Cochair of our organization, Condoleezza Rice. [applause]er you will be hearing from secretary rice in half an hour she is one of the conversationalists. The other chair could not be here but he is very much a part of this effort perk i want to pay tribute to former secretary of defense mr. Bill and janet cohen. Welcome secretary. [applause] and i also want to paid tribute who embodies bipartisanship every effort across partisan lines is a National Security advisor as well. My close friend as one of the people doing the interviews the subject is china. All of us agree our relationship is the greatest challenge that we face as a country in the next several decades. It is an important moment in that relationship jimmy carter and deng xiaoping. For most of that time republican and democratic administrations. We all felt that we felt we wereth seeking cooperation with chinese and they felt the same way. In recent years there is no question that both countries have swung from cooperation to a strategy of competition. That gets to the heart of our Vital National interest overseas. We arehe competing for Strategic Military predominance in indo pacific where the United States has been the dominant power for 75 years but the chinese are making a concerted effort to cut into the americante alliance and military power. We are competing to see who will dominate the next military technology into your and we spent todays talking about that subject ai will be militarized biotechnology, quantum computing will be militarized. Which country will get their first in the new generation of thats meant to find power in the world over the next several decades . As the number one and number two economic powers to see President Trump with his trade negotiations announced last week. Certainly competing with respect to the United States and i respect what President Trump is trying to do to get to the heart of difficulties. With japan, europe and the european t union. Finally think of strategic dominance in the indo pacific and military technology and trade it is an important battle. The battle of ideas. President xi is brimming with selfconfidence about the authoritarian model of how that country is organized he thinks it should be exported another country should adopt itho. And Vladimir Putin thinks the same way. And others think the same way americans disagree. The europeans disagree. The japanese disagree. It isnt a cataclysmic battle of armies but ideals of house we think society should be organized. The one cautionary note we spent three days together debating this issue we produced a volume that i hope you all have a copy of the egos of our organization we are americans and believe in our Country First we do not believe that partisanshipth should interfere with our analysis of the strategic challenges. The big cautionary note is this are we overestimating china strength and underestimatingg their weaknesses are even underestimating the ability of the United States and its allies in Europe Andes Asia to cope with this threat peacefully and successfully . He has someone here Condoleezza Rice spent her early career thinking of the empire thatve crashed and when we were working together will be overestimated the strength of the soviet union to have the confidence to think United States and its allies have a way forward for success in the t century republicans and democrats and today we will hear from more people my colleague will interview mike , and advisor to President Trump. He is really smart and it was a pleasure to spend three days earlier this year. Then i will interview my close friend and former boss and the third interview Kathleen Hicks is one the smartest young strategists we have in the United States on our ability to respond to these threats and forth you will interview a force of nature ambassador Kurt Campbell who was the assistant secretary of state for east asia and to make those to the indo pacific a compelling thinker on these issues we hope it will be useful to you and without further ado. [applause] thank you for being here today. When we were in aspen last august, i thought we had one of the best discussions we ever had in a Strategy Group with substance and diversity of opinion but to be respectful and you will sleep with the slightly different format than that we would normally do we want to highlight a couple authors to give them an opportunity to dig deep and what they are trying to say of course yineeding no introduction but i will do it anyway. [laughter] a fellow at the Hudson Institute former senior official you are always modest to back channel you took six trips. So i want to start broad red ask you to speak for the administration but you know what they think with respect to china is it to level the obPlaying Field . Is it pushing back like the soviet union . What are we driving for quick. The first point to make about the Trump Administration is the multiple voices within it from the point of view of the standards established by the previous administrationsm leak the debates on the front pages of the wall street journal like yesterday in the oval office. This is the administration its very difficult for outsiders to understand who speaks for the administration. In myio view it is the president alone and what we learned from the ukrainian impeachment discussion is the bureaucracy up to and including the cabinet secretaries is not what the president is concerned with. I was not a Trump Campaign supporter. My candidate lost but i was still invited to the Transition Team and i heard from the beginning the president elect was deeply and personally interested in china. Which surprised me a thought during the campaign he said china is raping our country it is clearly rhetoric and that is the end of it. But in fact to act as the desk officer himself and people in the room we should all be thrilled the president himself is taking china very seriously. But the hazard to that is him wants tound influence his view and find out what that is. So what i have come to understand about the president s approach to china , he thinks of himself as a dealmaker and he wants to make a deal with another company which happens to be run by another ceo president xi. So his focus from the transition and one of the early developments in my view unfortunately she took a phone call from the taiwan president or the chinese say the socalled president. And the chinese began to punish the Trump Administration from for the phone call and would not have aul summit anywhere and tell the president clarified his views. But the way he did that set the tone for the next three years and said at the requestst of president xi and the phone call, i will abide by our one china policy to remove the obstacle for the maralago summit im not sure where you want to go on that. But it is possible there are multiple goals but watching as a total outside observer i sometimes hear from the administrations pronouncement we are looking for china to fail. And sometimes i hear no we just try to create a fair Playing Field so the companies can compete f and we can have our own sphere of influence if we can all gete along. I have been advocating the president should give a speech on chinaou himself and answer these questions you are raising spirit the Vice President has given two speeches in great detail that theyde too have raised questions about what he is saying. But soon thereafter People Associated with the administration with steve bannon in particular which im not a member of began talking about that is our goal. If the president were to give us on china himself you and others in the room would be well advised to suggest what should be cleared up with that ambiguity and for some reason i dont understand if he invites me into the oval office to witness these debates and there they are. He uses me as a foil and it doesnt take long before you realize who in the room likes me there and who doesnt. T. So that bait on debate continues so as a businessman when i joined the Transition Team i was placed at amazon. Com for all 14 books the president has coauthored in several have china sections where he lays out his thinking. I recommend you read all those books before you go to the first meeting. They are tough he has a point of good china bad china and lays out a good china he would like to see and then demonizes bad china that they have said the whole course of us china relations to a large degree and the steve nguyen and that debate is what im supposed to be following because of these former officialsea. You have obviously wrote the book the 100 year marathon is an excellent book if you go to china i see the hardliners winning its harder and harder for the reformers for their own purpose much less political reform and the worry is the hardliners on both sides are winning is that what you see quick. Also what Henry Kissinger worry one warned about each with the unfathomable war between us and china if they got into power. With 100 year marathon thats where i got and doctor kissinger spent a whole page on that hardliner and we had a Cocktail Party and a took them over to the pentagon but doctor kissinger said this will never happen like an extreme thinking this will never happen but it did. So the hardliners by the way the china field for the hardlinersha all along but that general estimate is they were not that powerful and in many ways we fell victim to the Foreign Ministry telling us they have no power. But you raise kissinger who famously said where in the foothills of the cold war with china. That doesnt mean we need to go all the way i we pushing to the cold war or pushing back quick. Many voices are inside the administration i dont think the president wants a cold war with china at all. I think he is quite aware of chinas military improvements but you will notice the micro indicators to what degree of the patrols to observe innocent passage rules and they dont go in circles without challenging the territorial claims as i understand it from the Navy Spokesman we have not aggressively challenge the chinese with these maneuvers. We have come close and there is a wonderful harvard study aboutlo this scene some people reference a study how we approach frequent navigation but that could change if the whole trade deal goes sour i could envision a cold war breaking out inadvertently and looking back at the details of the first cold war it is a series of blunders. But at some point to formally launch it you think we are not quite there yet. I agree with kissingers phrase about the foothills. I think it could be avoided but it takes two sides and the intricacies of the trade agreement could have laid the foundation for a cold war. Since you weree so instrumental to get it through you mentioned freedom of navigation and the South China Sea and in the us and the new cycles we have been so fixated on the trade side i want to get on the other part of the relationship diplomatically you spend a lot of time in your paper which is excellent talking about allies in asia and especially on the military side. I thought it was excellent what we are doing and what we should be doing more with our allies if we see the defense policy that in my view you see them asking japan because of south korea how do you view that cracks is that part of a Cohesive Strategy quick. This is an area where the president has strong views from his speeches 20 years earlier. The notion we are being ripped off by our allies if you want to ingratiate yourself with him. But you were there all the time. I would say sir we need to work with allies weth need to share values you say they are ripping us off again we need to go 500 percent more whos going to listen to . The outside view and this calculation goes on by other cabinet secretaries who threaten the president to go along with him not to get ousted. We had a lot of firings a lot of close advisers to President Trump have been fired in cabinet secretaries and there is a pattern if you say or do things that are yesterday that the base does not agree with its a good way to get fired and then to work with the allies i feel the crucial part of the china strategy is to bring our allies along to listen and it is absolutely crucial so my chapter for the book i try to describe with each country in asia that this is my point of view with the deep state infiltrator to think of the importance of the allies the india is the key to the overall approach to china. Thank you. You dont strike me as very deep state. [laughter] but to discuss equally if you praise me and i need to praise you as well. Does everybody have a copy of her book . This is how you get the moderator to be very nice to you. Who does not have a copy of brave new world cracks. Now perfect i will follow with a softball. [laughter] so what is the most effective part quick. The president had a signing ceremony in the white house last wednesday and had allied ceos present and singled out each one with an intimate joke including hank greenberg. So doctor kissinger was there and was praised. He got me in trouble in japan because he talked about our partnership i would not dream of having a partnership with the president of the United States. But the chinese were there. They laughed, applauded, you can see there is no acrimony or bitterness. We had a really tough two years for the phase i trade treement the chinese translation was also quite ambiguous. So it is a celebration so far so good. There is goodwill. There is a recovery the president reacted quickly to. And the number of trainees who have come, 30 chinese officials in the treaty room they run the economy and trade policy of china. At one point they had a title the special envoy of president e xi. Than they were told in september not to use that title anymore we had to ponder what that meant. So i see this is good news. The details are not so important as the cooperative attitude after a severe Emotional Experience on both sides the last two years. I read the agreement in english but i thought it was extremely novel the dispute resolution for quite you call it Something Else now it is novel to have one side with tariffs. Lets hope that it works in on the intellectual Property Side especially on the biologics. Wasnt worth the cost because when it ultimately came out of the phase i deal worth it quick. I think so but i try to put myself in the mind of those who will inherit the problem and whether they are willing to use tariffs as much as President Trump did as a voice of the inmate administration sometimes using the memo that said if the chinese dont come around from the waiver the president gave with those anomalies that will go away. The chinese talk about needing 3 trillion of capital. The Us Government would slow that down to hurt the chinese quest for a large amount of capital. Those threats may have worked not made by the president directly so they had to make the assessment last september october we could be badly hurt by the ease escalation that could have affected the decision but they did it in a ha goodwill that a chinese philosophical fatalism this is the long game that china has to make a concession but then they marketed it by saying at the white house signing ceremony with his own remarks andba that all three say its important for global peace and Global Economic growth. In another words we are taking one for the team, the rest of the world from these unreasonable pressures and tariffs and threats. I thought thatat was Brilliant Media handling and i told them so. We do know the rest of the world agrees with that. Everybody talks about the phase two strategic and economicmi dialogue but it will happen again any chances to phase two quick. As the president likes to say we will have to wait and see. [laughter] there aret some issues the president could solve if he goes to beijing now they are beyond friend now they love each other. [laughter] we are in the dark because the subsidies are secrets in china. And then to be on the fortune 500 list now there is 129 companies. So the subsidies are secret we need their cooperation to identify which are to be eliminated. That is one issue. The second is to begin the enforcement phase or the bilateral recognition phase more properly as phase two is going on. So the summit, the issue of secrecy of subsidies, the enforcement turning into a nasty quarrel and the other policies of diplomacy, there is quite a long list actually. Y optimistic and think the president is also. Now we will close at their. Thank you for taking the time and for contributing. [applause] me many things for mike to be so candid with us before introduced secretary rice i did not welcome three distinguished ambassadors in my welcoming remarks. Ambassador of ukraine. [applause] and ambassador of austria and also the ambassador of mexico is here. And that which began 36 years ago and those officials of 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 . And those people that brought us together we are dedicated to nonpartisanship i know its a radical concept but we are dedicated to what. Condi rice has been a big part of this group since the 1980s. We were invited through the mid eighties. Now she is the cochair i