Efforts to boost relations with developing countries in the amid chinas rising influence featuring assistant secretary of state for east asia and pacific affairs. This is about 40ni minutes. Everyone thank you for joining us in person here today at the Olympic Council and virtually round the world. For our conference titled china in the Global South Development and influence in a shift in global order. Joint effort between the council and university of Notre Dame School of Global Affairs as part of our China Global South Initiative to better understand respond to chinas impact across the global south. Of the Atlantic Council global china. Co which has the mission of devising allied solutions to the global challenges posed by chinas rise, leveraging the work on china across our 16 programs. It is a true pleasure to kick off the student conference on the topic that cannot be more ortimely than to central both he Big Questions around the state of the International Order and its intensifying strategic ate of progress toward critical developing goals across much of the world. Ouas countries look to rebound from the pandemic, dress massive harness the benefits of emerging technologies. In recent years china has devoted significant resources to deepening engagement acrosso of the t developing world or wht these days is commonly referred to as the global south. From the trillion dollar belt road and issued to the i creati, conferences and summits, china is portraying itself as a champion of and for the global south. And in many wayare paying off. China is now africas largest trading partner the second largest for latin america and the caribbean. In africa 53 countries adjoins child Chinas Initiative with it being the only exception. There are of course political ramifications of deepening economic its the only african country to officially recognize taiwan and since 2017 targeted bri investments in central■p america help entice the Dominican Republic and, to switch to diplomatic recognition from taiwan to weve seen similar story play out in the Pacific Islands. Six years ago six countries recognize taiwan that number has not been cut in china has deepened its economic and in some cases Political Security relationships with those nations. With the significant meanwhile the middle east and beijing silly translating a mounting mountingeconomic engagement into political diplomatic influence. Last march of beijing was credited with mediating a stork between saudi arabia and iran potentially reshapingg the regions politics. Now, even as it maintains traditionalnt risk of approach o involvement in the region china aims to use the israel hamas war and u. S. Support for israel to bolster its narratives in the region and across the developing world. Narratives that question the merits of the u. S. Led a global order and democratic governance offering to open countries an alternative vision at a time as xi jinping puts it the world is undergoing changes on scene a century. The consequence of beijings increasingly close ties across the diverse regions are magnified in multilateral formse like the United Nations cna has sought to rally globals countries to defend its human rights record support its efforts to transform the global order into one more suited to communist party. Over the next two days we will explore chinas renewed Strategic Focus and engagement in the global south. Will actuak of our time doing something that is not done enough here in washingtonwh which is to take a nuanced look at developing countriesspectives opi where that their engagement with china is helping them to achieve ambitious developing goals. We w will explore with this picture it looks like across varied domains from Tech Innovation to go it ecosystem to investment debt and trade to the rule of law and information environment and muche more. Benefiting from the participation of efforts across latin america, middle east and asia we will explore how relations with china are playing out across the vast and diverse regions that make up the socalled global south. I am thankful to those of youd o join us here in washington and bringing together your diverse perspectives we have to listen and learn exploring the circumstances in which developing countries are truly benefiting from engagement with china what is working and why it conversely where our ties undermine prosperity and sovereignty. Well close the conference more byin discussing how the United States and its allies and partners can better engage global self b countries to benet their citizens present viablee alternatives to chinas offers ultimately ensure the emerging strategic competition we are witnessing across the global south creates a more sustainable prosperous and secure world. I am truly excited about what we have in store for the next two days learning from an array experts, practitioners and policymakers from around the world. Lastly as a leader of the china hub program at the Atlantic Council leverages deep expertise on china across the council in recognition of the factors glow pack is simply toove to be understood without such a matrixed approach. And proud we are taking full advantage of our unique collaborative model during this conference regional and functional experts for more than half of the Olympic Council centers taking part in lightning us on everything from bri debt restructuring to china ecosystee adoption of chinese technologies and standards to the export of surveillance tools in developing society. Thank you colleagues from across the council for their participations groundbreaking conference. Conference at which i would like to underscores only possible to the c Notre Dame University with my friend longtime collaborator. The coleader of the China Global South Initiative associate professor of politics at Notre Dame School of Global Affairs. Who i will introduce now. Ands felt that will protect the africa. He is been a visiting faculty member and nyu at shanghai. As a policy analyst on the China EconomicSecurity Review Commission and has been senior American Foreign policy council since 2006. Before comingrsity of texas at austin. Josh come over to you. [applause] thank you, david. Appreciate the introduction its wonderful to be here with you today. And let me begin by saying the China Global South Initiative is a transformative and that it is bringing together Top Research University of notre dame all of the benefits that come with that with a top washington think tank that david was mentioning in his speech. It really does for that the interest of both institutions and abroad to work with dave to be a part of it. It is with the cgs i we will be engaging with people from this conference and goingg forward. Throughout the global south and working on issues in the globa■l south. That is a fundamental to the ambitions Going Forward he and i will build talk about in the moment but what i want to do isr us put them on the table for us to discuss later. I first want to say it is Pretty Amazing here that we are talking about this in this environment because in 2007 mitchell and i did a book called china and the developing world beijing strategy for the 21st century. We can barely find a publisher will be did it was a two tone cover. I dont think wee sold many of them and it was not that interested to see all of the interest that have come about since it is quite fantastic. And in some ways we owe too mr. Xi jinping himself he has decided to make a change instead of biting and hiding he striving for■wt of that effort to strive for achievement hes been engaging the global south and the rest of the world inag wayse have not seen t before. And so a lot of this development we are seeing over the last decade is because mr. Xi jinping decided he was going to strive for achievement. Nder that rubrie this increasing tension developing between the United States and china some have called a new cold war. It is within this context the middle countries in the global south in particular become geo strategically important as well in ways that may be reminiscent in some ways of the way theye■y were important during the first cold war. However, i would like to suggest this is a different world we live in today. During the first cold war United States found itself in proxy wars with the soviet union all around the globe. Africa, angola, ethiopia, we are fighting with the chinese. So i do not believe in the current world this a current cold war if you will that we are in is going to lead to proxy wars across the globe. In fact in many ways u. S. Re inte same things. Stability, growth, prosperity, how they go about doing that can be very different but the fact their interest in the same outcomes or similar outcomes can be juxtaposed with russia in places like the african continent is a more than willing to benefit from chaos. So i thit u. S. Have their strategic rivalry but its in the global south there may be opportunities not for cooperation but for d confliction so at least we do not come into conflict with each other as it occurred during the first cold war. Ng said, i do bee our study of this this 2007 224 has been under a time of chinas great rice lives in the chinese economy growing by leaps and bounds during this period we have seen chinese population growing in this. We have chinese going out as a strategy says more and more privacy china striving for achievements. And so one of the questions that hangs over our conference here today is of these trends continue . The Shanghai Academy of social science new information indicates chinas population may fall by 60 century. If you have china 500 Million People at the fundamentally different kind of country than at 1. 4 billion f major headwinds as many of you know. It looks unlikely for systemic reasons those headwinds are going to relent. ■ so if our entire discussion is predicated on the fact were going to see continued chinese growth that would be wrong. Part of our discussion here the past but to understand what these new trends mean for chinas engagement in the global south. I hope we can talk about this transition moment. I feel we are in right now. There is also one of the thing i want to add here. This is perhaps my own view im interested to hearst what others say throughout our conference here today. Gaia, in my view see china using what i would say relatively order to stoke anti american antiwestern sentiment in the global south and the ways that serve its own interest. I wonder sometimes if this is not an effort to what we might call confirmation bias. There is a lot of residual resentment of the global south because of the it is easy fodder to come in and simply sayme the west is bad, it remains bad was bad in his bed now. That will serve chinas interest in terms of strategic competition with the United States. But my question for our panelists many have flown in from countries all around the world is, isnt really serving the interest in the global south to make a choice . Are they better not served by engagingin as many countries as they can and benefiting from thoseom relationships . Is this effort to split the world between a more pro china and u. S. Camps not empathetic old to the interestic large . I do not want to necessarily say one way or the other. Im very interested to hear from people who have come to hear their views on this. I am concerned we have a country in china which is an authoritys a esage of a diversity equity and inclusion to essentially galvanize progressives around the world behind us because i find it very interesting, fascinating and troubling people around the world have not recognize this is im curious to hear from our many panelists about their views on this particular issue or that they believe chinas late in the countrys down this primrose path or whether not china strictly the leader of the globalth south that it pretendso be. Those are the few plenary comments and want to put out on the table to prime our discussion what i want to do is introduceto dean of the school of Global Affairs dean Scott Appleby without whom we would not be sitting here today whom i would not be sitting here today. Dean appleby is a professor of history at the university of notre dame. He is the author of 15 books he was the founding dean of the keys school of Global Affairs finishing off a second term now. And i think cute school of Global Affairs has eight or nine years of history and he has led us from our birth pangs to wherr college within the university. Im very pleased h bend to intre conference or today. And so why dont i introduce dean Scott Appleby to the podium . [applause] thank you, josh appeared to think with those preliminary remarks, as extensive as they were we canhe adjourn the meetig now t and enjoy the false spring outside. It would be a false spring and south bend it might be real spring here in d. C. Verbally please have this opportunity to thank the Atlantic Council for part of Notre Dame School of local affairs. Which seems to be promising and exciting projectcs in the global south. Notre dame aspires to be a force for good in the world. Universiy or force for good. Although you may be more familiar with go irish. In order to participate in do gooding we must engage beyond the classroom. Partnership and the keys school is an example of its engagement looks like. We are currently in our ninth or tenth year of existence depending upon who is counting. The 18th or 20th year by the way im counting it. We have been keeping up over these 10 years we have been keeping a pretty phonetic case of hiring worldrenowned scholars to staff our Interdisciplinary Research and teaching and policy School Including doctor Joshua Eisenman from who we justin heard. Leadse chinas presenc and africa in particular never losing sight of the domestic drivers, largerpl Foreign Policy context and economic dimensions of that presence. Notre dame more broadly, our asian experts from several disciplines track and evaluate the numerous ways chinas role across its spheres of influence in shaping the future of its own people as well as International Order. At the keio school i itself, given the array of social scientists, legal scholars, International Conflict mediators, engineers, historians, anthropologists and environmental Government Experts that comprise our faculty, we pay particulars of chinas polid presence on questions raised directly to the question of integral Human Development and human security. Including poverty sustainability and good governments. We have some expertise already and are building stronger faculty every year. Continue to build a factory that now numbers near 70. It is best done in collaboration betweenwe and diplomats, policymakers, china experts and an array of areas related of specialization. Thats why colleagues participating in thisgu conferee and victoria hoy in celebrating this partnership from which we have already learned a great deal and by means of which we can further leverage the schools in notre dames growing expertise in a study of china. Last but not least i think the Atlantic Council for hosting this remarkable two Day Conference and take the lead in organizing it. Who oversees the schools washington d. C. Office which is just down the street. We look forward in the coming months in organizing and variety of events on china and the global south and host in the next major conference of this promising partnership. Over too dave. Thank you dean appleby. Now it is my honor to introduce general Todd D Walters to kick off the conference on behalf of the Atlantic Council. The aanr strategy and security. In 2022 general walters completed a distinguished 40 year active duty career in the■ u. S. A force and commander of u. S. European command. Lead in transition and ensured the covenant teen Health Crisis led natos allies and partners through the organizations response of the largest invasion of european nation since world war ii. Over to you. [applause] dave, thank you very much. The on behalf of the Atlantic Councils my privilege to welcome all of you for this great gathering. Know it is a strategic imperative to improve eglobal ieg military and economic spectrum. The more we can get at strategic integration the greater our ability to promote her democratic values. From a firsthand experience perspective the great competition and play with respect to every single tidbit of information that came out of moscow and was instantaneously received in iran, china, and north korea. That reveals how fast the globe spins in the 21st century and the dramatic need of what we need to take place in all across the entire globe. On