Good day. Welcome to the Hudson Institute. Im todd linberg, a seen the yor fe senior fellow here. Were having a conversation today with peter burkowitz, the developer of planning at the state department. Peter is on leave from the stanford university, peters undergraduated years, he has an m. A. In philosophy from the Hebrew University in jerusalem, and then a j. D. And ph. D. From yale. And so hes obviously rather overqualified for any position he finds himself in. But were glad hes able to join us today to talk about this report. The elements of the china challenge. This is a report by the policy planning staff in the office of the secretary of state. Ill just say a word or two about that office. The policy planning staff is an office within the secretarys office. So it is tasked principally by the secretary to undertake such research and policy planning, indeed, as he zeem deems fit and this staff is, of course, a political appointee and has led the office since early in 2019. Let me ask you to say a few words about the origin of this report, the elements of the china challenge. Happy to do so. Thank you for this opportunity to discuss it. Immediately upon appointed head of policy planning i recognize what secretary of state pompeo had been making clear for some time, his number one priority was what we come to call the china challenge. Secretary likes to say that his first thought upon waking in the morning, last thought upon going to sleep before going to sleep at night is china. China is the challenge of the age. So immediately i understood that on and the secretary made clear that the work of the policy planning staff would revolve around the china challenge. Some people suppose that means a neglect of the world. But it becomes also immediately apparent given the character of the china challenge that it does not involve neglect of the worldwide because it involves activity and chinas inroads in every region of the world. In addition to having the secretarys charge, understand the centrality of china, to American Foreign policy. I also did what i imagine many of the people who have occupied the position director of policy planning have done. I returned to what is arguably the most famous document ever produced by a state department official, the telegram of february 1946, and i read it for insight, for inspiration, and on that read, summer of 2019, three aspects leapt out at me. One, explaining this emerging we could call it he didnt use the language, soviet challenge but the challenge presented by the soviet union, effort sized if we want to understand the soviet challenge we have to understand the sources of soviet conduct and theyre bound up with two sets of ideas, marxism lennonism and 19th Century Russian nationalism. So it was not only ken was insisting on the connection between ideas and exercise of power but pointing out not one but two streams of thought. That two points from the conclusion of the long telegram struck me. One was cannons insis answer the that in order to prevail in the challenge of the age, to defend freedom, it would be necessary for the United States to continue to adhere to the principles that had made it strong in a great nation. Again he doesnt quite use this language but these are the principles of the american founding in our constitutional tradition. Finally another point that leapt out at me was he said we dont understand the soviet union well enough. We need to train a new generation of Public Servants, scholars policy intellectuals who are immersed in the study of russian language, culture, history in order to understand the cosoviet union. I should say none of these remarks are intended to suggest that what we are struggling with right now is a repeat of the cold war. But there is a kind of sensibility that it is very useful. It pounds us it seems to me in the right direction. So in the late fall, early winter of 2019, policy planning staff inspired by this approach set out to investigate what exactly is chinas conduct. Are there ideas that animate chinas conduct. And what kind of framework is it would be necessary to respond to the china challenge, properly understood. So thats what we set out to do in the report. And the report, which youve issued, will be available in its revised and corrected version next week, as i understand . Yes, thats right. This is the report is now available on the policy planning staffs website. We are making some corrections and it will be small matters. But the revised and complete version will be available by monday of next week. Lets get into the meat of it a little bit more. Okay. Let me start by asking you to maybe telegraph some of the key that wasnt the i understand. But to telegraph some of the key elements of the china challenge and then well get into them in greater depth once we put out the place mat, so to speak. Very good. Our paper is divided into five parts, i should emphasize this is a product of and by the policy planning staff. So the first part of the paper, brief introductions devoted to stating clearly what the china challenge is and explaining why it is that we missed it for so long. What is the china challenge . We believe, stated in a nutshell, china is a great power, like all great powers, china seeks preemnannins but i this case they dont necessarily seek preemnance with the International Order the United States took the lead after world war ii characterized by its freedomness, openness and being based on rules. China seeks to transform that order. Seeks to transform that order in a way that places beijing in a center and serves chinas authoritarianism interest. Thats our understanding in a nutshell of the china challenge. China has been pursuing this, we believe, for decades. But we missed it. Why did he miss it . In part out of good reasons. We sought to engage china. We had high hopes that after dangs decision in the late 1970s to introduce capitalist elements into chinas socialist Economic System that economic liberalization would bring political liberalization. That has not happened. And, in fact, if you read the speeches of all five chinese leaders, supreme leaders since mauo youll see theyre adamant and consistent, opening cannot and must not mean political lib aization. Theyre going to stick to their authoritarian guns. And there are other factors at work as well. Youre aware, youve written about the influential end of history thesis which makes an attractive argument, and the a attractive argument is because of both of its international coherence, because of its appeal, because of the good things that it brings about, liberal democracy will spread across the world and its really just a matter of time, the United States may have to nudge or persuade but internal process will bring about a liberal and democratic world. I suppose theres a third factor that many students of politics in the United States believe that you can understand the conduct of states perfectly well without paying attention to culture, history, traditions and even what leaders consistently and forcefully say about their interests, intentions and goals. So all of that, i think, has led us for a long time to m misunderstand the china challenge. I should immediately say you can find any number of scholars over the last 10, 15 years who have been correcting this vision but still i say largely the document view is we should engage china, bring it into the world system, more affluence, more modernizati modernization. More Economic Growth will produce political liberalizat n liberalization. That clearly hasnt happened. So the first part deals with what the challenge is, why its taken so long for us to grasp it, and i do believe its fair to safe while many scholars have contributed to a better understanding of the china challenge, the real break with the conventional wisdom occurred with the Trump Administration, a number of official documents the Trump Administration published beginning with the 2017 National Security strategy and also the 2018 pentagon defense strategy. Could you say a little about those, the 2017 National Security strategy described a new era of great power competiti competition. It described a new era of Great Power Competition and made it clear the challenge is china and the United States had to refashion its Foreign Policy in light of this new challenge. What was going on at the Defense Department along the same lines . Absolutely along the same lines. What it means when youre making decisions about training, about equipment, when youre making decisions about where to station troops, youre making decisions about where to build new installations, making decisions about what the navy is going to look like and so on, all these decisions need to be made in light of the number one challenge to freedom in our age. And so we we were influenced by all of these documents. And if theres if there is a specific achievement of this paper, it is to bring together what we already know. Put it in one place. We hope in a readable fashion. And provide a kind of point of departure we hope for further analysis of the china challenge. So i should get back to part two of the paper, based upon the work of policy Planning Team lays out chinas conduct in all regions of the world. It doesnt matter if you look at the endoe pacific, the middle east, africa, europe, central asia, south america, indeed if you look at the northern hemisphere, south america, north america, you see patterns of chinese conduct. What are these patterns of conduct. Well, you see first i should say theyre patterns of conduct designed to achieve chinese objectives that is induce a kind of dependency on states around the world. How do the chinese proceed with this . They have perpetrated the greatest act of theft in human history. A staggering number, staggering amounts of intellectual property theft, hundreds of billions of dollars a year. Tell us what that means. And intellectual property th means stealing trade secrets of hightech companies, of the production of weapons, weapons systems, and the like. Usually, or often its done through, again, hightech means. Its one of the reasons that the Trump Administration, in general, the state department under secretary pompeo, has focused so heavily on the threat we believe that is posed by National Champion companies in china like huawei and zte, bidding to become the 5g providers of choice. As you know, china has the Chinese Communist party has adopted a doctrine of civil fusion that means these companies are really part of the Chinese State and Chinese Military operations and these companies, if allowed to build 5g networks will have access to the data, we believe, of the countries in whom theyre creating creating this both the hard infrastructure and the digital infrastructure. One way or another, data will be enormous amounts of data will be funneled back to beijing. This involves not only the invasion of privacy. This involves, again, loss of trade, loss of trade secrets, making vulnerabilities of the network accessible to the Chinese Communist party and so on. And more, the bridge and Road Initiative is, we think, very dangerous. It sounds innocent enough, connect the world. But everywhere you see chinese engaging in these enormous infrastructure projects, bridge, roads, railroads, seaports, Civil Nuclear energy, what you see is projects that in the short term seem desirable for countries but in the long term really involve ruinous Financial Relationships and, once again, provide the chinese great access, provide wonderful opportunities for the Chinese Communist party to corrupt elites, political and intellectual elites in the countries. So we see great, great dangers there as well. 5g, ive mentioned, bri, intellectual property theft, theres also it became very high on a high priority after the Global Pandemic broke out, that is the come msupply chains medicines, hightech equipment. Theres now a sense of urgency in creating new supply chains in which other partners are reliant on the chinese for crucial equipment. And finally another pattern we see throughout the world is especially in liberal democracies, using our open democratic system. Universities are an excellent example of this. The Chinese Communist party comes in, offers wonderful terms for organizations on campus to teach the chinese language and teach about chinas extraordinary world historical culture. But under the supervision of the Chinese Communist party deals are extracted with University Campuses to tow the partys line back in beijing and tin the spirit of the propaganda arm of the party back home. These are some of the examples of the techniques, the programs the initiatives the chinese use to coop and exercise coercion around the world. Im sorry im going on so long. Were still only on part ii of the paper. We have some sometime. Good. We also discuss the ways in which the chinese are attempting to introduce distinctively Chinese Standards and norms into International Organizations by rewiring them from within and even though and i hope i emphasize this before, ill emphasize it again. Even though the chinese represent a very different sort of challenge from the soviet union, the soviets relied primarily on their military. Nevertheless, the chinese are developing as aput they put worldclass military. They aim to complete this of the 149th anniversary of the peoples republic of china. But theyre making extraordinary progress. Theyre already a Formidable Fighting force in and around china and they have they are also a daunting force in areas of cyber, nuclear and outer space. When you add this all together, it seems to it seemed to us, policy planning, that china presents a credible, credible challenger for not only preeminence within the existing system but as a country that seeks to transform that system in its own image. Part iii, we take up the ideas. We say theyre two streams that nourish the Chinese Communist partys. Maxism, lennonism, nationalism. These sets of ideas are usually taken to be contradictory on the standard interpretation, as you know a bit about this as well. The communist view is one of going all the way back to marx, a universal, classless society. Where nationalism is a view of course, i cant speak of nationalism in the aspect, we must speak of the nationalism of this people or that people. Nationalism is a political view that emphasizes the traditions, the cultures, the particular ways of acting in the particular interest and sense of destiny of one people. But the Chinese Communist party has reconciled these conflicting streams. How . By creating a universal order in the spirit of marxism at the and and seeing it fused with chinese sensibility, wisdom. Xi jingping speaks about sharing chinese wisdom, chinese ways with the world. And we document these two streams of thought by an examination of authoritative ccp teaches, writings and other source of statements. Now, we are aware of the objections to this approach. What if this is all window dressing . What if the statement of ideas is only to rouse the public in china . What if its only to demonize enemies . Could it really express or help us understand the interests, the goals of the Chinese Communist party . Its always possible that the language is and the ideas that are presented systemically and without let out and without let up and at great length over many, many decades. Its possible that they are mere rhetoric and nothing more. But one cant know that without actually studying the ideas. And it is a striking fact that the ideas that are articulated by the leaders of the Chinese Communist party actually anticipate and illuminate the patterns of chinas conduct. In the fourth section, we lay out chinas vulnerabilities. Some of those vulnerabilities are endemic to authoritarian regimes. Authoritarian governments, of course, have a history of a long history of being able to being unable to maintain innovation over the long term. They have a history of being unable to maintain friendships and allies over the long term. And they have a history of spending a lot of money on internal repression. Those are general vulnerabilities of authoritarian regimes such as china is right now. And then theres a host of vulnerabilities that are specific to china today, beginning with economic instability, demographic imbalance, degradation of the environment, as ive already talked about, the repression of minorities. I want to come back and say more about that. And not least these days a greatly intensified sense around the world that china is untrustworthy because of its conduct in covering up the Global Pandemic that was born in was born in wuhan last year, maybe around this time. As im speaking, im just about wrapping up the report. I should say i left out an important element of chinas conduct as it occurs to me as were nearing the im speaking about the vulnerabilities. An important part of chinas conduct is the way it governs itself internally. And this is in fairly strict accordance with the marxist, lennonist playbook. One party, repressive rule. The party is clearly in ultimate control of society and the economy. Dissent is published and wiped out to the extent possible, ideological conformity is ruthlessly imposed upon the people. And that ideological conformity consists largely in marxist, lennonist dogma beginning with