth, anja will interview i guy who is a force of nature, kurt campbell. Ambassador canada for president obama was our assistant secretary of state for east asia, architect of the strategic pivot at the United States bank to the indopacific, a compelling thinker on these issues. So we have four conversations. We hope it will be useful to you. We thank you for being here. Without further ado, anja manuel and Michael Pillsbury. [applause] thank you all for being here today. I have to say when we were in aspen last august, i thought we had one of the best discussions we have ever had at the Strategy Group, in terms of depth of substance, diversity of opinion, but being respectful of each others differences of opinion. And you will see have slightly different format today than we would normally do with the budget big panels for everybody talks. We wanted to give each, we want to highlight a couple of our authors with books and give each of them really an opportunity to dig deep into what theyre trying to say. Mike pillsbury of course needs no introduction. Thank you. But im going to do it anyway. A fellow at the Hudson Institute, former senior Government Official in the Reagan Administration and elsewhere. Currently i would say draws modest but i was a you are the number one outside advisor to the administration on china, back channeling if i can say you took six trips every very far this trade deal. Impeachment discussion it does not. [inaudible] it was, it was. We will stipulate to that. But so i wanted to restart broad and then narrow, if you could im not asking you speak for the administration but you know a lot about what they think. What is the Trump Administrations objective, whats the cope with respect to china . Is it to level the Playing Field and tried to get along and bottle through . Is it pushing back like we did on the soviet union . Physical you only get a different system . What are we driving for . I think the first point to make about the Trump Administration so i can edit my remarks . I think the first point to make about the Trump Administration is the multiple voices within it who, from the point of view of the standards established by previous administrations, shamelessly leak their debates often on the front pages of the wall street journal. You will read Something Like yesterday, the Oval Office Someone said this, someone said that. So this is an administration that its very difficult for outsiders to understand who speaks for the administration. So in my view its the president alone. One thing we are learning, the ukraine impeachment discussion, seems to me, is the permanent bureaucracy up to and including the cabinet secretaries, are not necessarily involved in what the president is concerned with. So my observation, i was not a Trump Campaign supporter. My candidate lost, but i was still invited to the Transition Team, and what i observed from the very beginning is the president elect, at the time, was deeply personally interested in china. This surprised me. I thought during the campaign when he would frequently say phrases like china is raping our country, if this is Just Campaign rhetoric, it clearly works in some counties, and thats the end of it. But, in fact, the president has acted, as i say in my chapter in the book we are here to discuss today, president begin to act as the china desk officer himself. As a china hand, people like david in the room and lonnie and others, we should all be thrilled that the president himself is taking china very seriously. Many president s really havent. But the hazard to that is that everybody around him and wants to influence his view and find out what is view actually is. And over three years what i have come to understand about the president s approach to china, he thinks of itself as a dealmaker. Hes a businessman, a billionaire, anyones to make a deal with in some sense another company which have to run by another ceo, xi jinping. So his focus from the beginning during the transition was on xi jinping. One of the Early Development was he had in my view unfortunately made a phone call, taken a phone call from taiwans president , was a chinese say, socalled president. And the chinese begin to punish the Trump Administration for that phone call and would not actually have a summit anywhere until the president clarified his views. But the way he did that, set e tone for the next three years. He said at the request of president xi and the phone call, i am going to abide by our onechina policy. That opened, that moved the obstacle for the maralago summit. Im not quite sure what you want to go. Since you know the presence of mind on this as well as anyone, and its possible there are multiple goals here, but is it watching as at the outset observe, i live in california. I sometimes hear from the administrations announcement, we are looking for china to really fail. And sometimes i hear no, were just trying to create a fair Playing Field here so our companies can compete and that we can have our own spheres of influence and we can find a way to all get along. Which ended and do you think hs on . Ive been advocating that the president should give speech on china himself. And after these kinds of questions your racing. The Vice President spitted the Vice President has given to make speeches in great detail, but they, too, have created questions about what exactly is he saying. He specifically said we dont want to decouple. But soon thereafter, People Associated with the emaciation, steve and in particular and this committee on the present danger from china, which im not a member of, they begin talking about no, decoupling is exactly our goal. In fact, it is happening. Inadvertently, inadvertently. So if the president were to give a speech on china himself, i think you and others in this room would probably be well advised to suggest what should be cleared up. I think theres considerable ambiguity. My own view of all this, president for some reason i dont understand invites me into the oval office to witness some of these debates. And there they all are. Do you participate . He uses the kind of as a foil and doesnt take long before you realize who in the room likes need to be there and who doesnt. So that debate continues, and i think the president s speech i wont ask you the obvious. The president , when i joined the Transition Team i quickly placed order with amazon. Com for all 14 books the president has coauthored. And several of them have china sections where he lays out some of his thinking. Next time a new president comes in and are working for him or her, i recommend you read all those books before you go to the first meeting. And they are pretty tough. I have read some of those sections and theyre quite tough. He has appointed doctor china, bad china which he has a set publicly yet but its in the book. And he lays out a good china that he would like to see, and then he demonizes a bad china and imply something that Steve Schwartzman has also said several times on television, that this really, the whole course of u. S. China relations to a large degree is up to china and the debate they are having. They have their steve bannon and they have peter navarro. They have their steven mnuchin. And that debate is part of what im supposed to be following, because ive known some of these scholars and former officials for 30 years. Let me actually go there with you next, the china sector you have written the book 100 your marathon thats never required reading in all of washington. Its an excellent book. When you go to china now, when i travel to china very frequently, i see the hardliners winning. Its harder and harder for the reformers who want domestic reform for the own purposes much less anyone who wants political reform to really get the ear of their president. And the worry is that the hardliners on both sides are winning and thats tried it as a partner is what you see . Yes, it is also at Henry Kissinger warned about in the very last chapter of his book on china, that is nightmare, and he forecast what he called an unfathomable war on the skill of world war i between the u. S. And china. If the hawks on both sides got into power. And imagine, i got the title 100 your marathon from one of the chinese hawks i know pretty well, and dr. Kissinger spends a whole page on that particular we had it on his first visit to america, we had a Cocktail Party for him and it took them over to the pentagon, but dr. Kissinger said this will never happen. This is a fringe element who reflects some extreme of thinking but this will never happen. But it did. So i think the hardliners, which is a a very vague term. By the way, the china field and the cia is not a great deal about the hardliners all along, but the general estimate has been they were not very powerful. In many ways all of us fell victim to the Foreign Ministry in beijing telling us these hardliners have no power, nobody listens to them. The ones you want for western events. You raised kissinger at a bloomberg form that just happened in november, kissinger famously said we are in the foothills of the cold war with china. That doesnt mean we need to go all the way. Where do you see the administration going . Do you see them pushing towards a cold war or do you see them wanting to pull back from that . Again, many voices are inside the administration. I dont think the president wants a cold war with china at all. I i think is quite aware of chinas military improvements, but you will notice a little microindicators like the South China Sea, to what degree to our freedom of navigation patrols observe innocent passage rules what you dont turn on their weapons radar, they dont go in circles, they dont go at night, the five criteria in the law of the sea treaty for how you can make innocent passage without challenging the countries actual territory. Seems to be as i understand it from Navy Spokesman we have not aggressively challenged the chinese with these kind of maneuvers. We have come close, and theres a wonderful harvard study about this i dont know if youve seen it, people reference the study on exactly how we approach the issue of freedom of navigation missions. But that could change. If a whole trade deal goes out and its very volatile both sides, i could envision a cold war breaking out inadvertently, for lack of the better word. And when you look back at the details of how did the first cold war start, its not as though the two sides and 19468 okay, lets have a cold war cold war. Its a series of blunders. Will, at some point you had the x article we did formally launch it pick you think were not quite there yet with china. We havent speak i agree with kissinger said phrase about the foothills of the cold war. I think it can be avoided but it takes two sides and the intricacies of this trade agreement could have laid the foundation for a cold war. Thats like i do want to get to the trade agreement since youre so instrumental in helping get it through. Its a real accomplishment. Let me get a slightly you mention from a medication, the South China Sea. In the u. S. At least in the news cycles within so fixated on the trade site of this i. I just want to get your views on other parts of our relationship. Whats happening diplomatically and on the security sphere. You spent a lot of time in your paper, which was excellent, i have all marked up, talking about our allies in asia and what each of them are doing, and special on the military side. I thought this paper was excellent. It makes a really good points about what we are already doing, what we should be doing more with our allies. When you see the administrations defense policy, you see some of that but also in my dear inconsistently you see them asking japan to more than triple its payment for our bases. South korea come same thing, triple the contribution. How do you do that . Is a part of a Cohesive Strategy or is this multiple people not working together . This is an area with the president has strong views reflected in his books and speeches 20 years earlier. So the notion that we are being ripped off by our allies is a very core donald trump deal. If you want to ingratiate yourself with income you and i are going to see him in the oval office speeded your the altai. Im never there. If were both going to deceive and i say you need to work with our allies and we share values and then you say, they are ripping us off again, we need to ask those south koreans to go 500 more, you know, sharing funding. Who is a present going to listen to . Im afraid this kind of actuation goes on around not sector, but other cabinet secretaries who try to get the president to go along with him and that get ousted not secretary cohen. Weve had 100 people who are close advisers to President Trump have been fired now in the first three years. Including cabinet secretaries. Theres a pattern to the pyrex. If you say or do things that are kind of yesterday, and the base doesnt agree with what the president doesnt agree with, its a good way to get fired. If you tell the press about your valiant effort to work with our allies, thats a good way to get fired, too. Thats a very good point. I i myself feel that the crucial part of our china strategy is to bring our allies along to listen come together ideas. Its absolutely crucial. So in my chapter for the book i tried to describe what the administration is doing with each country in asia. But others oppose my point of view and they think im kind of a deep state infiltrator to think this way about the importance of allies. And not just treaty allies but our partners and friends, especially india. I think india is the key to our overall approach to china. Thank you. You dont strike me as very deep state. Your book by the way discusses equally china, india and america. So if youre going to praise me i need to praise you as well. Everybody should buy your book. Does anybody have a copy of her book . Its called this brave new world. This is how you get a moderator to be really nice for you. Only softball questions from here on out. Who does not have a copy of this brave new world . Secretary hand up your secretary cohen, okay. I will now with a softball. Tell us about the phase one trade deal and what do you think of the most effective parts . Well, the president had a signing ceremony in the white house last wednesday, and had a lot of ceos from very large corporations present, and been singled out each one with a kind of intimate joke, including Hank Greenberg by the way, one of chinas friends, highly knowledgeable. So dr. Kissinger was there. He got praised. You were there. Praised. Well, he got in trouble with my fellow czech experts yet again because he referred to our partnership, and i would not dream of having a partnership with the president of United States. But the point of the signing ceremony was the chinese were there. They laughed if they applauded. You can see theres not any acrimony. There is no bitterness here we had a really tough two years to get his phase one trade agreement which nobody can understand because its written for trade lawyers. The chinese translation which ive been through is also quite ambiguous. So its a celebration that so far so good. Theres good will. There is a recovery from this reneging that the president reacted very quickly to. And the number of chinese who have come come in some cases the delegation was 30 chinese officials. We had them all up on the fifth floor in the indian treaty room. They are the people who run china, around the economy and trade policy of china. At one point a title, special envoy of xi jinping. Then the chinese told us in september not to use that title anymore. Then we had to ponder what that meant. Himself showed up. I see this is really good news. The details are not so important to me as the cooperative attitude after a really severe Emotional Experience from both sides over the last two years. So ive read the agreement on in english, not the chinese version. What i felt was extremely novel is the dispute resolution mechanism which i know youre calling Something Else to because it sensitive on the chinese side but we are here in english. Really novel 121 sided tariffs if you need to and lets hope it works. And on the intellectual property side, some pretty important gets a special biologics and pharma and all those things. Was it worth the cost, the amount that the economy has suffered because of the tariffs . Was what only came out of the phase one deal worth it . I think so but i try to put myself in the might of another president or other future president s who are going to inherit this problem. Whether they would be willing to use tariffs as much as President Trump did against the wishes of some in his administration. And to threaten other majors. There was a campaign in the press sometimes using a memo i supposedly wrote, a a campaignd press the city of the chinese dont come around we will put capital constraints on them, the waiver president obama gave in 2013 on chinese accounting anomalies not being required to be reported to the sec. That will go away. The chinese have talked about needing 3 trillion in capital over the next two years. The u. S. Government would have ways to slow that down and hurt the chinese quest for really a large amount of capital, even by new York Real Estate standards. So those threats i think may have worked. They were not made by the president directly, but and if you look in the opening chapter he talks about the different voices on china policy, blue team and so forth. That chinese follow that very closely. They know a lot of american players are made all of the american players. So they had to make an assessment last september, october. We could be really badly hurt by these additional measures at this escalation beyond just the current tariffs. I think that may have affected their decision but they did it with goodwill and a kind of chinese philosophical fatalism, that this is a long game, this will go on for hundreds of years so yes, china has to make a concession. And then they brilliantly marketed it by saying at the white house signing ceremony, theres a letter from xi jinping that was read out, his own remarks and theres the ambassadors remarks, all three said this agreement is important for global peace and Global Economic growth. In other words, we, chinese, are taking one for the team. The rest of the world from these unreasonable pressures and tariffs and threats and so forth. I thought that was Brilliant Media handling by the chinese side, and they told themselves. Right, were not sure of the rest of the world agrees with them but it depends on how we do with our trade talks with europe. Final question for you. Anyways i got a phase two, strategic and economic dialogue has been renamed but apparently its going to happen again. Any chances youll see anything close to a phase two before november . Well, as the present like to say, we will have to wait and see. How long will we have to wait . There are some issues that the president could solve when he goes to beijing to see his friend xi jinping. I think its as cleared by the beyond frantic now they love each other, according to the president s comment at davos. So one thing is the subsidies, and we are in the dark because the subsidies to some degree our secret in china. Theres not a big list a publishing know, they have roughly 80 stateowned enterprises, corporations on the fortune 500 list now. By the way, they beat American Companies. Theres 129 Chinese Companies on a fortune 500 list, 80 of which are state of the subsidies are secret. We will need their cooperation in their identifying what subsidies ought to be unlimited, which they promised at the wto of negotiating ground to eliminate. Thats one issue. The second issue is we will begin the enforcement phase with a bilateral dispute recognition phase more properly. As these are going on. So we will have the state summit, the issue of secrecy of subsidies, the enforcement that could turn into a very nasty quarrel, and then the other policies in diplomacy, military sphere, theres quite a long list actually that our cooperation with china, many other issues, all of that will be a stake in how we solve phase two im cautiously optimistic about it and i think the president is, too, actually. Thank you. Well close it on that note a very careful optimism. Thank you for contributing to the paper in being a part of the group most of all. [applause] many thanks to Mike Pillsbury for being so candid with us, and many thanks to our great director, anja manuel. Before introduce secretary rice and we have a conversation about these issues i was remiss in my opening remarks in not welcoming three distinct ambassadors, ambassador, then bastion of ukraine, the new about. Welcome to the United States. [applause] and ambassador vice of austria is also here with us. [applause] and i believe the ambassador of mexico is here. Madam ambassador, thank you. [applause] as we have talked about, the Aspen Strategy Group weekend 36 use go at the height of the cold war went condi and i were very young officials in the Reagan Administration, and the intent was can people get away from washington once a year in the summer and struggle with the big issues of the cold war, brent scowcroft, our dear friend, general scowcroft, sam nunn, bill perry were the people who brought us together and were just their inheritors. Dedicated to nonpartisanship or i know thats radical concept in washington but we are dedicated to it. Condi rice has been a big part of this group since the 1980s when she first winter i think in 1986. Thats like a guided as a new face. In the mid80s. Yes, thats right. Now she is our cochair. I do want to belabor extraordinary life and career. She somewhat i deeply admire, as her secretary secretary of star National Security adviser when she was special assistant to president george h. W. Bush, i was her deputy and the worked together at the end of the cold war. She is a professor at stanford. She is an author. Shes a speaker. She is a patriotic american. I wanted to pay tribute to our cochair and then ask you, ask you the first question, condi. We listened to mike and anja. When President Trump came in with secretary mattis and secretary tillerson in 2017 they made two big strategic pronouncements. The National Security strategy of 2017 they said essentially terrorism remains an abiding concern but arise and assertiveness of china and russia are not the greatest threats we face, those also in secretary mattis Defense Strategy report. Are you an agreement with their strategic judgment . First of all thanks for being here and anja and mike, thank you for setting us up i have not read the agreement in chinese to be clear. Nick, thank you for your leadership. I think whenever you have the reemergence of great power rivalries, and let me call it that, it is a different kind of challenge that the challenge of terrorism, for instance, because great power rivalry brings with it a whole array of tools on the side of the other sick, whether its military power or economic so looks different. And i think actually after the collapse of the soviet union with that were done with great power rivalry. There was really a sense that everybody was going to integrate into the washington consensus. Everybody is going to integrate into something that at least looked like capitalism and maybe even democratic capitalism. The russians seem to be very much on that path, and there were those who believed that by the integration of china into the International Economy we begin to see the liberalization of chinese politics. So you said earlier that the expectation had been cooperation with china. I think expedition was integration with the china. Now you see frustration with that and, of course, the russian and chinese challenges are different. Russia is really a power without the full array of assets. When was the last time you actually bought something that was made in moscow that was not made of petroleum . And by the way dont say vodka. You might buy that in france these days. And if look at china you have a rising power but certainly the emergence of great power rivalry is different than what i think we thought we would be facing. Thats why i think they rightly noted this to be probably the greatest National Secret of challenge we have. Lets talk about the practice ethics of this because i sympathy and im sure you do, steve does, to what the opposition is facing. We have to work with china. Eventually we will have to work on Climate Change or go back to working on stabilizing the Global Economy, resisting and containing pandemics, problem where seen this week. On the other hand, they are our biggest strategic competitor. We had the military battle underway, and ideas battle we will talk about. Then to make a really complicated you dealt with the secretary of state, we disagree with them in hong kong and on taiwan and on whats happening with the uighurs in western china. How do you balance essential cooperation that we must have an essential competition . What gets priority and how do you put human rights in this. Was this problem requires nuance, and americans are not particularly good at nuance. The soviet union is ideal in many ways. What is good for the soviet union was bad for the United States. Both bad for the United States was good for the soviet union. In fact, at no time was more than 1 of soviet gdp accounted for by international trade. This is a completely isolated economy. It really didnt matter to the Global Economy. We had isolated it further through restrictions, meaning they can participate in the Technological Progress that was going on around the world. It was an isolated state. By the way it was self isolating because going all the way back to joseph stalin, the soviet union didnt want to integrate in the international committee. Passport to china. The expectation was that somehow everybody saw this big training coming down the tracks, more than 1 billion people, and economy that was growing very rapidly, they said lets integrate that into the system rather than let it overrun, which is by the way china was admitted to the wto, ahead of schedule when china had not yet conformed its laws and its practices to the wto over one of my jobs as secretary was a go and explain to the russians why there were not in the wto and china was. The only answer you could give was there economy matters. We had these expectations about china that have now been frustrated, and what concerns me is that the nuance as you put into remarks, there will be an overreaction to our disappointment that our notion of how china would integrate with not quite an effort what we are going to have to do is to challenge where we need to challenge. Mike mike gave a very good overw of how we are challenging reading of navigation come right up to the line but not challenging the way that gets us into South China Sea come into an accident. We were going to have to speakp when there are people in the streets in hong kong about their rights. Were going to have to make sure that the chinese understand that we have an obligation and the taiwan relations act help taiwan defend itself, should there be a unilateral provocation. We are going to have to say to the chinese, this is where i agree completely with the Trump Administration, unfair trading practices under the false colors of you are still a developing country, are simply not acceptable. Its not acceptable to steal intellectual property. Its not acceptable to privilege National Champions over foreign competition. Its not acceptable to use your joint ventures to steal International Property to its not fair to have whole segments of your economy that are close to foreign competition. And on that we are going to call you. And i hope that in phase two because phase one didnt get that a lot of these practices for a lot of reasons. But eventually Chinese Industrial policy has got to be on the table because china is not playing by fare rules for its a huge economy and does disadvantage others. So were going to have to call it where we have to when it comes to Something Like a pandemic. I hope we are going to get the kind of cooperation we need. When it comes to Climate Change. We cant solve the climate problem with that china being part of that solution. And, frankly, on some issues like north korea we are going to have to continue to do with china so this is going to require nuance and the visibility of the way that we deal with the china challenge, and thats hard. Thank you. Im good as a fewer questions then well open it up. If you would like to ask a question, we are on the record, hes just signal me. We will take as many as we can. Let me stay with us for a minute. You and i worked together the practical aspects of this which is really hard. Im not trying to go back and cast judgment and ask you to cast judgment. Lets just go forward. No matter who gets elected in november whether its President Trump for a second term or a democrat for a first term, should we go back to some version 2021, 22 of a tpp . That was 40 of global trade of democratic freemarket countries. They had weight against china. Actually agree as i said with President Trumps toughness on china. My own view is he wouldve been better off of mind with the eu and on trade against china. Do we need to go back to add some weight in the fight with the chinese entree . We certainly need to have strategy that brings allies into our challenges with china. Let me just give you one example. The technological decoupling that is taking place with china, and a technological decoupling is taking place, whatever the United States, japan, europe, many, india, whatever damages we might have about privacy and internet, for instance, pales in comparison to our differences with china on issues of privacy. We really do have two two internets. Our internet is one you can more or less say what you think, are unless talk to them you please within limits. You can see and do anything you want. To me its a social control and china. Those are irreconcilable. The surveillance state. Those are irreconcilable. We need our allies to recognize that we have more in common there than not. When you think about trade policy, i would rather be outlined with others who have relatively open economies. When we say to the chinese here to change your doctor policy, but we have to be careful how we do it. Lets take huawei as an example. I would be a major proponent of not having huawei in my 5g network. It is a chinese company. It will do what it is told. That do i really want to say that you cant sell components to huawei . Tribe would want to say they cancel headsets . And a no credit situation which and asking other countries to choose between the United States and the commercial interest in china . I think we have to be very careful how hard we pushed on some of these issues, but if we go back to what is it we have in common to deal with this rise in china, i think were going to do better than on our own. As you say, i think as all of us east asia, every single neighbor of china, though matter how friendly are aligned with us, they dont make us choose. Is that what youre worried about . At least dont make us choose visibly and audibly. I think with the right incentives people will choose correctly. Let me say one other thing about the rising china. There to be some room for looking for those moments when chinas rise can be accommodated. Let me give a specific example. A few use of the chinese came up with the idea of the Asian Infrastructure investment bank. They were going around telling everybody we want to visit the by world bank standards. They were hiring people from the world bank. And i think that mightve been by the way it was the Obama Administration that the poster. I think that mightve been a moment to say to the chinese thats a great idea. We all need infrastructure. Lets start in afghanistan. Lets make it transparent, and it wouldve been a way to say to china, we are not trying to block your rise at every corner because you are advising power, but heres a healthy way to plate in the International Economy. Instead, we said nobody should join the Asian Infrastructure investment bank. It will compete with the Bretton Woods institutions. Nobody should join. And then the british join. When a british join your pretty much by yourself. So we also need to look for this places where chinas rise could be accommodated in a way that is actually useful in the International Economy. Right. In the military sphere, steve, anja, you and i and many others were pretty close in the george w. Bush of meditation to build our strategic relationship with india. And were cognizant of a fact that we have a a distinct strategic advantage over china. We have allies in the chinese do not. We started at the assistant secretary of state level, you will member this, a quad, australia, japan, india and the United States, talking, not wishing to fight china, just talking about how we could enhance our political Foreign Policy and military cooperation. The Trump Administration to its credit has elevated that at the sect secretary of state and secretary of defense level. Is this how we should think about the strategic political and military cooperation that weve got, we should be tied up with our allies not to fight the chinese but to speech and to pursue coincident interest. So ill have an interest in freedom of navigation. So we dont have to say right china on freedom of navigation. We are supporting the principle of freedom of navigation which is a board of the countries you mention. The other thing is to be a little bit careful how we describe such things. Australia is an ally. Japan is a treaty ally. The indians partners. We dont have to force the issue of people coming to form an alliance with the cooperation of to be enough, and again it comes to meeting these countries where they are. I should go back to get asked about trying to get back to tpp. Lets remember that part of the problem here is that the note candidate in the 2016 election, including the secretary of state who had negotiated it secretary clinton. Right. Support the tpp and that tells you something where trade news in in the american firmament. I personally was very pleased to see that some of the top of things that were said about nafta First Agreement in history of the president when he came in, we actually did get a u. S. Mexicocanada agreement. So we may have to do this in a way that doesnt go back and try to pick up where we were but actually take some of these things on a new. I think if you could look at asia again you would want Something Like a tpp i dont think it will be the tpp. I agree. It is such a difficult issue in both Political Parties and for those of us who think about our strategic weight, weight, somes in the next decade the tpp to be what we need to unite the democratic world on these traditions. It may well be but i think well have to take this one step at a time. Because it may be a series of bilateral treaties are going or trilateral in the case with mexico and canada, possibly with europe. Lets just, i think where to build it up and im not sure the big multilateral trade agreements have much of a future at least in the short term. Okay. Two more questions. One is a question i think every administration from the Clinton Administration on concluding this one trump, have dealt with. How do we balance of these competing objectives. We started with this but i want to ask your common sense approach. We need them on Climate Change, we need them on a Global Economy and on the pandemics. And yet they are our strongest competitor. We need to compete. Can we keep these competing interests in some relative balance to be successful . You know that what you end up doing is you end up balancing every day. You go to china and youre going to bring up human rights issues and youre going to bring up religious freedom issues and then said that i have conversation about north korea. China is a grown up country, and they are quite aware that the United States is going to raise these issues. Occasionally you will as secretary of state raise issues of religious objectors and human rights issues and youll get someplace. As long as you do do in a respectful way i dont think it has to undermine other areas in which we have to cooperate. I dont think we buy anything by pretending that we dont care about whats happening to the uighurs in china. I dont think we get anywhere pretending that we dont care about social control of the internet. And so it is a balancing act everyday but i think it can be managed under think the chinese understand it. Thank you. Last question then well open it up to all of you. When i left our meeting in august after three and half days, real debate and discussion, very civil the toughminded in some cases, i was left with the thought that despite chinas strengths we shouldnt forget our own. We are a strong country, militarily, economically, politically, are soft power, our private sector. And sometimes we forget that. So its kind of a softball to my friend here. Here it is. I interviewed secretary rice two years ago and i asked her the following question. What are you worried about what i thought of asking you, are you worried about xi jinping, putin and erdogan . Without missing a beat you said we lost our selfconfidence. You met as the country. Have we lost the selfconfidence that america can do great things and we can compete with the china . Talk about that. I like going back and reading ronald reagan. Because his acceptance to challenge, whether it was a soviet union, was always on the basis of americas strength. Its very important that we recognize that yes, china is a rising power, but china has a lot of the merits. You think about the demographics bomb that they face. And by the way, you can get into authoritarian in the, authoritarians can get things done. In the. Look at the great airports. They build roads for you can build an airport in china in the time that takes to get a permit to be a hairdresser in the United States. Ive heard it. Now, this is all true. But authoritarians also make bad decisions efficiently. So a few years ago they decided in china that population control was a problem and now we have one child policy, efficiently, even brutally carried out, and now 34 million chinese men dont have mates. So the problem with authoritarian is if youre going to be nip and tuck, you better be on mission two and most human beings are not. So authoritarians make a lot of mistakes. We stumble around this democracy and with all kinds of voices and its tough to get things done, but we make fewer bigger mistakes. And so when you dont look back at what are our strengths. I will give you three i think the china challenge because as to undermine. The first is, i understand china has a national ai strategy. They have a National Quantum computing strategy. They have a national police. Lets not have National Youth strategy. We have always succeeded because we have multiple places at which innovation takes place. It might be the person who sits in a garage and comes up with something that nobody else has ever thought of. And when it gets pushed, topdown, it will not work in the United States i dont think it will work in china but it surely will not work in the United States. Lets not try to out china, china. I dont mind that we have discussions of how he put all our discussions together, but something driven out of washington will not work. Ill give you a good example, our friend bill perry said when he was undersecretary for research and engineering he testified in the congress in 1978 1978 or 1979, and he was asked what is the future of personal computing . He said theres a reason for personal computers. Thats built. One of the most technologically sophisticated people that i know. Now, if the need for personal computers have been driven from washington we might not have been. So lets not try to have a National Strategy on things. Lets go to our strengths. Second point, the openness of our society. I have watched as pressure is growing on universities not to admit Chinese Students to our front here laboratories, places like stanford and mit and texas at austin and eleanor and harvard. Thank you. Sorry, i mentioned to mention harvard. That was just an oversight. But i remember, but you hear this. I want to say and i have said the u. S. Government agencies, dont try to turn universities into intelligence agencies. If you know somebody is working for the bla, dont give them a visa and we wont admit them. But if you start to undermine the openness that is the core of universities, you have a clash between universities and the government, and universities have been at the heart of innovation in this country, theres Silicon Valley, route 128, the Research Triangle in north carolina, austin. So lets not undermine that. And then the final one that i hope we will not undermine is we have been a place with the best and the brightest have wanted to, pick because it really didnt matter where you came from. It mattered where youre going. You could come from humble circumstances and you could do great things. But the key to that was always high quality education. And the chinese can do nothing worse to us than what we are doing with the state of k12 education and the United States today. And so unless those kids believe that they have a chance to participate, and oh, by the way, that was a dream that was taken up the immigrants as well. I remember sitting at a dinner, and he said you know why the United States will always lead . He said because if youre a Young Software engineer, you might want to go to germany, you might want to go to japan. You can never be really german or japanese. You can go to United States and you can be american premuch on day one. And be ceo. And be ceo. So if we we focus on our strengths, i dont think theres a country in the world that can ultimately compete with us. But if we take a page from their book instead and try to replicate what they do, we will fail at it. Thats how they will succeed. Its what ive always said its our confidence that i think is actually our greatest challenge. Well, needless to say, i think the entire group is in agreement with you. Its beautifully said. In our red blue northsouth liberal conservative divide we dont talk enough about our strengths last evening general jim mattis we all admire is that a senior counsel at the core group and sector offered a dinner. General mattis talked exactly do. He said the following, just one more thing before we go to questions. He said the United States has two powers in the world. We have the power of intimidation, thats the marine corps and army of the navy, air force. He said we have the power of inspiration and general mattis said that the power, thats the secret sauce of the United States. Thats what youre saying. Thats absolute the secret sauce of the United States. If you go around the world people are grateful for our economy which drives a lot of the world economy. They are really sometimes a little intimidated but, frankly, when theres hard work to be done the fact we have men and women in uniform who volunteered to go to the front lines for freedom is appreciated by people. What what really is appreciated is this central notion about the United States that you can come from humble circumstances and you can do great things. And to the degree that people begin, we as a console longer believe that true because too many of our citizens its really not true in longer. What i can look at your zip code and tell if youre going to get a good education, i cant really say it doesnt matter where you came from so here i think, i wouldnt use the language that the president has used about America First and so forth and so on, what i think that the was a bit of a lesson in the 2016 election for those of us who have been part of the globalizing elite and have been captured with the idea that this integrating globalizing world would lift everybody. Its a part of making us confident again so that we can lead out there because i will , a world that the United States absolute leadership, its not going to be a world in which power lines to assure our values step up, its either going to be a world in which those who dont share our values step up to the plate or nobody does and then youve got the chaos and thompsons jungle that we saw play out in world war i and world war ii between the United States and its allies decided there was a better way thank you very much. Questions and comments for secretary rice. We will have a microphone coming. Lynn mathiesen, National Economic security alliance. Secretary rice, how do we counteract that we see the chinese area heavily engaged in where there over taking control over dramatic Raw Materials that we need . And courts around the world where our military is concerned we are not going to be able to go into these environments because the chinese will block it out and the latest thing we saw in australia where they tried to buy a guy to go and buy elections and getting them engaged. Are we going to see moreof that around the world and how do we counter that . Im glad you brought up the elections issues because weve been very focused on the russians but im told the chinese are also a problem so part of it is getting our act together and doing something about it now. One of the problems we have is that the infrastructure is not owned by the Us Government, its owned privately so when we learned that the russians are doing what they were doing through facebook for instance, it, we needed better cooperation between the intelligence agencies and private sector and the level of trust is not very high between the private sector particularly where i live in Silicon Valley and the government but we need that, kinda cooperation if were going to respond to these kinds of issues. When you look at the belden road strategy, the idea that the chinese will go in and get financing for a port or for Infrastructure Projects and then when the country cant pay it back , the chinese somehow own control of it, i think it qualifies. I dont think this works well in the 21st century. I think its wellknown exactly what theyre doing. Youre going to start seeing countries have to respond to that and by the way, in some african countries where the standards, the Environmental Standards where the health and Safety Standards have caused major accidents and mines in the light, that needs to see the light of day. Sometimes truth is your best option aspropaganda. And one of the most exceptional things we did was the chinese used to essentially lie about the pollution standards, the level of pollution in beijing and our embassies put out a barometer that actually measured the particulars and pretty soon, chinese citizens were getting their own little app that would tell them what the air quality really was and the government had to stop lying about it. So i think sometimes we dont use the ability to expose some of these activities and put some pressure on these countries not to sign on to that deal. We dont need to mimic belton road but there is bipartisan support, democrats and republicans supported. I think it has the right strategy which is what you really want people to do is to have systems that can instant private investment because we are never going to be able, we cant build infrastructure between nebraska and kansas so were not going to build worldwide infrastructure but what we can do is in sent these countries to have high enough standards. The president of liberia told president bush once, she said i really want American Companies in here and he said why . He said because you have something called theforeign corrupt practices act so i know when my minister signed an agreement , then thats where thats going to that project be so we have something that we can and straight to countries that we are looking for for help. Secretary and michael will come right to you. Thank you very much for a brilliant presentation, brilliant questions as well. President trump is renowned as a businessman, Mike Pillsbury talked about this how he approached, he is approaching Foreign Policy in a businesslike fashion. He wants to put the costbenefit analysis on many of our relationships including the military where it appears that you get us if you pay and if you dont pay, we dont go. But in terms of Foreign Policy where hes going why do we need to be in japan, why do we need to be in south korea, why are we still in germany . How does that philosophy fit into what you were just saying that if we are withdrawing, theres no return on investment. How does that keep us engaged in being the player on the global scene as sort of continuing to secure peace and security. All of us have done this and transactional Foreign Policy is hard. I do this, you do that and it doesnt work this way. But we also know that all of us went around the world telling him to pay up. Not so much south korea and japan where i think if you look at the actual numbers, we do pretty well. But how many times will he do his speech at nato or did i give a speech atnato or get our president give a speech at nato, how about that two percent . So i dont really blame the president for saying into nato, you want our support, i probably wouldnt have threatened not to defend them , but maybe you need to get people, peoples attention on these but the core of your question is i think transactional Foreign Policy is hard and if you look at the American Alliance structures, i as you probably have, i spoke for the National War College is a couple of years ago. For their Exchange Program with officers and there were 49countries represented in that , 49 countries. What great power in Human History has had 49 . And yes, they can be frustrating and sometimes they dont cooperate but when it comes right down to it, i think you would rather have allies than not and sometimes if youre the big power you may have to put up with a little bit more than you would like so i would caution against transactions but i have to say on nato i was in their stream all the way. I have to say this as a former ambassador to nato , on 9 11. It was good to have friends. When we were hit hard i would called the secretary from brussels, the National Security advisor brussels and said the allies want to invoke article 5 for the first time in nato history and you said to me i need instructionsfrom you and the president. I said its good to have friends. And ironically, article 5 never had been invoked and we always assumed it wouldnt be invoked and by the way, because wedidnt actually have a command for the United States we were dependent in those early hours on norad. So the allies stepped up for us there. But we could still get better contributions. Weve had a 30 year dialogue and the allies went into afghanistan had suffered 1000 combat deaths, several thousand allies, europeans, canadians, japanese , new zealanders, australians and an incredible show of support and thats the difference between us and the authoritarian powers. Its also the case that i said with nato was paying up but lets also remember nato had an extraordinary role at the end of the cold war in helping the countries of Eastern Europe find a kind of north star for democratic developments so the twin of the European Union northstar and the nato northstar, we got Civil Military reform in a lot of these countries and a lot of people worried between bulgaria and turkey goes into conflict, will romania and hungary have conflict and the nato relationships built to improve that transition so its been an incredibly valuable alliance. It still does need more in the way of transformation and that does take money. Host we have time for maybe 2 more questions. Not a green riley is a phd student but shes stanford, former student of secretary rice and a former student of mine and i was joined in this pastsummer at aspen and she was a compelling speaker so now the floor is yours. I want to talk about something that happened after aspen so in october we saw the Houston Rockets controversy where the general manager of the Houston Rockets tweeted something in support of hong kong processors while the team was in china and i think that the response to that entire controversy was lacking. I dont ever recall anyone from the Us Government standing up for rights or for freedom of speech or things like that so were talking about the war of ideas and i wonder what you would say secretary writes about what the appropriate response to an incident like that with china would be. For those of you who didnt or forgot, the general manager of the Houston Rockets tweetedbasically support for the hong kong demonstrators. The chinese madly overreacted including canceling games and all kinds of things and the nba, and im a great fan of adam silver but the initial response was not Strong Enough. Eventually the nba came and said we support the rights of our people to say what they need to say. I probably would have said to the chinese, maybe quietly, youre always telling us not to fear interfere in your internal affairs area telling an american what to say is interfering in our internal affairs. Americans get to say what they wish and i actually thought that the nba was in a stronger position than they realized because the nba is wildly popular in china. And its not just yao ming, its because they love sports in china and if the chinese threatened to take the nba off the air, i would say be my guest. And lets see how long it is before all those only child print slings are satisfied watching the Chinese National team play the Congo National team. So i actually think the nba was in a stronger position and sometimes you have to force the issue. Dont be so diplomatic. Im no longer secretary of state. Please, and the microphone will come right to you and it will take about 10 seconds. My name is getting long and im a big admirer of secretary of state. And im an american citizen. I originally worked in the chinese government. I was at the Kennedy School. I, every chinese Government Official, every business ceo, every wealthy family in china since their second child to america, now to high school and then to college and then to hire degrees. And secondly there is a Kennedy School alumni in china and i think in the past that there is a Training Program between the chinese, some organizations and the Kennedy School and some of them already reach ministerial level and they cannot say certain things but within the decisionmaking category, they are very powerful and also, theres a lot of resettlement in china among people, among the local Government Officials and the role of the policy because where does china get enough money to continue and why you dont spend the money for poorer reasons in china. Thank you and may i just say a point about, your point about Chinese Students coming here. I recognize fully that we face certain challenges with some Chinese Students who may come here, learn certain things and go back home and that people consider that an unforced error in terms of technology transfer. I understand that. I also understand that i want Chinese Students to experience the United States. I want them to experience what it is like to study in a place where you can study what you want. One of the Chinese Students that i taught at stanford was taught what was the thing you impressed you most about the internet andshe said i can learn anything i want to. I think we sometimes, it goes to your point, we dont completely understand the power of an open society. And i understand we face these challenges but i hope it doesnt take the form of cutting ourselves off from generations of Chinese Students. I think we will be better served if theyve had the chance to. I would make a prediction, i completely agree on our College Professor as well withsecretary rice. I think theres going to be a big debate between those of us on University Campuses who see the power of our inspiration and some of the best National Security community or congressmen who want to legislate certain students from certain countries cant come here. And we got to have an open discussion but its right in front of us. And secretary, youve got to leave, do you want anyparting words of wisdom to give us hope here . My parting word of wisdom is that i think we will get through our challenges and the United States of america, people say the American People are tired. And didnt we defeat the soviet union west and mark didnt we unifygermany, liberate Eastern Europe, didnt we defeat the al qaeda that did 9 11 and cant somebody else do this . We were in the oval office in august 2008 and president bush was looking at some poles that were not so kind to the Bush Administration and he said i dont believe we are this unpopular and i said mister president , theyre tired of us. Its been war, its been terrorism, its been vigilance, i said im tired of them too but in any case i know that there is a kind of weariness with world leadership. But i also think that americans carry to sometimes contradictory notions in their head. Were tired, we want somebody else to do that but if theres nobody else to do it, im not going to watch people beheaded on television. Im not going to watch and President Trump says this, im not going to want syrian children choking on nerve gas. Im not going to watch as Vladimir Putin threatens the baltic state so im going to put heavy brigades and im going to say to the russians, you might have to kill an american to get to them which is always the way they operate and so i think an american president can actually determine which of those impulses he or she wishes to stimulate in the American People. And given how much we have benefited from an International System that at least in the house that we were able to be more dominant in, really believed in our values and helped us to carry out our interests, i hope that american president s as we talk about all the problems we need to solve at home so that we can be Strong Enough at home but that we wont lose sight of the extraordinary last 75 years or so of what weve achieved. Thank you for reminding us what made us great. Thank you madame secretary. [applause] we are going to continue this conversation. And my thanks to secretary rice for being with us. Were going to finish this conversation with 215 minute discussions withtwo smart people. Where nonpartisan, but obviously we have democrats and republicans in arch group, you heard from two republicans, mike elsberry, Condoleezza Rice and you will hear from two democrats, Kathleen Hicks and kirk campbell. Hicks is not a household name that Condoleezza Rice is but in my humble estimation, youre going to hear a lot more from her in the future. His right now the Henry Kissinger speakers senior Vice President at cis, center for Strategic International studies and Henry Kissinger chair and she was a senior official in the Obama Administration as deputy undersecretary of state and she was in charge of our Strategic Planning and i think shes one of the smartest people in washington in thinking about how america positions itself to retain our strategic predominance, both in nato, we have two ambassadors from europe here, ukraine and austria and also just around the world we have the ambassador of mexico here. So its really a pleasure to have here, theres a chapter in the book that he has written and i want to talk to you about the military challenges we face and just to remind you that we have another secretary of defense in front of us who has the right if he wishes to get its on these issues area we spent the last 2 years focusing on 2 issues. Issue number one, how do we working with australia, japan, singapore, malaysia, indonesia and asia make sure that there is a weight in the indo pacific afree and democratic countries. To limit chinas military ambitions. The other thing we talked about two years ago was this huge competition thats on us where the military technology of the future and the digital age, ai, quantum computing, Machine Learning so just to open this up, are you confident at the engineering and rnd talent in our universities and Tech Companies and the strength of the pentagon to do longrange planning, that we cannot just compete with the chinese retain our predominance or do you think thats at risk . Thanks for having me here and i want to thank my coauthors here with me. So to answer your question, yes im confident we can compete and succeed. Im not confident we are undertaking the whole nation effort required to do that so that includes things like smart immigration policy, some of what secretary rice and you were speaking about. Engineers, were not going to grow or include from in the United States this pace we need. This stem workforce that we need. We have to rely on immigrants and we have to consent them to stay, just as the United States is tightening its immigration policies. The chinese have opened up their stem related immigration from ross young nations , in perfect counterpoint to the way the us is approaching this challenge that we have to invest federal rnd dollars even though we are not china, not a state run economy. Theyre going to have to be much more incentives rather than dollars from the federal government to create inside industry. Avenues of approach in the areas of emerging technology that youve just mentioned and others and create incentives for them to work with the Defense Department but also we have to live our values, very much what you talked about. People have to want towork with the Defense Department and we have to demonstrate the United States and china are not morally equivalent. We dont spy on our citizens, we arent using facial recognition software, we are putting them in encampments like the chinese are doing with uighurs. When social media makes it so easy to pull into your own community, that there is a commonality and a purpose to patriotism. In your paper in the book and if you look at and joes chapter, you talk about grays own operations but you also talk about the multiplicity of challenges that we face. Obviously were facing a competition from naval supremacy in the south and East China Sea going all the way around to the Second Island chain. Were talking about air superiority and were talking about cyber superiority and assets in space. Tell us , educate us if you will about the fall realm of threats that were facing and how best can we respond . Sure, youre right. The way i would put it more easily is that the chinese and russians are different but they both have a fluidity working from what you might call routing statecraft scaled up to the way they think about Strategic Nuclear capabilities and everything in between that we are not yet, we dont know how to similarly move fluidly across them. Its creating a lot of challenges for us so we set up a toolkit thats available at the diplomacy and although were having trouble in the state department because we dont have ambassadors and people are leaving and then at the higher end we have a high end military peace that im going to come to but in the middle as you point out there are all these other tactics being used in our toolkit right now is a little bear. We have sanctions with diplomacy, basically sanctions and military power, thats what we like to lean into whereas these other actors are good about including information and cyber approaches and disinformation, etc. So when i get to the high end, the biggest challenge the United States faces is we dont currently of operations that effectively marry the way in which , for fear of victory. How we expect the chinese to fight and how the United States could be capable all along that spectrum of achieving its strategic interests. And that requires weaving across things like space that we are reliant on in the military realm but also the commercial sector is highly reliant on space access, cyber as you pointed out where we both have military requirements but also a lot of threats that can face the homeland in terms of coercion over cyber and on and on so its the concept of operations and its building out the capabilities but the Defense Department, one of the Biggest Challenges is managing that top line of investment against the pressure of continuing yearoveryear legacy systems investment versus creating some room here for research and development in these new Technology Areas and then having concepts effectively marrying that in capabilities. I want to ask you 2 questions and open it up, we have David Shambaugh here and david was a key part of our meetings and a graduate School Classroom classmate of mine but a great scholar of china and i want to bring you into this conversation but kathy, one of the things we discovered at the report two years ago on technology in the digital age, a number of real experts told us the following. Thats within 10 to 20 years, the militarytechnologies that we visualized as representing power , a carrier, and f 35 might be outmoded. That we might be in a situation of hundred years ago when the russians and pulls road into the First World War on horseback and then the tank and aircraft appeared for the first time in global history on the battlefield. And you envision by 2035 that were going to be in that kind of a world that the fight is going to be in space. And the fight is going to be in cyberspace and not really much on land and sea, is that where we areheaded . I think that might be too deterministic. We dont quite know and neither did folks in higher generations so this is about how you manage investment and where you make your bets, what are your high return, low investment, where are the stocks so that requires a continual investment. My answer to you is the hard reality is that the United States basically has fought a lot of and structure already for the next 10 years so people who say weve got to get rid of carriers, we have carriers. It will cost you a lot of money to decommission them. I think theres a lot of myth busting to be done about the speed with which you can drastically shift without a significant investment flow coming in which Something Like a major war. I dont anticipate that. I think instead what we need to be focused on is the idea of rapid experimentation and prototyping, things like Unmanned Systems that have been around literally for decades that we know that how the systems work. We know we can do more of that, we know we can do it cheaper and using advantages like ai, artificial intelligence, we can help you test those capabilities. You have to test those in the battlefield and exercise them with your allies in the pacific and then you need to start focusing on whats that investment stream and what can you divest from that grows, that allows me to grow those more relevant capabilities. Space and cyber will be essential. Space is extremely expensive as well ill point out so it takes a big chunk of money. But there are areas i would be the last one to say were not going to have to worry about wars on the ground or maritime challenges. Those things continue, we just have to be ahead of the curve in the way in which they are evolving. Heres a question for democrats and republicans, whether President Trump as a second term or whether vice resident biden is the president , whatever happens, do we have sufficient political will to meet this challenge. Some of the people have come to our meetings, some serious i just say we need a moonshot. We need to entreat this problem of competition with china the way we treat it from sputnik on, the competition with the soviet union. As it reached that level . I think the competition has reached that level. Its just that that moonshot is not going to be a widget. It is not going to be primarily military althoughit has significant military elements. Its going to be overall about the competitiveness of our economy, our military and our Foreign Policy. The alliance network, i know youve hit this several times today but it bears repeating, they get every strategic advantage we have from market share, and obviously on the military side. We have or dollars, more troops, more capability, together. And again, if the research stays as it is already internationalized whether youre talking about biotech, ai, whatever area, robotics. All that is being built in germany. Certainly in the us but also germany, canada,australia. Lets leverage all of that and think strategically about the advantages that gains us so we can have a way of engaging china effectively. Thank you. I just got the twominute warning. We will make it a three minute warning. I want to ask professor shambaugh, david who was a major part of our deliberations and has written a paper for the book you all have in front of you. You understand china and you study the chinese. How do you react to kathys presentation and whats the probability for both of you that the United States and up either keeping park or maintaining our predominance and whats the probability that on the other side that china outpaces us . You kind of put me on the spot but thats the way it is. Well, i dont disagree with anything cass has just said. My own contribution to the volume you can all read for yourselves. I would add one other dimension, i would note competition i argue in my chapter is not an illicit concept or a dirty word. We need to embrace it. Its comprehensive across multiple domains, several of those domains more in the security sphere and the only thing id like to add is that to my mind one domain at the crucial is the information domain i dont mean cyber, i mean information, good oldfashioned Public Diplomacy and it goes back to what secretary rice and you were talking about in terms of competition of ideas. That is at bottom for me, its going to play out in security, economics, diplomacy, other skiers but at the end of the day its going to be about the efficacy of our own values, our systems. And what we stand for so we got to go on offense in the pv realm and we need to go on defense against chinas own. Influence activities worldwide. They are trying to control the global narrative about their country and other issues, so this is a very complex area, not exactly a gray zone military terms, its a new domain of diplomacy. Public diplomacy is an old domain but we need to read resurrected, maybe recreate the Information Agency and compete headon with the chinese in the Information Space and be selfconfident, thats where the previous conversation is also very relevant so i would add to what she said. A concluding remark from you just listening to david, were talking about and all of government approach area david has brought in a diplomacy, what we did during the Second World War and the cold war. I agree with him and our paper does include that in our review of both what the tactics are from adversaries in this case china and disinformation and the use of information which by the way inparticular for the chinese , big economic portions are a good piece of how they are able to push disinformation and narrative area and the us side , each piece. One of our three key areas to reinvest the United States in his information, more on Cyber Capabilities and economic incentives. Whether usia is the right answer i think is a study but i think the point is well made that we have to have an affirmative narrative and our actions have to follow our words area the only thing i would add is one of the key aspects of the environment we live in, especially the information environment is the division between the international and domestic is very blurry and nowhere more than in the Information Space and heres where you need to not look just at state and Public Diplomacy, you need to think about what is our approach through dhs or elsewhere in the government for sharing accurate and truthful information with the American People to combat misinformation. To the extent that thats affecting elections or has in the past and at the fbi director has said things we will be facing in 2020, we know its at the heart of our core interest, our Democratic Institutions are at rest so whether that manifest abroad for his foreign influenced and manifests here or from a fringe group, we need to have a way to protect our society. You can see the confidence and the depth of our public service, thank you very much for being with us. [applause] so we promised we would close by 2 00. We have one more conversation and its with someone i just want to say one word about my friend kurt campbell. Weve been working together off and on and friends for 30 years. If theres anyone in the United States we thought more deeply about our strategic fluids in the street in the pacific and kurt i dont know who that person is and someone was a strong proponent of american power, smart power and kurt has spent his life taking about this competition and im glad hes on our side. Are down to the last of our very much not least of our rapidfire conversations and we couldnt imagine anyone better to do it with and you, kurt campbell. You need no introduction, he was the assistant secretary of state for asia for obama, the author of the pit which was later renamed we wont tackle you on that one. And slightly less wellknown, kurt also was the first person to get me involved in the absence Strategy Group when i was a mere kid so thank you for being so inclusive. Let me start for you, the same question i asked mike. I think i know what youre going to say but id like to ask you anyway. If we had a democratic administration, what would the goals be for our relationship with china mark what does the perfect relationship with china look like . If you dont mind i want to say a word of thanks not only to nick who ably leads the Strategy Group with your assistance but there is a whole team behind him and im sure hes going to have a minutes say so thanks to them for putting this together and im grateful to them. I would say simply, i think one of the points that people often make right now which i think is probably inaccurate is that one of the areas of bipartisan support or agreement is a general acknowledgment that were going to Work Together in a bipartisan way on china. Im not sure thats exactly right. I think there is a general dissatisfaction across bipartisan lines about elements of the us china relationship. And there are some bromides that people say about working with allies and finding areas where we can compete smartly and understand where we draw lines but in fact i think we are actually at the very earliest stages of taking about a comprehensive strategy towards china and that is often obscured by i think relatively simple rhetoric about the complexities of the china challenge and really the challenge of a rising asia and part of that is rarely as a country gone on such a strategic detour as we have gone on and you know, we are at a period right now the chinese have or we have . Weve been preoccupied away from asia for the last 20 years and thats one of the reasons we are so grateful for nick and condi and the group and thinking about china and asia but i think much of our strategic relief has been focused a lot on the afghanistan, on iraq, on iran and pakistan. And i think probably chinas attitude on that would be something along the lines of you go, girl. This is so important. You focus on these issues, we will work on asia and in 20 years we will sit down and talk about the way things are going so now we are in many respects and a big catch up period. A lot of things came out of our summer session but i think that at the core is a recognition that the United States is going to have to do more across the board quickly so its a transit period of incredibly exciting and dramatic strategic debate about diplomacy, about technology, about military issues but at its core is a recognition, i think our position is more challenged than people realize. And although the dominant idea is that we were talking about chinas arrival on the international scene, for most of asia and the world, they dont think in those terms. China has arrived long ago and they are a dominant force in asia. The biggest question that people are careful to talk about is whether we are in the midst of a hurtling decline so part of what we have to do is to reassure and engage across the board that we are committed to play a strong, robust role in asia and the world Going Forward but that is not at this moment a subtle question. Its a long answer to a very good question. Is the perfect segue to where im going. Your essay for this book was how asia navigates the us china rivalry, the stereotypes and i seethis when i travel to asia , you hear the entries thing we like to keep you as a security but china is our most important economic partner area china i dont have to tell you is the number one trading partner of for more countries around the world than the us is. Theres no way youre going to get a cold war to uniquely divide the world into 2. What is your solution . How should we be navigating it . The first part is an accurate diagnosis so i think too often you will ask people about this and their residue of thinking is the cold war where there was a neat line that ran geographically through europe where kids decide who is on which side and who is against us and even though we would say to ourselves in asia that we understood that the situation is more complex, i think that still permeates a lot of our Strategic Thinking and in reality those lines dont run across borders, they run through countries so you will find ministries and groups of people that are much more inclined to thinking about asia and china and those in the large number of political size who recognized for the country to survive they need a strong relationship with the unitedstates and other countries. What i tried to write in my paper is whats happening in asia is one of the most interesting period of strategic reorientation so the middle powers in asia, australia, india , japan are implementing an incredibly diverse multifaceted strategy which is not as well understood byus. So they are not saying we are with you or with the other side, they are doingseveral things. 1, they do want a better relationship with the United States and theyre trying to increase those contacts. Would you say on the military side . Across the board but every country is wary of the United States and understands there are enormous risks. You might be cited for trade violations, you might find yourselves in the crosshairs so every country is trying to develop relations with the United States, probably secretly hopeful we will back to something that is more recognizable but also believing that our fundamentally our political system has changed and this is not just a trump phenomena. Secondly there trying to work with likeminded states so seeing of the kind that nick described, linkages between australia and india and japan and others, working together. We couldnt have imagined when we were working. And theyre doing that on their own. Every country is trying to increase their own independent capabilities and that is apparent. Defense spending is much higher now than it is any other place in the world. That was never the case five or 10 years ago and were seeing dramatic increases in the Defense Budget so countries want more ability to shape their own futures. There also thinking very carefully about International Organizations where they can at the core of the strategy is doing what you can to build a stronger relationship with china so every one of these countries, the biggest chance, absolutely. The biggest events taking place in asia is the preparations in japan for the visit of xi jinping so the japanese are good at reassuring us which we appreciate but of course we are number one but they are also thinking very clearly about a multifaceted diplomatic strategy so number one, we have to accept that and understandthat. You cant overreact and say we want more of number one and less of number five. Youve got to understand that your playing a longer game. One of the things i think nick highlighted in the conclusion and we will see it in so many respects, this is a domestic game. The judgments in asia about the United States will have a huge impact on how this plays out. And the interesting thing, if you look at asia and the United States is their consistent belief over decades that we are in the con after vietnam, after the cold war, after the economic crisis each time we have managed to recreate ourselves and charge forward. In many cases surprising our closest friends and allies. Who is a deep believer for a period of time in american lives so we will have to do that again to make clear that we have staying power that we are innovative and that we are dynamic and that we welcome competition and engagement and even the dirty word, trade in asia that will keep us in the playing sphere for the next 50 years. I made this point when i give speeches in china, im sure you do to his been through worse and dont count us out yet but there is the sense that we are declining. We have very little time but where David Shambaugh left off, you wrote that the us strategy in asia is often more public and confrontational and chinas these days is more sophisticated. Influence operations, ill give one concrete example, fast tracking chinese goods through customs and having one, all search of small things. David shambaugh asked shouldwe do be doing more on information operations. How can our strategy more sophisticated than the chinese is . Im going to commend david , the last couple of years hes been courageous in ways that are not easy in the public debate. His paperhere is really good. When i say that the chinese, their strategy is more sophisticated, i think and we have to be careful. I think condi is right that we have a tendency to 10 foot tall our competitors. We did that with japan, we did that with the former soviet union and now were doing that with china so i would be the first to say they have huge limitations to their overall approach. And you see it just in the response to the tragedy of the virus thats playing out now. The tendency to secrecy and lots of anxiety associated with losing face but at the same time would you argue theyre handling it much better than the sars crisis . Im trying to follow the debate inside china. Is a profound group of people that believe that really the horse has left and they are at least a month behind but were not going to know this for another couple of weeks. But every day appears that in fact more is coming out and questions about local and provincial leaders took steps to rightly alert health officials, but to your larger questions, one of the things that when you look at Something Like the velvet road, we have a tendency in the United States to focus on its weaknesses and there are clearweaknesses. But at the same time you just cant underestimate how important these Infrastructure Projects are and what china and xi jinping are bringing to countries surrounding china. I had the good fortune to be, when xi jinping was Vice President he came to the United States and i was escort officer along with several of us, we spent quite a lot of time around the United States and got to see him in action. Hes not very interested in economics. Not actuallyterribly curious , completely unsentimental but super interested in infrastructure, what infrastructure worked, what didnt. We had to take him around to airports that were not our finest and iremember him looking at me in one of these airports. He asked for not the finest airports west and mark. We took him to an airport in iowa because he wanted to reconnect with the family he stayed with when he was a student and we had problems at the gate and the typical thing that we allface , but he was very focused on infrastructure and many countries around asia are incredibly grateful. Of course they worry about indebtedness but fundamentally they are welcoming of this and i remember i told the story at aspen in the summer when i was assistant secretary, we do good work in asia and i was on an island in the pacific and the ambassador to me up and we were excited. We got in her car and were driving on this nice road and she said how do you like the road and this is a product of the millennial challenge area this is great. Nice two lane road, we are incredibly glad we are driving into town. We get a mile from town and we are suddenly in this horrible ruts and terrible and she said we didnt have the funds tofinish it. Were going to get a second millennium challenge grantand hopefully finish the roll in a couple of years. That matters to Asian Countries so i think we have a tendency to look when a country says theyre uncomfortable with Something Like malaysia and pakistan to say ha, its not working, theyre not interested but i think thats completely wrong. And completely reshaping asia and south asia. And the singaporeans and many southeast asians would say the roads are smoother, the rails run faster and its good for all of us and for the world economy. In many respects like when you ask the questionwhat our strategy should be , if most of these countries have a solid stable relationship with the United States, it gives them more confidence and greater ability to navigate their own future and their status with china so thats what theyre looking for and that is a good outcomefor us. Your bottom line would be dont make people choose. I hate to say this, that is a really western european, the key honestly is never asked the question. Never be in a situation where anyone would suspect that you would be completely behind them. Assume that those countries are going to work with you and configure your relations in such a way that you are the dominant player in many of their decisionmaking. And understand clearly what your limitations are and where youre not going to be able to play as effectively and its incredibly hard and it is also the case that china as a player in asia, the one thing i would just ask all of us, it is not an arriving power, it is a dominant power in asia. Most countries quietly will say is the dominant player in asia. Absolutely and we will be respectful of peoples time but i want totake one, maybe 2 questions from the audience. Thanks very much. Im garrett mitchell, i write the mitchell report and i want to ask a question that relates all the way through this section. That is that if we were to identify the greatest single strategic strength that we hold in our relationship with china or russia and other countries, it would seem to me it would be the fact that we have developed alliances and strong alliances and that historically, china has not. My question to Mister Campbell is a comedy that still hold true today and be, if there is a way in which you could do it, how do you rate the sort of pencil strength of our alliances in the year 2020 viscvis a decade ago . Its a really good question. I would say that our ultimate strength is not just in our alliances, i dont want to quibble with your point but in fact, we have created what i would describe as an operating system. In asia. It is our alliances which are strong. It is our commitment to values in human rights. It is a very Strong Defense commitment that is generally stable and understood , one of the things secretary culver so persistently and consistently on both in congress and as secretary of defense, iwas honored to serve and work with him. It is also a strong support in concepts which seem arcane , like peaceful resolution of disputes and freedom of navigation, some of the stuff that condi was saying Middle America to booze. This operating system, whatever the liberal word for that commitment that we have built in asia is our single greatest contribution. Its created the greatest experience of the relation of wealth and the maintenance of peace and stability of any other period in history and the challenge is if i can say, that system if its being challenged by two countries right now. First, more subtly by china. Who like all rising states likes elements of the system and wants to redo it in its own image and that challenge we can meet and we can affect i believe area but it is the second challenge thats much more pernicious and that comes from the United States so the greatest questions about our operating system come from our political establishment who believes that asians are giving us, that our security alliances are unbalanced. That trade does not work. And that fundamentally we should be more unilateral and withdraw from some of these institutions so at the core , the biggest challenge really comes from the United States and many will say this is a trump phenomena. Im a democrat and i can see elements in my own party and in many respects, those of us that are liberal internationally, its a little bit like being a roman, youre kind of a master list samurai. Youre not really sure whos going to support your belief, the kinds of things that nick and several of us around the room have devoted our lives to. So thats the long answer to a question but i think thats the way i would think about it. Lets hope are just the ronin and not an endangered species. Ill leave it there on a note of bipartisanship where we can watch the impeachment proceedings but thank you all very much for being here. Thank youfirst to kurt. Let me close with a couple of small remarks and that is we obviously could only feature a small number of the fantastic papers that are in the book, there on the website, on the. Please read them. People put effort into them and theres a lot of nuance andnew things in there. And finally, last but not least , none of this would happen without our fantastic team so can we please give a big round of applause to jonathan and leah and john and death and all these interns who make this work. And former managing editor for the broadcast division of united press international. The boys on the bus was required reading, and i had the pleasure and the challenge