Thank you also to the folks from cspan who are watching and the folks that are streaming this live over the Atlantic Councils website. My name is william wechsler. I read the Atlantic Councils work in the middle east. Im the director for the center that is your host this afternoon. This question was a question that would not really have been asked only a decade ago. China does not have deep historical ties in the region. China has its economic connections were modest not that long ago. But now its a question that many people in the region are asking more and more. Many people in the u. S. Economic, diplomatic, intelligence and military apparatus are asking more and more. Many people in china are asking more and more about how they approach this region as part of their wider belt and Road Initiative, as part of their wider diplomatic initiatives, as part of their need for Energy Resources. What we see right now is the economic relationship between china and the middle east is deep and deepening. The political diplomatic relationship has grown from as were going to hear from a relatively modest place quite powerfully over the last decade or so with a number of agreements and relationships met. Even the military presence of china which is embryonic at this stage with base in is likely to grow over time. And their strategic role in the region is something we have to take in consideration now, not least withstanding the news we saw from cnn yesterday about the allegation that there is intelligence that china helped saudi arabia build up its Missile Technology in a way that is contrary to longstanding u. S. Policy in the region. This is these open up lots more questions for us. One question that i think is still very much open is as we look ahead for the next couple of decades, how will the u. S. china relationship in the middle east be defined . You know, i think its fair to say that in many other parts of the world, in northeast asia and southeast asia, its a good prediction that the United States and china are going to be in a era of great power competition, hopefully not confrontation, but that that will basically define the relationship. The story hasnt been written yet on the middle east. There are a number of places where u. S. And chinas interests align and there are a number of places where u. S. And chinas interests do not. Which will be the dominant story . We dont know yet. To help answer these questions and look ahead, we have a very important and useful set of commentaries that were going to hear. Its going to be led by our keynote speaker, dr. Victoria coates who is Deputy Assistant to the president and Senior Assistant to the middle. She was an adviser to ted cruz, donald rumsfeld, and rick perry as well. She has a phd from college. Shell be starting off our discussion today with a talk describing the Trump Administrations views on this. Then well come up for a Panel Discussion which will be led off by a brief conversation by dr. Jonathan fulton who is an assistant professor of xiad in abu dhabi and is the author of this book available on our website. The link is live. I hope everyone takes the time to read this. Hes also author of the book chinas relationship with gulf monarchy published in 2018. He has his phd in International Relations from the university of lester, two masters degrees from stafford university, and queensland. Hes also taught in south korea as well. And then finally, we are joined by dr. Degang sun from china who will give us the chinese perspective on these questions. He right now a visiting scholar at harvard university. He is Deputy Director of the institute of shanghai studies. And islamic and middle eastern stud dis. Hes taught at oxford, denver, and hong kong universitys. His latest articles are chinas development in the middle east and coauthor of china in the belt road in the middle east. I ask everyone for a nice round of applause as we welcome dr. Coates to the podium. [ applause ] thank you, will and everyone for attending this very important event today. Im quite struck by the fact that were here at the Atlantic Council on the 75th yes, sanniv of dday. All those years ago my grandfather was preparing to participate in that momentous event. So to be here with Atlantic Council friends is really terrific. My goal here today is to lay out what we have publicly declared towards china. Im pleased to have a chinese colleague here that ecowiwe can discuss this with and then look at how it affects our activities in the middle east. We have three main buckets ill be talking about. One is israel, one is gcc plus 2, egypt and jordan, and the iran policies. All these things we see as very much interrelated. I wanted to read a little bit from the National Security strategy from december of 2017 because i think it holds true today and really is the basis of those three policies that well discuss. For decades, u. S. Policy was rooted in the belief that support for chinas rise and for its integration into the Postwar International Order would liberalize china. Contrary to our hopes, china expanded its power at the expense of sovereignty of others. China gathers and exploits data on unrivalled scale and spread fees churs of authoritarian system including the use of surveillance. It is building the well funded military after our own, its Nuclear Arsenal is growing and diversifying. And part of economic expansion is due to its access to u. S. Innovation economy including americas world class universitys such as harvard. And so that is sort of the basis of how we are looking at the relationship now. Important to say that President Trump in no way sees this as a confrontation as well put it. He very much values his relationships with his chinese counterparts, and we are hopeful that we will be able to come to a negotiated agreement that will allow this relationship to emerge in the 21st century as a strong and powerful one. So, how does that affect how we approach the middle east . First and foremost, i wanted to start with looking at our relationship with israel. One of the most interesting things about israel has been its increased stature on the International Diplomatic stage, something that will be front and center later on this month when the National Security advisers of the United States, russia, and israel gather for meeting in jerusalem. Thats something i think that could not have happened ten years ago. It is unique and certainly shows you the growing significance of israel. And i think that is in no small part due to the policies that President Trump has been engaged in for the last 2 1 2 years. It has been a very specific policy to leverage the historic investment the United States has made in israel. And its something that gives us great hope that the memorandum of understanding that went into effect last october was actually negotiated by the previous administration. So, this is a bipartisan effort to commit to israel over a tenyear period some 3. 8 billion a year. Congress put that up to 4 so were dealing with round numbers. So, thats 40 billion over the next ten years. So, an enormous investment from the United States and something we feel good about. The u. S. Report puts israel at number eight this year. That was in march. So, certainly they are doing a number of things right. And one of the things theyre doing extremely well is research and development in the hightech sector. This is something that the United States has partnered very closely with them on. And so one of our concerns as we see chinas expanding role in the middle east is how china interfaces with the israeli tech sector. We know the Chinese Investment has grown by ten times in 2016 alone and know venture capitalism has increased by 20 over the last year. So, that shows that china is attra attracted to many of the same things in israel that we are, and our goal is something to make sure that investment that israel is disproportionately on, foreign investment, continues to develop in a responsible way that is mindful of israels National Security interests. So, when we discuss this topic with the israelis, were certainly not saying, no, china. Were saying weve developed certain tools that review foreign investment, not chinas alone of course, and that we have found these effective means to protect our National Security interests while also developing our economy. And one thing i read dr. Fultons paper with great interest and i think its extremely helpful. Well get to some of the conclusions in a moment. One thing i have a small disagreement with is the assertion that the move of the u. S. Embassy from tel aviv to jerusalem had somehow angered the region and contributed to u. S. Isolation. Certainly when the president made that historic announcement in december of 2017, we didnt have a crystal ball. We didnt know how it was going to turn out. The president felt very strongly that it was the right thing to do, that it recognized the reality on the ground in israel, and that he was going to make good on his promise to make the move. The predictions at that point were dire. Conventional wisdom said this would undermine israel security. It would force the arab nations to band together against israel and ultimately, as i said, undermine israels security. Thats one reason it had been very difficult to do. What we have found in the intervening 18 months is that the opposite has been the case. We have unprecedentedly close tying between israel and the arab world. Less than a year after the president made the jerusalem announcement, you had president netanyahus visit to israel. The Security Dialogue was a room full of arabs and we were all looking up at the screens wondering what the problem would be. And one of i will leave him nameless, but one of the ambassadors to washington came up to me and said, ah, they got there before us. I think as its turned out, the confidence that israel has gained from these policies, the embassy move is sort of symbolic, but it is a much Broader Partnership not only between the president and the Prime Minister, but between ambassador bolten and his counterpart, between me and my counter part that weve really strengthened these ties. And as ive said, this has given israel tremendous confidence. So, our goal on that front on the israeli policy is to maintain that historic closeness, to make very clear the tangible benefits both sides reap from this partnership, and that thats something were going to very aggressively protect. Then we have the gcc plus 2. I picked this bucket very carefully because what i want to talk about in these terms is our initiative more mesa, the middle east Strategic Alliance which was released by the president when he challenged the arab world to develop closer security and economic ties to strengthen the region from within. And mesa is a huge project for us. I dont necessarily disagree with the tag arab nato. Again, today is a good day to celebrate things like nato. But i think its so much more than that. If you look at things like regional trade, for example, its quite anemic. And this can be an enormous source of economic strength for the region. And we feel very strongly that the United States can continue to play a leadership role as we develop this project and that we very much want to be directly involved in its development and implementation. So, thats one of the initiatives that were working on. One thing along the security lines that i wanted to mention is that i think none of us in the administration would ever apologize for working for a president who does not want another war in the middle east. I dont think anybody in this room wants another war in the middle east. And that is not to say, however, that the president is not very much aware of the need for a strong deterrent in the middle east. Thats why hes embarked in a historic rebuilding of our military, that he believes very much of the reagan doctrine of peace through strength, that the best way to prevent a war is to be strong. And with that background he has directed us to exploit to the greatest degree possible the economic and diplomatic tools at our disposal. And so that brings us to the alwaysoverarching top uk of iran. The maximum Pressure Campaign that the president developed to change the regime change in iran was hardly impulsive or not wellinformed. When we came into office 2 1 2 years ago its gone awfully quickly we were still participant in the jcpoa. And we renewed twice the congressional waivers required to remain in the jcpoa the First Six Months so that we could study the issue and develop our policy, the second six months to give our friends and allies a chance to potentially revise the deal into a condition into a state that the president would find acceptable. When that did not happen, he announced his intention to withdraw from the jcpoa which had a six month windown period followed by six months of waiver sells. Its been a long and deliberate process to get to the point where we are now. But rather like the embassy move when he did make the announcement a year ago, the predictions were dire. The United States would be isolated. Our unilateral sanctions would not work. Our International Friends and partners would not comply with them. That Foreign Direct Investment particularly on the part of china would flow directly into iran. And this would open up an opportunity for china to expand its regional power. We did not think that would be the case. And i think history has bourn us out that the unilateral sanctions by the United States have been the most effective that we have seen. Certainly the reduction in irans ability to export oil has been first and foremost amongst the statistics. We dont have the main numbers yet, but the open source is 250,000 to 500,000 barrels a day for the month of may which is a historic low. We are very encouraged that a range of nations including china now see iran as a bad bet. Its not a good place to do business these days. Its not profitable, and theres much more money to be made elsewhere. We feel it is our job to keep it that way until the Iranian Regime accepts the president s very sincere offers for dialogue, that we need to get them to a position where they are playing a responsible role on the International Stage and not threatening the peace and prosperity the region deserves. So, thats basically where we stand on the iran file. Oh, and i just had one other statistic i wanted to mention that dr. Fultons excellent report mentioned that iran supplied 11 of chinas energy needs between 2011 and 2016. A major change there is that in 2018 china received 20 of United States exports of petroleum and 15 of our liquid natural gas. Thats an extraordinary change, and its one of the reasons that we feel confident in the policies that were pursuing is that the president s Energy Policy led by my old boss secretary perry has massively increased United States production and export. And so when we were making the decision on the waivers in may and consulting with friends and allies, it was a totally different context than the conversations that we would have had 15, even 10 years ago. Rather than having to be a supp supplycant to other nations, the United States is now a partner in increasing production and able through our own Energy Industry to be part of replacing the barrels that were being taken off the market from iranian exports. And so were very encouraged that a number of the countries that had received those waivers are complying with the sanctions getting to zero because we are able to amply supply energy needs in a reliable way with a very highquality product. So, that is very much the kind of International Pressure and engagement that the president has directed, that we can har harness that increased ability in the Energy Sphere to really promote our interests and values and ensure, as i said, an amplysupplied energy market. Now, in conclusion, one of the things i very much wanted to concur with in dr. Fultons paper are his recommendations for how we should go forward. We he very, i think, accurately described sort of the traditional stove pipings between Foreign Policy experts in a geographical sense, that youre a middle person. You dont deal with china issues. And that you have these very clearly defined boundaries, i guess middle east and north africa, and that you dont stray into these other buckets. We found that extremely misleading into the 21st century. Those geographical boundaries no longer hold. And so if i am running a mideast portfolio and i dont Pay Attention to central asia, to europe, to africa, even to the western hemisphere as well as to asia, im going to miss all sorts of opportunities. Im going to miss all sorts of challenges that will become unpleasant surprises. And so i think one of the really wonderful features of todays event is the ability to look beyond those boundaries to, bring together china experts with middle east experts and look at how the relationship