Good afternoon. Im pete. Daily ceo and publisher of the Naval Institute and i our audience both here in the jack Taylor Centers lockheed auditorium and our remote audience whos joining us online. And so for those who are here, i just ask you to stand for a minute. And lets say the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under god individual liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Special shout out to admiral katcher, whos the acting superintendent and one of our Naval Institute press authors. This is a moment todays event demonstrates what the Naval Institute is all about. Were an open, independent, Nonpartisan Forum that dares to read things, speak and write. The institute its inception 150 years ago. Its coming up the anniversary in just a couple of weeks. Supports our men and women in the sea services and has always championed their viewpoints, their exchange of ideas. The title of todays discussion is competition or confrontation the urgent realities for the u. S. Navy. When facing Chinas Peoples Liberation Army navy. Our moderator today is judy, who will lead a discussion with three of our great panelists, all of whom are Naval Institute press authors Jude Blanchette holds the freeman chair at, the center for strategic and international csis, and previously he was engagement director at the Conference Board to china center for economics and business beijing, where he researched chinas political environment with a focus on the workings of the communist party of china and its impact on Foreign Companies and investors. Stewart was the assistant director in the 21st Century China Center at the university of california san diego, and he spent published in foreign affairs, Foreign Policy and his translations have been published in the wall street journal and the Financial Times most recent books, most of the most recent book that doctor not dr. Jude blanchette has published is the chinas new red guards. The return of radicalism and the rebirth of mao zedong, published the Oxford University press. This will be about a 60 Minute Program we ask you if you havent already done so too, please put your phone on silent or stunned and and thatll allow people to hear the program on uninterrupted. And for those we are to do questions and at the end of those 60 minutes and for those who are in the audience we have microphones deployed here at the front of these two Center Aisles and and for our on our online audience, were going to have a chat feature enabled and you can chat in your question. We do ask that you ask a question and please identify yourselves so we know who you are. After the panel discussion, the panelists and the moderator be available again for any follow on questions you have and a signing continues out the foyer area where you came in. So ask our panel to come out please and join us and well get started. Thank. So im going to turn it over to dr. Keeps i keep giving him a ph. D. To Jude Blanchette thank you for joining us today and agree to be a moderator. And thank you our panelists in advance. Over to you and thank you. Just save me seven years of course in field work to to get a ph. D. In 100,000. So i appreciate it. Well the only ph. D. Im ever going to get is my initials. Well, thank you, first of all, for the welcome. And i really appreciate the opportunity to be here and especially honored. Share the podium with three individuals who have thought deeply and hard about a complicated set of problems around Us National Security and the critical problem of how we think about china. The play, how we think about china and russia. These are all at the heart of a of really confounding issues. Oftentimes when you moderate have to struggle to think about how youre going to get the get the panelists to speak, how youre going to ask the right questions but that this is really here is going to be easy for me because we have three authors of three really wonderful all new books which i hope everyone has has that really give just a masterclass in analytic perception depth of research and were going to get a taste of that today as i think has already been mentioned the flow is will have a discussion here. Well turn to each of the speakers in turn to give 5 to 7 minutes of top line thoughts. And then well go into a discussion and and 55 minutes in, well turn to a q a just very, very going from from my immediate right. Thrilled to have admiral mike, who is a senior fellow at center for naval analysis or c and a prior to this spent 34 years in the navy doing everything across board, including for at sea warship commands, including of an Aircraft Carrier group and his wonderful new book is china as a 21st century naval power, it looks boring up here only because i had to remove the dust jacket, but it really a penetrating, powerful book we have a shopping lee whos a professor in the don betz endowed chair in International Studies at the university of central oklahoma, who himself has written a really fantastic history of of the pla navy tracing it all the way back to antecedents and how it grew and developed and learned throughout fifties, 6070s and eighties. And then last but not least, we have brant sadler, whos a Senior Research fellow for Naval Warfare and advanced technology in the center for National Defense at the heritage and before that, 26 year navy veteran, numerous operational tours of Nuclear Powered submarines and. The offer author of this this fantastic. Us naval power in the 21st century which as he was just pointing to me as an Aircraft Carrier on the cover not a submarine or anything, earning him the enmity of all his fellow submarine said. But so without further ado, why dont we well get right into it. Ill turn to mike first and well go down the line for initial comments here. Thank richard. And id first like to thank admiral dailey and the Naval Institute, the Naval Institute press to my surprise, they actually agreed to publish book that i wrote. Ive been a life member here, and its a delight to be back and have this opportunity to talk about. Let me start with where is the pla heading . That seems to be the question that a lot of people ask in terms of how many ships, what capabilities and what have you. And the answer is we dont know for sure. Their objective for the strength they will eventually wind up at is a class defined. It is secret in china. So all we can say for sure is its going to be big shipping several years ago said he wants the entire play the navy to be world class and he says want this to be done largely not completely, but largely by 2035. And then have a done for sure by. 2049, the hundredth anniversary of of the peoples of china. Now, we dont have any idea how xi jinping defines world class. It could it be mean without peer. Oh, we just dont know. And so let me give you assertion of what world class means its going to large enough and capable enough to establish control strategically important regions to china and the most important regions, the western pacific and would argue the sea lanes across indian ocean. Now, this is a pipe dream today. The pla navy is the second most capable navy in the world in terms of a mix of destroyers, minesweepers, frigates, Aircraft Carrier, submarines. It is balanced. It is essentially mimicking the u. S. Navys approach to for full coverage of all of the Maritime Mission areas. Its larger the us navy. I know thats a shock to many many people about 340 or so what the us calls battle for ships the that the u. S. Navy counts so compared to about 300 for the us navy so the us navy is already outnumbered if you will but. We need to unpack those numbers bit. We need to look at what i would or define as blue water warships. In other words, Nuclear Attack submarines, Aircraft Carriers, egis destroyers. And so forth. And when you count up those kinds of ships, we, the u. S. , about 180 and the pla navy has about 115. So why are they so its a fair question to ask. And and the reason is, is they have a of smaller frigates and corvettes conventionally powered submarines that are used mainly in the seas near around around china, the east china sea, South China Sea, yellow sea and what have you for the defense of china, the pla, navy is built primarily to defend china from attack from the sea, which is, of course, is something that happened to china repeatedly in the 19th century and early in the 20th century, being invaded from abroad. And so, for example, they have about 50 conventional diesel powered submarines, 90 odd small corvette s and frigates and an important to think about when you look at the totality of the western pacific is that if it turns out theres a fight appeal, a navy is not going to fight alone. They have the entire play. Air force. They had the land base play navy, air force, and they have pla rocket there as part of a joint campaign on their their their part and they make sure they can all of those systems effectively with it of a really incredibly effective open ocean system. Let me finish with a thought on everybody. Ask how good are these guys . And i think the answer is we dont know for sure. Again, the seventh fleet, im sure, keeps track what theyre up to and what theyre doing and draws some conclusion about their operation or performance. Ive been watching what been doing and during peacetime exercises and how theyve managed to conduct operations in the far reaches of the ocean. Theyre antipiracy patrols and they seem to be competent. Their ships are not breaking down. They dont to send a tugboat along like the russians to make sure that they have somebody to bring home. If they if the engine Engineering Plant fails. So perhaps more telling is what xi jinping and senor play have to say. They are often harshly critical. They publicly the entire play for not being good enough for suffering from disease, for not conducting realistic and rigorous enough training. They keep emphasize saying that the objective is not simply to fight the objective it is to fight and win. Keep in mind talking about a party navy strictly speaking this is not a national navy. The pla navy is an element of the armed wing of the Chinese Communist party and xi jinping never them forget that he and senior uniformed leaders never fail to mention that loyalty to the party is paramount. Officers and sailors alike are required to study be tested on xi jinping. In short the pla. Navy is expected to completely in reliability role reliably red as well as proficient in combat at sea. The final point i would make is the shared command between the ship the warships captain and the ships political is a potential wicked one that is foreign to the western tradition of naval command. And because in this case the officer and a political officer essentially coequal. Now this is this is the only system that the play officer ive ever known. So but what we dont know is we are excuse me. What do know is it has never been actually tested in modern warfare at sea. So let me end there. And look forward to your questions. Great, mike. Coming. Thank you. Well, my book traces the evolution of the navy by his adapting ocean modernization and the setbacks over the past 60 years. Based on newly chinese sources and the personal interviews the book offers a chinese perspective of the pr and war fighting history. Again, as admiral mike david mentioned here. So what we can learn from his past, what hes Operational History can help us have better understanding of todays chinese navys operation and the strategy. So this shows that the chinese navy lacked the war fighting experience. So the early experience in the cold had a very impact on todays they war behavior and the strategic of the chinese navy. So as admiral liu watching the former pr any v commander or as chinas l. Fred marcus, an expert emphasize, the chinese navys active role to project chinese power and status in east asia. Xi jinping supported and more loose perception and had this proactive defense which has shifted from engaging in a land wars in the neighboring countries like career and to preparing for Naval Warfare in the east china sea. South china sea and the taiwan strait. Its happening, for example, in the taiwan strait, the pr navy is preparing for huawei and area denial, prepare for their joint operations as a megamansion here and stress and their combined they forces, including navy, coast guard and armed fishermen or militias. For example, in the offshore island like kim and our community. So here whats going on today . First, the local government of the Fujian Province established a county government of two men on the mainland china. And then in july, the chenzhou city issue announcement. Offering the chinese id for those residents from jim there, who engage in the business construction and education and the family relations on. The mainland. So next month, theyre going to be a talk between chenzhou city government, the jin county government, about crossstrait gasoline pipe construction and under water, electricity, cable. So according to their proposal, you they prepared a proposal for next month. They will include an article on atoms about joined administrative. Authority are joined between mainland government and the jim county government because you will have thousands of Chinese Workers going to your island working on joint ventures and have you have 40 of residents now taking the id choice. Reasonable. Its natural for the chinese join your administration on this island anyway youre only a few miles away from the mainland of course. Taiwanese government reject. These are local deal and but unfortunately jim is not a green county which is a blue county. So what taiwan needs government could do can do send reinforcement to jim and garrison. Now so a navy prepare for war. They like to fight engage against Taiwanese Navy by the American Technology which had to be equipped to Taiwanese Navy along offshore areas. So thats the first preparation for this to and add operation between taiwan and jim in second and join occupation i mean joined operation with other services for possible war over german and the combined forces. This very traditional chinese look at the history of the naval. During the Landing Campaign of e zhang junction and tojo east sea fleet mobilized coast guard and militias. In the battles over spooky island piracy island South China Sea. The south sea fleet mobile. The hainan coast guard. And again local militias actually, militias opened fire first at vietnamese. They took over those island, not marine corps, not naval sailors, but militias. So, again, any operation in the future against those offshore island like jimmy and marshall going to be Chinese Navy Coast Guard and militias. Thank you. Great. Thanks, brant. Oh, thanks again for having me. So when i was writing the book. There was one, i guess, admonishment. Sun tzu, of course, gets over quoted, but i think it really plays out. And with the three of us up here, three authors up here, and that is need to understand your adversary deeply. And then you also have to understand your own capabilities in yourself also as deeply, if not more, in order to put together an effective approach. And so what us naval power in the 21st century is trying to do is to try to embrace that and theres three points that i that ill make in for the ill try to be brief so we can get to the two the interaction but with you all here and folks online. First off at least when i really started looking at this problem set of like and what shall we do about confidently belligerent china theres in 2010 was actually over the several years in several cases that us concepts statecraft are failing and the reason theyre failing is that theyre not embracing the reality that weve been in for well over ten years. So one of the Core Principles are organizing constructs in the book. That construct is what i naval statecraft. Its the merging of developmental economics with a were very proactive and focused diplomacy, backed by a forward presence. Now, thats not navy. Thats naval. So thats also other elements of government power and economics and commercial. But the core of its the one that more directly a president can move around for specific strategic the us navy and thats what the rest of the book follows in and lays out. It also has a very term view looking at out to 2050 the environmental as well as the demographic changes, the economic pressures that are going to be dictating the u. S. Navy needs to be and where where these challenges demands are going to come which really gets into the second point that i want to make and that is the nature of our principal foe, the Chinese Communist party, where their weakening weakest at and where we are strongest, and leveraging allies and partners across world and in the power of ideas is actually rooted in a maritime approach. And im not one to argue for more strategies. I think the moves that we have, like the National Fence strategy going back to 2018 and slightly, is a continuation of that. Weve got it about rig