Tensions more evident than u. S. Relations with both a rising china and a declining russia. Both eager to reassert themselves both regionally and globally. It may well be that these three powers will emerge weakened by the current pandemic. Covid is a crisis for all. But it could be an opportunity for trump . This sense of vulnerability and loss compounded by three leaders focused on their own internal politics will make them more, not less, eager to ask to assert themselves. In that case, that assertion is not part of a dynamic triangle where the u. S. Can easily align with one, russia, or china and play one against the other. The sino Russia Partnership is a good deal more [indiscernible] adhesions int the that relationship is an effort to check u. S. Influence both regionally and globally. All of this presents a pretty grim picture. A list of issues from hong kong to ukraine to election interference in the south china bounties tohan taiwan to make your head spin. Mightes you wonder what exist for episodic cooperation between the u. S. And russia and the u. S. And china. Every russia and china expert seems to roll their eyes at the very mention of the prospect or any fundamental change in relations with washington. Will anything change depending how the wheel turns in november . Who would russia and china want to see is the next president and why . As usual, more questions than answers but fortunately, we have three extraordinary folks here to answer them. Forave the Vice President studies at carnegie where he oversees research in washington, beijing and new delhi. 2009, he heldnd key positions dealing with south asia, central asia and at the department of state for china. We also have the director of carnegies russiaeurasia program is a former National Intelligence officer for russiaeurasia. And Susan Thornton is currently senior fellow at Yale Law School and former assistant secretary for east asia and Pacific Affairs at the department of state. All three have had deep experiences in their field and i think they have a unique capacity to approach russia, china and u. S. Policy with just the right altitudeith the medic on one hand and granular on the other hand. Each will speak for five minutes. Ofs is a moderated round conversation and then onto questions. We will have a live q a afterwards so to you to ask a question, used the life feature at youtube or email us or tweet us at carnegie and doubt using carnegie connects. Evan, the virtual spaces to you. Thanks and its a pleasure to be with you. I will start with the u. S. China relationship. This is a relationship thats basically in freefall and after about 25 years in this business, im trouble im having trouble seeing the floor. The core is really a change in the relationship between economics and security. If you go back to the modern inception of the u. S. China relations, Richard Nixons february, 1972 visit to beijing. That was a point in time when the u. S. And china were fighting a proxy war in vietnam and china was still just crawling out of the mass hysteria of the cultural revolution. Even from the inception of the relationship, these were two countries that had military differences, clashing security contests and obvious differences of political system and ivy an ideology. Weve had 40 plus years were chinese communism and american constitutionalism have repeatedly clashed and collided. What began to change over time was that a path of economic integration opened up between the two, particular after china came into the wto in 2001, the relationship was increasingly characterized by flows of five people, gold, capital, technology and data. The idea that people have was not that economic integration would make those security and political differences disappear like magic but rather that economic integration would mitigate the pernicious effects of that security competition. What has happened is rather than economic integration, the security differences are getting worse. And the southait china sea and all around asia. The u. S. And china are already in honestly economically integrated. There is more than 100 billion on the u. S. Foreign direct investment dock in china. 60 years ago, there was billion dollars inflow in the United States but now the security competition has intensified. Its not just that its intensifying, its that economic relationships are now being backcted back refracted because Security Issues are bleeding into every thing else and that is the seachange we have had over the last three or four years. Here are three quick examples. If you look at flows of people, flows of data, flows of technology. In all of those areas, the National Security frame that the u. S. And china have on each other, they are mitigating those flows in a way that could d integrate these countries. The United States has a new set of visa policies in place that are designed to make it harder for Chinese Students and scholars in science, technology, engineering and mathematics to come here and study in any area or do a degree program. Those technologies, things like artificial intelligence, are increasingly and intrinsically geared toward youth. The same thing on data with the debate of banning the apptik tok in the United States which is popular with teenagers and younger people make videos because the data, including their personal data, goes back to a company thats owned by a chinese parent. Whats happening is its not that the security tensions are new but the thing that integrated these two countries are now being refracted through this military presence. Where it is going is toward a deal degradation that will have longterm and enduring and pernicious effects that we can talk about because it will catch a lot of third countries betwixt and between those two. Thats a good point of departure. Seems to sayon those elements are driving them apart. Gene delighted to be in such distinguished company. Somenk you will see familiar themes and what im anout to say with what ev please accept now that the relationship between russia and the United States is at its worst since who knows when. Maybe since the cold war ended that was a major milestone we thought would really transform the relationship. Say theespect, i would situation we are in is really , although therent relationship is at its lowest point, we are following in the footsteps of previous postcold war american administrations that essentially went in circles and cycles, trying to fix the relationship starting out on a high note and ending on a very low note. Immediately prior to the Trump Administration, the Obama Administration begin their relationship in 2009, hoping to restart a partnership between the United States and russia with then new president dmitry medvedev. I will not go into details of this but the relationship ended in 2009 at the lowest point 2016, 2017 at the lowest point since the cold war. Before that, the Bush Administration tried to improve the relationship and announced a new partnership in 2001 but the 2009 was at its lowest point after the war between russia and georgia and before that, the Clinton Administration borrowed the same pattern starting on a high note in 1993 and ending on a very low note in the beginning of 2001. You will remember this since you are at the state department at the time. Its fair to say that after 30 years of our lateral relationship since the end of the cold war, we have proceeded to the present day in her dealings with russia on the basis of three fundamental assumptions or hopes. One was that russia would reform a country thatme is not dissimilar from us, democratic or an open political system with a market economy and expecting a Security Architecture for europe and that would put the United States in cooperation with their allies. That clearly has not happened. In a sense, russia has failed to meet our expectations on all three of those counts. If anything good comes out of the current, very difficult point in the bilateral relationship is that after 2014, after the crisis in ukraine or with ukraine and the annexation of crimea and there was a breakdown in the relationship between moscow and washington and its safe to say those assumptions no longer apply we should look at them and think hard about what really is essential in this relationship, what is at stake for us . An said you cannot talk whats china. E for us with the agenda with russia is considerably smaller so we should be asking ourselves questions that have big come almost proverbial in her own domestic political conversation. The issue we should be focusing is when did the russians crossed the line to cross up our core interests . Where can we make deals with russia . We will have to be doing deals with russia in years and decades to come. There are a lot of sentimental issues that are absolutely critical to our bilateral relationship in the years and decades to come probably. Strategicek out stability. We are approaching the end of armscontrol. The framework inherited from the soviet american competition in the area of nuclear control is practically gone. It looks like the renewal of the new start treaty is very unlikely. The Russian Foreign minister spoke about it just a day or two ago. Where we will be in an unrestrained, unrestricted which is just stabilizing. Isond area i would focus on the military to military relationship. Our military and the Russian Military operate noun summit to in the baltic come over the black sea and certainly the middle east. Managing that relationship often times is confined to a small airspace and something thats essential for the stability and security of europe also other regions in all bilateral relations. They should look at the toolkit we have applied in our relationship with russia. Lately, its been reduced essentially to sanctions. Russians do something in syria and we impose sanctions or they dont do something and we impose sanctions. Time we ask ourselves is that enough . Is that really the only tool we can apply in dealing with a thetry that deals with better part of europe and asia and has the ability to wipe out United States with the thought of a switch . With the flip of a switch . We need to rethink her diplomatic approach to russian years to come. Betting on the idea that putin will leave the stage and the relationship will change fundamentally is an unrealistic one. Russia is here to stay and we need to deal with that even beyond putin, as it is and not as we wanted to be. I want to return in the q a to the redlines about what our vital interests with respect to russia and china. Susan . Thanks and great to be with you all. About talk a little bit how china views the u. S. And how china views russia maybe if we have time, what the u. S. Should and shouldnt be doing about all that. I would like to make the point at the outset that china has been waiting for many years for the u. S. To turn its sights on it and be concerned about chinas rise. Beginning of the 21st century, china had expected because of its size and the u. S. Hegemonic position and because of what the chinese call this cold war hangover or cold war thinking that the u. S. Would, in time, call them to sort of focus on china as an external threat and they were presently the george w. In Bush Administration, that did not come to pass. The what the white house became preoccupied with other terrorism efforts and the Global Financial crisis. I think china is not surprised that the u. S. Is focusing in on it now and sees this in part as a structural inevitability. Think president obama and president bush would have liked to work with china on International Issues but china was not ready at that point to invest in Global Public good. It was very focused on developing its economy and its modernization and it kept talking about this time of extreme vulnerability. Thats to make people think it was not interested in being externally aggressive. With the advent of donald trump, the chinese thought they could initially work with trump and that he w was transactional and they could do deals and he was not values based in his approach. What they failed to detect was that he really wasnt that interested in the substance, prone toas very much changing his view and didnt want to be bound by any constraints which made the whole relationship very unpredictable and pretty uncomfortable for the chinese, obviously. They dont like that kind of unpredictability and chaos. Especially when they are trying to manage their internal pressures of which there are many. With the advent of trump, with the advent of this sort of across the board bipartisan harder line toward china, the chinese have adopted the view that the u. S. Has determined that it is good to be part of the u. S. National purpose to van andchina block is a it doesnt matter whether or not trump is reelected or biden is elected. The chinese it will be very difficult to dislodge this view inside china that the u. S. Is. Ent on way china is thinking about russia at the moment, we can talk more about this and i would gene ands to hear what thehe u. S. Te is baseda enten mainly on two factors. The first one is this economic driver that has really become more prominent than the last couple of decades and where i think the chinese have now live become a kind of imbalance version of the train. To china has a lot of bars to play in the economic relationship between the two powers so i think that will continue to play out and bothnue to create synergies and tensions in the relationship. Ishink the second big driver the convergence and the attitudes of the could to governments about what the west and the u. S. Is doing. They dont like a lot of the positions the u. S. Is taking. They dont like a lot of things were doing in the International States and in this respect of this driver, russia russias more in the lead and china is more of a follower. China sees russias more of a risk taker in this backandforth with the west. They hang back and they are a little uncomfortable with some of russias more aggressive plays but i would say i think the chinese are taking tutelage from russia, or learning, and are starting to step into the arena gingerly. Thats something we should be watching. Thatnk the bottom line is this is not really a natural alliance. The u. S. And its friends should not be taking actions that push the two toward one another. Thats something that i have been increasingly concerned about in recent years. Doingt should the u. S. Be about all of this, let me first speak to china is that there is hoods ok. I think the u. S. Is in danger of misunderstanding and miss analyzing the problem with china. We want to see this as an ideological competition coming military competition or cold war readout kind of thing. I think we are failing to appreciate the degree to which it some economic competition and we are failing in our prescription to respond to that challenge. Evan listed a number of things to get to the essence of what our response is to what we are seeing in china which i think speaks to that sort of misplaced emphasis on security internal see our economic competitiveness. To do all, the u. S. Needs a lot more thinking about what its domestic prescriptions will be that will best fit to pursue the challenge that these two countries are posing, our diplomacy needs to be reinvigorated and reenergized and to be a lot more realistic and a lot more thoughtful in order to pursue what will be in the interest of the u. S. Going forward. The u. S. Has a lot of things it will need to work with russia in the coming day decades. The same is true for china. If we think about the current moment, people are being affected by the pandemic and the economic fallout from the pandemic, these are two areas that are basically constituted a double crisis for the world of usn chances issues should certainly pool their to combat this. Basically a vivid example of what we are missing in our current approach. I will just stop there. Thank you. My first question to the three of you flows from susans reference to the pandemic. The Moscow Center talked about covid as a crisis for all three powers. How have russia and china coped with pandemic . Who has emerged in a better thereon to exploit what is to exploit with respect to covid19 . Has it been a loss for both powers . Gene can start first on russia. I think its been a net loss to russia. We are seeing evidence on that immediately. The governor of a major far Eastern Region was arrested on multiple charges. Was allegedly 15 years ago and we have seen something that we have not seen in quite some apparently coming is not the misys guy in moscow. Hes not the nicest guy in moscow. This is a situation that is aggravated by the general dissatisfaction with government performance in the pandemic. In economiceen difficulties for quite some time. Maybe for the past six years or so, the standard of living has declined. The pandemic is dealt a blow that has laid bare a number of major deficiencies in the ability of the government to deal with these kind of crises and not that russians have a lot of expectations in terms of Government Support but i think contextual, aggravating condition to prompt apparently tens of thousands of people if you believe the internet, to go out into the streets and progress in action. Acrosstheboard there is a conversation on treats. And of shortcomings and the lack it would give a blow to putins claim of stability and better it is does better conditions and so on. It poses a certain kind of legitimacy crisis for prudence management of the state which is perceived to be the agent to read deem the russian people from this terrible virus. Certainly and especially when it comes on the heels of a referendum essentially to extend to Vladimir Putins term in office. Everyone considered it a life presidency. There is a stark contrast between conditions in the country and the kremlins attempt to establish its legitimacy through a popular right. By all accounts, it wasnt up to the standards of a good referendum. You have written about the u. S. China relationship. What applies to the management of covid from chinas perspective . If we are going to be blunt, with very few exceptions like new zealand and taiwan and maybe south korea, there are not a systems around the world who have cover themselves in glory over the last four months in a three places, china, russia and the United States0 havent come to a lot of glory either. Is china the winner . Hardly. Chinas economy contracted in the First Quarter and china is facing a variety of acute economic and structural challenges. Its interesting what theyve done last month or two. S says live china weve heard so much about chinese growth but they have yet to set a goal. They dont want to set a target they will miss but also because the focus and china has shifted away from growth for growths sake or what i would call welfare and qualityoflife and qualityoflife indicators come which in the aftermath of covid means employment, and the prime china, in his last sport, talked about china fo focus to china first policy. China is not dancing here. They are first and economic contraction, but with real threat in the labor market, particularly the places they are most vulnerable, whitecollar workers in College Graduates in migrantt instant, and workers in the second. They are trying to make the most of it internationally by leveraging the things that they think they have done right, in terms of mitigating the impact , and after a lot of early missteps and things that i think are functions of really flaws in the chinese system, they have tried to manage the impact better. I think there are a lot of places around the world that work with china to share those experiences. One question we will face is who gets to a vaccine first, because if it is china, that will inevitably change the image of china around the world in the context of covid. But it also raises fundamental russians about cooperation with china fundamental questions about cooperation with china. It gets to the u. S. China that youas something said in the set up. If the u. S. And china cannot Work Together in the worst Global Health crisis in the last 100 years in the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, what the heck can they Work Together on . If the answer to that question is not very much, despite the rhetoric of being in a competition, it is not really a strategic competition. It is what i call managed enmity, where there two sides are not only not working together, they are actively obstructing each other around the world. That is problematic because if you look at the history of u. S. China, despite all of the tension that these two countries have had, they have dealt effectively with collective responses to scary transnational threats, whether it was the financial crisis in 2006, ebola in 2014. They have done it even in moments of high security. If you pull that they will not Work Together on anything productive. That leaves other countries around the world stuck. What i think you will see happen is third countries will not simply accept their fate, and they will try to define an alternative where they become the drivers. We have seen this on trade rules in asia. With the transpacific partnership, not including china or the United States. That may happen on data, vaccine develop and, Public Health care. As an american, i dont think that is a very good place for the United States to be, and i dont think it is productive for the two largest economies not to Work Together. But you really will need an enormous amount of something. If it has gone the way of the dodo, then what you are producing with managed enmity is the most powerful actors on the international stage, however constrained, they have to figure out or not a way to do with one another. Let me ask you on the pandemic chinas has chinas image suffered any sort of permanent damage as a consequence of the whole covid and the rest . I think they will emerge i from china will emerge this question as the winner. China has suffered partly from the missteps in the beginning but also from the fact that people around the world, they may or may not know what happened in wuhan. The may be cognizant of details or not, but they know that the virus started in china, and the virus will affect every Single Person in the world negatively, and it started in china. That is something that the chinese will have to reckon with and that they are worried about. That is why you see them making these hamhanded efforts to give , and china interceding in many countries where they obviously dont have the Health Systems to deal with this. But i think the other thing that comes up in the context of covid is this question about the globalization. What is happening to our international institutions, the International System . Russia and china certainly have a major interest in that. It may not be exactly the same as the u. S. Interest, but frankly, the moment is also not that clear. Hopefully if we have a change in leadership in the u. S. , we will reattach ourselves to the International System and try to restore and reinvigorate a lot of those institutions and repair them. At the moment, the big question that comes up in the minds of many people around the world with covid and the economic globalizationbe was a terrible idea and, yeah, we have all had a long spell of relatively peaceful security environment. We have had a long spell of relatively prosperous, some alleviation, and relatively prosperous economics, but now we are entering a period where globalization has gone too far and we need to retrench. China definitely does not want d cd globalization, to see andalization, decoupling, dividing in the spirit of economic interaction for sure. They are really struggling with how to move forward. They have a backup plan and they have a backup plan to the backup plan. That is the thing that i wish we had. That would require a good my question is a comment on all administrations. With china and russia, but with the world in general, and that is a capacitor that think through what our vital interests really are. Toal interests as opposed discretionary interest. Interest meaning things we can live with, vital interests, things we cannot. Identify for everybody on this orl, in your judgment, two three absolute redlines for the United States, with respect evan, lets start with you. Deadlines that have crossed the United States, simply cannot tolerate. Evan i think American Interests in asia have been pretty. Onsistent for 150 years it did not start with the peoples republic of china and the last five years, so it is noially no regional exclusionary blocks, freedom of navigation, that is with the u. S. Has stood for through the open doors and the cold war and the present. If you pull that thread, you will immediately see whether the redlines are. Where the redlines are. Aaron how are we doing in each of those . All, china tried to exclude the United States and china tries to force exclusionary blocks in the region. China constricts freedom of navigation. Those are where the redlines are. The u. S. Talks a lot about those things, but the reality is if you look at u. S. Policy, particularly in this administration and i served in the Bush Administration there is a strong problem for the United States going back 25 years. The United States is becoming excluded from the region because it is not as essential as it presumed itself to be. And the United States confuses right now a lot of longterm structural changes in asia with shortterm sino centric things, by which i mean the united butes has been at it now not really a strategy for dealing with these things. If it had a strategy, it would open thenent of. Tandard center on trade what is happening is i see the United States withdrawing from the regional trade agreement, i see the United States allowing china or other Asian Countries not called china to set the standards, and i see the United States as exempting itself from a process in the region that will make this a very different part of the world 10 years from now than it was 10 years ago. It is not sufficient for the United States to claim to compete simply by being a security provider for the region and sailing boats around the south china sea, and flying airplanes around. Being a security provider is important because the security allows for economic prosperity. But americas own prosperity is tied to being a standardsetting nation, and we have withdrawn from that role. So quickly come of three redlines have turned pink . Evan i think china is pushing the envelope in all of those areas. It is not that the United States is enabling, because china has become more aggressive and assertive on these things. But the United States is not forming a kind of strategy that would either push back chinas effort or set a framework with other partners that create a context within which china would be constrained, and calculate its own interests differently. Aaron fair enough. Before i give susan a chance to answer that, whatever she wants to do with the redline question gene, two or three redlines with respect to russia and putins behavior. Gene i would say in addition to what evan mentioned about navigation and preventing hegemonic power to rise within asia, in the specific russia context, i would mention ,ecurity of the Homeland Security of the american people. In the context of russia, the bilateral relationship has to do of course with our strategic relationship, and managing it so our capabilities are maintained at a level that ensures that stable, strategic relationship. We can go into details later, but i think that is our top priority in the relationship with russia. Theuld also bring into this security of our treaty allies, and again, this applies to some of our treaty allies in asia, but also in the context of russia primarily with europe. Now, i think you are pushing me mentioning my feeling on domestic politics. Aaron indeed. Gene here i would point out an distinction between what russia apparently did, or we know they did in 2016, which i did not consider to be in a sense a redline and still think that would involve on their part a pampering of the systems. That would be a redline. On their part a tampering of the systems. That would be a redline. A problem ofre politics. Aaron im sorry we dounlike with china, not have a robust economic relationship with russia. It is 1 10, the bilateral relationship, is that correct . I think it is likely to stay that way. Susan . Susan thanks, arun. Aron. The u. S. Government has a terrible time trying to define and articulate its key priorities and interests, so i think that has been true in spades with the china relationship, and i would contend it is part of the core of what has brought us to such unsatisfactory point in our bilateral discussions. But i think, you know, at the end of the day and i dont really like to talk about redline, but we are lucky with china, i think, and probably also with russia, that we dont want to have a military conflict. That gets to the issue of strategic ability. The problem is within the International Environment and changing power structures, we spheres ofent reality about what that is going evanpose, and i think spoke very articulately to what we think we need to do in asia and what is actually happening there and how much leverage we have to control what is happening there. Goingow, i think probably forward, we need to talk a little bit about what redlines look like in the economic sphere, especially with respect to china. I dont think we have been very clear, certainly not in any of the economic negotiations that i was a part of with china, about what our kind of prioritization , and i think that is also a function of sort of the way our have sortset up, to of bottomup input, lots of different interest groups, lots of competition. So the issue of competition in the economic sphere is going to be very important, and how we work further toward articulating the u. S. Role in the world is going to be with respect to the International System, what our economic fundamentals and principles are going to look like Going Forward, i think that is going to be a key part of determining how we go forward with china, at least, and probably other countries as well. Aaron thank you. Speaking of redlines, to the two of you, evan and susan, im assuming hong kong is not a redline for the United States. His chinas policy toward taiwan . Chinas policyis toward taiwan . Could it be . Susan i will go first. China has made it clear from the beginning of the relationship that this is the only issue on which the u. S. And china have a fundamentally existential difference or question, and so i think the question really is, we know that china cares a lot about taiwan. I think the question that i hope evan will answer is, how much does the u. S. Care about taiwan, and is that calculus evolving or changing . The door is open. Evan i think what is striking about the u. S. Relationship with taiwan is how little the u. S. Is investing to try to help taiwan, in particular to make its economy more robust. Is structurally challenged in a whole variety of ways that we can its weaken itsy that ability to sustain in the future. It is under invested in a lot of its technological comparisons. With all of the u. S. Support for taiwan, the u. S. Should be doing a lot more, whether it is a trade agreement with taiwan, or opening up the pipeline for a different kind of Technology Relationship to give taiwan the economy it needs not for right now, at five to 10 years from now. Those are the kinds of policy steps that i think are under invested in the u. S. Discussion about taiwan. What about human rights, humanitarian issues . The Clinton Administration administration seems to have policy with regard to the uighurs. Gene as well,or with respect to managing these two. Susan i will go first. I think it is a key American Interest to defend and speak out for human human rights practices, for china and for any country, really. The question is with the prioritization that we talked about, and on the scale of sort of leverage, what can you bring to bear on this issue. Reasonable think a criticism of the Trump Administration on this score is not only have they not raised it, but certainly they have not worked with other partners and likeminded friends to try to maximize our leverage on these issues and bring them up in multiple different forms and different ways. It has been very lowprofile and very unilateral, i would say. I mean, i think that is a difference that we will probably see Going Forward with a Different Administration in the u. S. Because i think this is a bedrock issue for u. S. Foreign policy and it will continue to be raised. Raised. T will be the question is, what kind of priority has it ever been for american policymakers, and Going Forward, what kind of priority will it be, even if you have a Different Administration . Lets take a couple questions from the virtual space out there. And articles both in the post and times, is this emerging agreement a court, however you want to describe it, between china and iran. I know we dont know a lot about this in detail, but is this real or what is this . Is this something of consequence . Memorex . What is going on there . You really date yourself. Susan memorex . Getting the chinese to participate more actively in that agreement and to actually contribute to some aspect of the final agreement, and certainly in the wake of the nuclear agreement, there was an expectation that china was going , and approaching iran certainly china gets a lot of oil from iran, has always gotten a lot of oil. And it is very important to chinas calculus on diversification of energy sources, given that china is an energy poor state. Belton road and other infrastructure projects, it was obvious iran was going to need infrastructure. This is a symbiotic kind of match on the economic front, especially now, given what has happened to the iran nuclear accord, given what has happened with the sanctions regime. They have apparently if this document is real, then they have negotiated this for quite some time and it has not been finalized. We dont really know what the , ifils of the agreement there is a pending agreement, what it would look like. We dont really know what the attitude of the chinese is toward this. So i think, you know, we will have to wait and see. It is an a minimum, effort to demonstrate that tehran has other options, on balance and compare with western europe,s in relation to the key to an empty room. We have a question from paul here, who asks, to what extent a collaborating, influencing operations within the United States. Does the chinarussia intelligencenclude collaboration, and how to divide, distract, undermine . Democracy and order in the republic . Is that a question for me . Aaron a question for anybody since it is china and russia. We well, i dont think i dont think we necessarily have the knowledge to answer this question definitively, but i think it serves both russian and chinese as they venture into the area it serves their interests to show that american democracy is not perfect, that democracy can be extremely messy , to the point of being as i think some of support haveey argued. Our governments having the upper hand, as they like to argue, i think it strengthens their approach to domestic politics. Aaron would anyone care to comment we have a comment from todd on youtube. What effect will artificial europesnce have with relationship with russia and china . Anyone want to offer a brief comment or two . I think it is having a substantial impact on the u. S. China relationship because enabled applications are intrinsically multitasked. A lot ofthe same Public Benefit as well. If you think about the flow of innovation, from the 1940s to the 1960s, it was mostly military that was driving commercial innovation. German rocketry, american atomic bomb those things drove a lot of commercial innovation through the 1960s. After the 1960s, the core of the nation flipped, so with microelectronics and semiconductors that had spinon effects back into weapons innovation. But if you look at the technology of the future, ai enabled application of quantum pharmacy and biotech innovations. Is multiple use, so it is refracting. If you go back to where i started, back to the National Security prism, it is becoming harder for the u. S. To think about those things. That is one reason why the United States is not just using its export controls against china in new and crated ways, but is extra territorial lysing them. Frankly, trying to attenuate progress. Things like ai will have a substantial impact because it is it will ize things. Orial wa that reflects the u. S. China relationship at large. The flow of capital around ai is substantial. It is going to be pretty complicated. Aaron we are nearly at the end of the hour. One final question to the three of you. Be brief if you can. To are going to be asked write a memo to the next resident. What is the one to the next president. What is the one thing about thata and or china successive administrations have fundamentally failed to understand . The one big picture, the one thing. . Hat is that one thing if you had to identify it, that the next president needs to know in the way of misconceptions . That need to be discarded. Start with you. We can go to gene, who never has a quick answer to this. Go ahead. That you, youoned know, for me, the fundamental thing i would like to see to the next administration is, focus on the economic competition, not the ideological competition and who is leader of china and can we change the leader, and everything will be different. Ene was hinting at in the case of u. S. Russia relations. That is my quick answer. Aaron good. Evan . One misconception, as my former boss rich armitage used to say, if you are going to get china right, youve got to get asia right. You have to tweak the environment around them by setting standards, setting norms, and being actively engaged. Gene . Gene at the risk of sounding over academic or pompous, and thinking about our relationship with russia, think about russian history, political culture, geography, and dont assume that just because something changed country wonthat change fundamentally. ,arrying over political regimes that should be our going assumption. The United States has Vital National interests, and i know it is heretical. It may that other it may be that other countries, too, have Vital National interests that must be validated and respected. Susan amen. Aaron one question a oneword answer, so it should be easy. Putin and mr. Xi want to see as the next u. S. President . I just need one word. If you want to mention a name and give me one sentence why, we have time for that. Ene. S start with g gene trump. Aaron and the reason . Presidency has served russian interests very well, willingly or not. Aaron susan . I think putin definitely wants to see trump. I think xi is more ambivalent. Hiscase needs to be made in mind that trump is beneficial to china longterm, but also very difficult for them to deal with the unpredictability. Aaron fair enough. Finally, the last word, evan, to you. Evan the chinese are very pragmatic in the sense that they will deal with what theyve got. Man, i thinketting they would rather have biden for predictability, stability. They would rather have that in the short term. Aaron i cannot thank the three of you enough. I have learned a ton. It has been an incredibly rich conversation. I was right in assuming that the three of you have the extraordinary ability to put things in context and drill down on the granular that drives russia and chinas relationship with the United States. E, thanks so gen much. Thanks to everyone out there for calling in and participating. Stay tuned for the next carnegie connects, which will be happening sooner than you think. Announcer coming up, the House AppropriationsCommittee Debates 2021 spending levels for energy, water developing, labor, education, and health and human services. Live coverage begins at 1 00 p. M. On cspan. You can also watch online on cspan. Org or listen free with e cspan radio app. Host argus joins us now, carl smith. Remind folks what the Tax Foundation does and how you do it. Foundationtax educates on tax policy and assists members of congress in developing tax policy. We do in particular analysis of the costs to the economy and to the government, of tax increases or text decreases. Taxfoundation. Org is the website. It has been four months since america started shutting down. Congress appropriated over 2. 5 trillion in response. At what point do we start focusing on longterm recovery as opposed to responding to immediate needs that are happening in the here and now . Is hard to say. I originally thought iran the end of the summer we would need a strong tilt toward longterm growth. When we provided liquidity for businesses, for households, so they could keep the rent payments. To the extent that they were able to, and then once you look at the pass, sometime around august, we would start on our growth trajectory. What has complicated that, as everybody probably knows, there seems to be a second wave of cases. We dont know the response to that, whether there is going to be a second wave of lockdowns that happens. On theneed to do more liquidity end of the response, because while we can put in a lot of measures to encourage growth, and we have new lockdowns in effect, then it is simply not possible to take for businesses to put people back on the payroll. Host we showed viewers the coronaviruse response, the cares act and some of the smaller acts that were passed by congress. It is 2. 6 trillion dollars. The entire federal expenditure was 2. 6iscal 2006 trillion. When did this level of spending start to catch up with us, especially if we are talking about the potential more liquidity to get us through the here and now. Guest the fortunate thing for us right nows