Transcripts For CSPAN2 Condoleezza Rice Et Al. The Struggle For Power 20240713

Good afternoon and welcome to the aspen institute. I am the executive director of the Strategy Group and formed and its a great pleasure to see this crowd. You will all be on cspan so be on your best behavior. We are here to launch an important book on the future of the u. S. China relationship called the struggle for power u. S. China relations in the 21st century. I want to say a word about that but first, recognize distinguished guests. I want to recognize the cochair of the organization, former secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice whos here with us. And youl you will be hearing fm secretary rice and about half an hour she will be one of our conversationalists. The harvard emeritus professor could not be here with us but is very much part of this effort. I want to pay tribute to the former secretary of defense and a very good friend of mine, secretary bill and mrs. Janet calling. Welcome. [applause] i also want to pay tribute to one of the people who form the embodies bipartisanship was involved in every effort to bring people together across partisan lines and that is the former National Security advisor steve hadley who is here today as well. Our director is rahm emanuel, my close friend. We worked together. You will be seeing on stage as one of the people doing the interview us. Our subject is china. I think all of us agree that our relationship with china is going to be the greatest challenge we face as a country in the next several decades and its an important moment in that relationship we establish full diplomatic relations in 1979, jimmy carter. For most of the time in both republican and democratic administrations we all felt in both administrations we were seeking cooperation with china. That was the basic strategy. In recent years there is no question both countries have swung from cooperation to the strategy of competition and that competition gets to the heart of our Vital National interests overseas. We are competing for Strategic Military predominance in the indo pacific with the United States has been a power with thh japan, south korea and australia for 75 years but the chinese are making a concerted effort to cut into that military power. We are competing to see who will dominate the next generation of military technology and two years ago the Strategy Group spent three days thinking about that subject. Aei is going to be militarized. Quantum computing is going to be militarized. Biotechnology is going to be militarized. Which country will get their first in the new generation of the three technology is going to define power in the world in the next several decades. We also certainly computing is the numberone an number one ano economic power in the world. You have seen president of trump with this trade negotiations and buffets deal that was Just Announced last week that certainly computing for economic primacy and for the respect of the United States are very much support thmuchin support of prep has tried to do to get to the heart of the difficulties. Will the chinese agree to live on a level Playing Field in terms of trade with the United States, japan, europe and the European Union. Finally, if you think about these battles ive just talked about, strategic predominance in the indo pacific, trade, there is a battle and i certainly would want to talk to the secretary about this, the battle of ideas. Brimming with selfconfidence about the authoritarian model of how the country has organized. He thinks it should be exported and others should adopt it and Vladimir Putin thinks the same way and americans disagree, europeans disagree, japanese disagree. Its not a cataclysmic battle armies if th its the battle of systems and ideas about how we thinthink society should be organized. The one cautionary note we spent three days republicans into democrats ananddemocrats and ins together debating this issue we produced this volume that all of you i hope have a copy of it if you dont, there are Copies Available in the back which is being launched today. We produce it on a nonpartisan basis, the ethos of our organization is we are americans and believe in our Country First and dont believe partisanship should interfere in the analysis of the strategic challenges like this. The cautionary note would be are we overestimating chinas strength and underestimating chinas weaknesses. Are we even underestimating the ability of the United States and its allies in europe and asia to cope with this threat peacefully and successfully. We have someone here and Condoleezza Rice who spent the first part of her career thinking about an empire that crashed, the soviet union, and there were times when we were working together, steve, myself, and in the 70s and 80s we overestimated the strength of the soviet union. Do we have the selfconfidence to think the United States and its allies have a way forward for success in the 21st century. I commend this to you we have republicans, democrats and independents and we will hear from four people. My colleague rahm emanuel will interview mike, an adviser to President Trump. Shes really smart and hes at the Hudson Institute and was a pleasure to spend three days with him earlier this year. The second interview i will interview my close friend and former boss, Condoleezza Rice, about these issues. The third interview im going to interview Kathleen Hicks who is one of i think the smartest young strategists we have in the United States on the positioning of the American Military in on the ability to respond to these threats. She sets the sis and forth, interviewing a force of nature ambassador for campbell for president obama with the assistant secretary of state for east asia, architect of the strategic pivot that the United States must make to the indo pacific compelling thinker on these issues and so we had four conversations and we thank you for being here without further ado, emmanuelle and mike. [applause] thank you all for bei say whn aspen last august, i thought we had one of the best discussions we had at a Strategy Group for r the substance, diversity of opinion and being respectful of each others differences of opinion. You will see we have a slightly different formats today than we would otherwise what they bunch of big panels. We wanted to highlight a couple of our authors indicated each of them in opportunity for what they are trying to say. And mike of course needs no introduction. [laughter] yes i do. But im going to do it anyway. Fellow at Hudson Institute, senior Government Official in the Reagan Administration and elsewhere. Currently i would say you are always modest but you are the number one outside adviser to the administration on china, back channeling if i could say you took six trips preparing for the trade deal. So, [inaudible] [laughter] we will stipulate to that. But so, i wanted to start broad and then later go in today. Im not asking you to speak for the administration, but you know a lot about what they think. What is the Trump Administrations objective, what is the goal is to level the Playing Field and try to get along and muddle through, is it pushing back like we did on the soviet union, is the goal that you get a different system, what are we driving for . The first point to make sorry. So i can edit my remarks. The first point to make about the Trump Administration is the multiple voices within it, who from the point of view of the standards established by the previous administrations seamlessly link the debates often on the front pages of the wall street journal you will read Something Like yesterday in the Oval Office Someone said this, someone said that. So this is an administration thats very difficult for outsiders to understand who speaks for the administration. So, in my view it is the president alone and one thing we are learning from the ukrainian impeachment discussion seems to me is the permanent bureaucracy up to and including the cabinet secretaries are not necessarily involved in the president s concerned with. So, my observation i was not a Trump Campaign supporter. My candidate lost but i was still in adviser to the Transition Team and what i observed from the beginning as a president elect at the time was deeply personally interested in china. This surprised me. I thought during the campaign when he would frequently say phrases like china is raping our country, but thi that this is jt campaign rhetoric. It works in some counties and that is the end of it. But in fact the president has acted as i say in my chapter. People here in the room and others, we should all be thrilled the president himself is taking china very seriously. Many president s havent come in at the hazard to that is that everybody around him then wants to influence his view and find out what his view actually is. And over three years i have come to understand about the president s approach to china, he thinks its himself as a dealmaker, and he wants to make a deal within some sense another company that happens to be run by another ceo. So his focus from the beginning during the transition. He has unfortunately made a phone call and the chinese began to punish the administration for its phone call and would not have a summit anywhere until the president clarified his views but the way he did that set the tone for the next three years and he said that a request in a phone call, im going to abide by our policy that removed the obstacle for the summit. Im not quite sure where you want to go on this. You know the president as much as anyone on this coming and its possible there are multiple goals o but is it wantg as a total outside observer i live in california and i sometimes hear from the administrations pronouncement we are looking for china to release theyll and sometimes i hear they are just trying to create a fair Playing Field so that companies can compete and that we can have our own influence and find a way to get along. Ive been advocating the president should give a speech on china himself an answer these kind of questions are raising. The Vice President has given talks in great detail. But they have created questions about what exactly is he saying. But soon thereafter People Associated with the administration, steve gannon in particular and distinct from china which i am not a member of committee began talking about decoupling is exactly our goal. And in fact it is happening inadvertently. Said, if the president were to give a speech on china himself, i think you and others in the room would be well advised to suggest what should be clear to. There is considerable ambiguity. My own view of this invites me into the oval office to witness some of these debates and there they are all they all are. He uses me as kind of a foil and doesnt take off befor equal bes when the room wants me to be there and who doesnt so the debate continues, and i think that the president i will not ask you the obvious. If he did this as a businessman, when i joined the Transition Team i quickly placed my order with amazon. Com for all 14 bugs the president has coauthored several of them have the sanctions were he lays out some of his thinking. Next time a president comes in and youre working for him or her i recommend you read all of them before you go to the next meeting. And they are pretty tough. He lays out a good china that he would like to see and then he implies something Steve Schwarzman also said several times on television that is whole course of u. S. China relations to a large degree is up to china and the debate that they are having. They have steve, peter navarro, Stephen Steve mnuchin. Let me go next this site becausbecause they represent ab0 year marathon that is now required reading in all of washington and is an excellent book. When you go to china i see the hardliners winning and its harder and harder for the reformers who want domestic reform and purposes much less anything for political reform to get the ear of the president and the worry is that the hardliners on both sides are winning and that is driving us apart. Is that what you see tax yes. Its also what Henry Kissinger warned about the very last chapter of his book on china that the bike there and he forecast the unfathomable war on the scale of world war i to the u. S. And china is on both sides people into power. And i got the title 100 year marathon in fact from one of these. I know pretty well and doctor kissinger spent a whole page on the particular hardliner. On the first visit we had a Cocktail Party i took him over to the pentagon but he said this will never happen. It is a fringe element to reflect a stream of thinking. It will never happen, but it did. I think that by the way they have known a great deal about the hardliners all along. But the general estimate has been that they were not very powerful. And in many ways, all of us felt that some of the Foreign Ministry in beijing telling us these hardliners have no power. Nobody listens to them. Sort of the ones you rollout. But you raised kissinger as a reform that happened in november. Kissinger famously said we are in the foothills of a cold war with china. That doesnt mean we need to go all the way. Where do you see the administration going . Do you see them pushing towards a cold war or wanting to come back from that . Select many ways through you think through that what through go through war with military. There are little micro indicators like the South China Sea and what degree do the navigation controls observed innocent passage rules where they dont turn on their weapons radar, they dont go in circles, there is five criteria for how you can make passage without challenging the countrys actual territorial claims. It seems to me as i understand from the navy spokesman, we have not aggressively challenged the chinese with these kind of maneuvers. I dont know if you have seen us this reference the study on exactly how we approach the issue of the Navigation Missions that could change if the trade deal goes sour and its very voluntary on both sides. I could envision a cold war breaking oucold warbreaking outr lack of a better word and when you look back at the details of how the first cold war started, its not as if the two sides in 46 set up a bit of a cold war. Its a series of blunders. At some point you had the article and we did launch it and you think we are not quite there yet. With the phrase about the foothills i think that it can be avoided but it takes two sides and the intricacies of the trade agreement could have laid out the foundation for the cold war. I do want to get to the trade agreement since you were so instrumental in getting it through it is a real accomplishment. Let me give their because you mentioned freedom of navigation in the South China Seas and in the u. S. At least in the news cycles we have been so fixated on the trade and i just want to get your views on the other parts of the relationship, whats happening diplomatically and on the security sphere you spending a lot of time in your paper which was excellent talking about our allies in asia and what each of them are doing on the military side. I thought that this paper was excellent and made some good points about what they are already doing and what we should be doing more with our allies. When you see the administrations defense policy, you see some of that but also in my view inconsistently you see them asking japan to more than triple its payments and south korea the same thing, triple the contribution. How do you view that and is a part of a Cohesive Strategy or is that multiple people not working together . This is where the president has strong views in his books in 20 years earlier. So, the notion that we are being ripped off by our allies is a very poor donald trump view. If you want to associate yourself with him, we are going to see him in the oval office. You are there all the time. I never there. If i say we need to work with our allies and we share values and can you say they are ripping us off again, we need to ask them to go 500 more. Who is the president going to listen to and im afraid this calculation goes on around of secretary colin other secretaries to try to get the president to go along with them. We had a lot of firings. People who were close advisers that have been fired now in the first three years including cabinet secretaries and there is a pattern. If you say things or do things that are kind of a yesterday and the bass doesnt agre base doese president doesnt agree, it is a good way to get fired. If you tell us about your valianthe press about yourvaliar allies that is a good way to get fired, too. I feel the crucial part of the strategy is to bring our allies along, to listen, to get their ideas. It is absolutely crucial so in my chapter for the book, i tried to describe what the administration is doing with each country in asia but others opposed my point of view and think im kind of a deep state infiltrator to think this way its not just the treaties that our partners and friends i think it many ways its the key to the overall approach to china. Thank you. You dont strike me as very deep state. China, india and america. If you are going to praise me, i need to praise you as well. Does everybody have a copy of the book . Its called brave new world. This is how you get the moderator to be very nice to you, only softball questions from here out. [laughter] wh who does not have a copy of the book . [laughter] perfect. I will now follow up with a softball. Tell us about a trade deal and what you think the most effective parts are. The president had a signing ceremony in the white house is wednesday and have a lot of ceos from the large corporations and then singled out each one with a kind of intimate joke including hank greenberg, by the way, one of the friends that are highly knowledgeable. So, doctor kissinger was there. You were there. She got me in trouble with my fellow experts because he referred to the partnership and i wouldnt dream of having the partnership with the president of the United States, but the point of the signing ceremony is they were there. They laughed and applauded. You can see theres not any acrimony or bitterness. We have had a tough two years to get the trade agreement which nobody can understand because it is written for trade voyeurs. The chinese translation which ive been through is also quite ambiguous. So it is a celebration that so far so good. There is goodwill, theres a recovery the president acted very quickly to. And the number of chinese who come in some cases the delegation was 39 officials. We have them all on the fifth floor of the treaty room. They are the people that run china, the economy and trade policy. At one point, there was a title, special envoy. Then they told us in september not to use that title anymore so we had to ponder what that mea meant. So i see this is good news. Its not so important as the cooperative attitude after a really severe Emotional Experience for both sides over the last two years. I read the agreement in english, not the chinese version. What i thought was awful as the dispute resolution mechanism. Its sensitive on the chinese side but we are here in english. Really novel to have one side if you need to and lets hope it works and on the intellectual property side, some pretty important especially on the biologics and all those things. Was it worth the cost, the amount the economy suffered what ultimately came out of the deal, was it worth the . I think so but i try to put myself in the mind of another who are going to inherit this problem and whether they would be willing to use the tariffs as much as President Trumpeted against the wishes of some in his administration and to threaten other majors. There was a campaign in the press sometimes using a memo that said if the chinese do not come around we are going to put capital constraints on them. The waiver that president obama gave on the accounting anomalies not being required to be reported to the sec, that will go away. They talked about the 83 trillion of capital over the next few years. The u. S. Government would have ways to slow that down and hurt a large amount of capital by the real estate standards so i think those threats may have worked. They were not made by the president directly if you look at the chapter it talks about the different voices on the policy and so forth. They follow that very closely so they had to make an assessment last september, october. We could be really badly hurt by these additional measures. It may have affected their decision but they did it with goodwill and a kind of chinese philosophical fatalism that this is a long game and this is going to go on for hundreds of years, so yes china has to make a a concession and then they brilliantly marketed it by saying at the white house signing ceremony there is a letter that read out in his own remarks and then theres the ambassadors remarks. All three said this agreement is important for global peace and Global Economic growth. In other words, they are taking one for the team, the rest of the world from these unreasonable pressures and threats and so forth. I thought that was brilliant handling by the chinese side. Everyone is talking about face number two with a strategic andc and economic dialogue has been renamed. Any chances that youll see anything close to phase two in november. We have to wait and see. There are some issues that the president could solve goes to beijing to see his friend. I think it is escalated b was ee way beyond a friend. According to the president s comment so one theme is the subsidies. We are in the dark because in some ways they are secret. There isnt a list that says here they have roughly eight state owned enterprises on the fortune 500 list and by the way they beat the companys now. 80 of which are state owned so they are secret and we will need their cooperation in identifying the subsidies ought to be eliminated which they promised they were negotiating around to do that. So that is one issue. The second issue is we will begin the enforcement phase with a bilateral dispute recognition is more properly. So they will have the state summit, the issue of secrecy, the enforcement that could turn into a very nasty quarrel and then the other policies in the diplomacy military sphere theres quite a long list actually, there are many other issues. All of that will be at stake in how we fall face number two. I am cautiously optimistic about it and i think the president is, too. We will close in on that note a very cautious optimism. They d you for taking the time d contributing. [applause] many thanks to Mike Pillsbury for being so candid and thanks to our great director. Before i introduce secretary rice and they have a conversation about these issues, i was remiss in my opening remarks and not recognizing the ambassadors, the ambassador of ukraine, he is here, welcomed the United States. [applause] and of austria also here with us. [applause] and i believe the ambassador of mexico is here. [applause] as we talked about, the strategy became 36 years ago at the height of the cold war when we were very young officials in the administration. And the intent was cant people get away from washington once a year in the summer and the struggle with the big issues of the cold war. Show him die, brent scowcroft, general schoolcraft, sam nunn, bill perry would do for people who brought us together and we are just there and headers. We are dedicated nonpartisanship and that is a radical concept in washington, but we are dedicated to it. Condoleezza rice has been a big part of this group since the 1980s when she first went, i think in 1986. Now she is our cochair. I dont want to belabor her extraordinary life and career. Shes someone i deeply admire. As the National Security adviser when she was the special assistant to president george h. W. Bush. We worked together at the end of the cold war. She is a professor at stanford, and authoran author, speaker, vy patriotic american. So, i want to pay tribute to the cochair and then ask you the first question. When president chump came in with the secretary in 2017, they made two big strategic announcements in the National Security strategy of 2017, they said essentially terrorism remains in abiding concern with the rise and assertiveness of china and russia are the greatest threats to face and that was also in the secretaries Defense Strategy report. Are you in agreement with that suggestion . Fo firs first thanks to everyone for being here and anya and mike. Thank you for your leadership. I think whenever you have the reemergence of the great power rivalry is different than the great rivalry that brings with it is a whole array of tools whether it is military power, economic absolute looks different and i think actually after the close of the soviet union we thought we were done. There was the sense that everybody was going to integrate into the washington consensus. And even democratic capitalism. The russians seemed to be very much on that path and there were those who believed by the integration of china into the International Economy we would begin to see the liberalization of chinese politics. So, you said earlier that the expectation of them the collaboration actually the expectation was integration. And now you see frustration with the vet and of course the russian and chinese challenges are different. Russia is a power without the full array of assets. I mean when its the first time you bought something that was made in moscow that wasnt made of petroleum, and by the way, dont say vodka you might buy that in france these days. If you look at china you have a rising power but certainly the emergence of the rivalry is different than what they thought they would be facing. And that is why they rightfully removed to do this to be the greatest National Security challenge that we have. Its talk about the practical aspects of this, because i have a lot of sympathy, and im sure you do, too onto the shrub administration. On the one hand, weve got to work with china. Eventually we have to work on Climate Change in stabilizing the Global Economy and resisting and containing the pandemics. On the other hand they are the biggest strategic competitor. We have a military battle underway and ideas that all that we will talk about and then to make it really complicated, you dealt with this as the secretary of state, we disagree with them on hong kong and taiwan and what is happening in western china. How do you balance essential cooperation that we must have essential competition, but gets priority and how do you write for human rights on this . The problem with this policy requires nuance and america isnt particularly good nuance what was good for the soviet union was bad in the United States and what was that for the United States was good for the soviet union. In fact at no time was it more than 1 of the soviet gdp accounted for by international trade. This is a completely isolated economy. It really didnt matter to the Global Economy. We have isolated it further through restrictions meaning they couldnt participate in the Technological Progress that was going on around the world. It was an isolated state and it was self isolatinofthe self isog all the way back to Joseph Stalin fo and the soviet union didnt want to integrate. Fastforward to chinfast forware expectation was that somehow everybody is all this big train coming down the tracks, more than a billion peopl people, and economcome ineconomy that is gry rapidly and they said lets integrate that into the system rather than let it override which is why by the way they were admitted to the wto ahead of schedule when china havent confirmed its laws and practices. One of my jobs was to explain to the russians why they were not in the wto and china was to be the only answer you could give is because they are economy matters. And so we have these expectations about china but have now been frustrated and what concerns me is that the nuance as you put it in your remarks there will be an overreaction to our disappointment that our notion of how they would integrate the its how we were traveling on the freedom of navigation coming up to the line there be a unilal provocation. We are going to have to say to the chinese and this is where i agree completely with the administration, on unfair trading practices under the false colors of your still developing countries are simply not acceptable. Its not acceptable to steal intellectual property. Its not acceptable to privileged National Champions over the national competition. Its not acceptable to use your joint ventures to fill intellectual property. Its not fair to have whole segments of your economies closed to competition and on that, we are going to call you and i hope that in phase two, because phase number one didnt get enough of these practices. But eventually the Chinese Industrial policy has got to be on the table. Because china is not playing by fair rules. Its a huge economy and it does. So we have to call this where we have to when it comes to Something Like a pandemic i hope that we are going to get the kind of cooperation that we need. The practical aspects which is really hard, i am not trying to go back and cast judgment and ask you to cast judgment, lets go forward. No matter who gets elected in november, whether President Trump in a second term or democratic for first term. Should we go back to some version 2021, 2022, 40 of global trade of democratic freemarket countries that had weight against china. I actually agree that i said that President Trumps toughness on china, my own view, he wouldve been better off aligned with the eu on japan against china. Do we need to go back to have weight in this fight with the chinese . We certainly need to have a strategy that brings allies into our challenges with china. Let me give you one example. The technological decoupling that is taken place with china ended technological decoupling is taking place, what ever the United States, japan, europe, india, whatever differences we have about privacy and the internet, pales in comparison to her differences with china on issues of privacy. We really do have two internet and it will have to be to because its irreconcilable. One where you can more or less say what do you think and talk to him you please within limits you can see and view anything you want. To me its social control in china those are irreconcilable. We need our allies to recognize we have more in common than not. When you think about trade policy, i would rather be aligned with others who have relatively open economies, when we say to the chinese we have to change or industrial policy, but we have to be careful how we do it, lets take huawei as an example. I would be a major proponent of not having huawei in my 5g network, it is a chinese company, it will do what its told, but do i want to say you cannot self component to huawei, do i want to say they cannot sell headsets, and my creating a situation which im asking other countries to choose between the United States and their commercial interest in china, i think we have to be careful how hard we push on these issues but if we go back to what we have in common to deal with the rise in china, i think we will do better than on our own. As all of us trouble in east asia, every single neighbor of china no matter how friendly or life, is that what you are worried about . At least dont make us choose visibly and audibly, i think with the right incentives people will choose correctly and i went to pick about the rise in china, there ought to be some room for looking for those moments when chinas rise can be accommodat accommodated. Let me give you a specific example. A few years ago chinese came up with the idea the agent for structure Investment Bank. They were going around and telling everybody we want this to be world bank standards, they were hiring people from the world bank and i think that mightve been by the way that was the Obama Administration that opposed it. I think it mightve been a moment to say to the chinese, thats a great idea, we all need infrastructure, lets start in afghanistan and make it transparent and it would have been a way to say, we are not trying to block your rise at every corner because you are a rising power but heres a healthy way to play in the International Economy. Instead we said nobody should join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank it will compete with the Bretton Woods institutions and then the british joined in when the british joined you pretty much by your self. So we also need to look for those places where chinas rise can be accommodated and in a way that is useful and the International Economy. In the military sphere, steve, you and i worked very closely in the george w. Bush administration to build up the strategic relationship with india. We were cognizant of the fact that we have a strategic event over china, we have allies in the chinese do not. We started at the assistant secretary of state level as a quad, a show you, japan, india in the United States, not wishing to fight china but talking together of how we can enhance political Foreign Policy and military incorporation, the Trump Administration to its credit has elevated at the second dream state and secretary of defense level. Is this how we should think about Strategic Military cooperation that we should be tied up with our allies not to fight the chinese but limit them. And to pursue coincident interest. We all have an interest in freedom of navigation. We do not have to say fight china on freedom of navigation, we are supporting the principle of freedom of navigation which is important to all the countries you mentioned. The other thing is to be careful of how we describe such things. Australia is an ally, japan is a treaty ally. The indians are partners. We do not have to fourt forced e issue of people come in a formal alliance, cooperation ought to be enough and again, it comes to meeting these countries where they are. I should go back, you asked about trying to get into gdp, lets remember part of the problem is that no candidate in the 2016 election including the secretary of state who had negotiated. Secretary clinton supported the ttp, that tells you something about where trade is in the american firmament, i personally was very pleased to see some of the tougher things that were said about nafta was the worst agreement in history by the president when he came in, we actually did get a usmexico candidate agreement. We may have to do this in a way that does not go back and try to pick up where we were but actually take some of these things on. I think if you can look asia again you would want Something Like the ttp but i dont think it be the ttp. Trade is such a difficult issue of both Political Parties but for those of us who think about our strategic weight, some successor in the next decade to ttp could be what we need to unite the democratic world on the trade issues. It may well be but i think we will have to take this one step at a time. It may be that a series of bilateral treaties are going to be more trilateral in the case with mexico and canada, possibly with europe, i think we will have to build it out, im not sure the big multilateral trade agreements have much of a future in the short term. To more questions. One is a question in every administration from the Clinton Administration on including this one trumped out with, how do we balance these competing objectives. I want to ask your common sense approach, we need them on Climate Change and we need them on pandemics and that there are strongest competitor that we need to compete. So, can we keep these competing interests in some relative balance and be successful . What you end up doing is balancing every day. You go to china and you bring up the human rights issue and religious freedom issues and then you sit down and have a conversation about north korea. China is a grownup country. And they are quite aware that the United States is going to raise these issues occasionally and secretary of state raises issues of religious objectors or human rights issues and you will get someplace. As long as you do it in a respectful way i dont think you has to undermine other areas in which we have to cooperate. I dont think that we buy anything by pretending that we do not care about what is happening to the weakers in china. I dont think that we get anywhere pretending that we do not care about social control on the internet. So it is a balancing act every day but i think it can be managed and i think the chinese understand that. Last question and then we will open it up to all of you. When i left our meeting in august after three and half days of real debate and discussion, very civil but toughminded in some cases, i was left with the thought that despite chinas strength, we should not forget our own. We are a strong country, militarily, economically, politically, our soft power, private sector and sometimes we forget that. So its kind of a softball to my friend. I interviewed secretary rice two years ago and i asked her the following question, what are you worried about and i thought i was asking are you worried about she judginxi jinping, have we le selfconfidence that america can do great things, we can compete with china talk about that. I like going back and reading Ronald Reagan because his acceptance of challenges whether the soviet union was always on the basis of american strength. And it is very important that we recognize that china is a rising power but china has a lot of demerit, you think about the demographic bomb that they face. By the way, you can get into a authoritarian and be in authoritarians can get things done, look at the great airports they built, they build roads, you can build an airport in china in the time it takes to get a permit to be a hairdresser in the United States. This is all true, but authoritarians make bad decisions efficiently. So a few years ago they decided in china that population control was a problem and now we have a one child policy, efficiently even brutally carried out and now 34 million chinese men do not have mates. The problem with authoritarians, if youre gonna be omnipotent, you better be on a mission to. Most human beings are not. So authoritarians make a lot of mistakes. We stumble around as democracy and have all kinds of voices and its tough to get things done but we make fewer bigger mistakes, we need to look back at what are our strengths, ill give you three that the china challenge could cause us to undermine. The first is, i understand china has a national a. I. Strategy, they have a National Quantum computing strategy, national please, lets not have a national u. S. Strategy. We have always exceeded because we have multiple places at which innovation takes place, and might be the person who sits in a garage and comes up with something that nobody else has ever caught up. When it gets pushed from the top down, it will not work in the United States, i do not think it work in china, lets not tried out china china. I dont mind that we have to discuss how we can put our strength together but something driven out of washington will not work and ill give you a good example. Bill perry said when he was under secretary, he testified in the congress in 1978 or 1979 and he was asked, what is the future of personal computing and he said theres no reason for personal computers. That was bill perry, one of the most technologically sophisticated people i know. If the need for personal computers had been driven from washington we might not have had them. So lets not try to have a National Strategy on things. Lets go to our strengths. Second point, the openness of our society. I have watched as pressure is growing on universities not to admit Chinese Students to our frontier laboratory, places like stanford and mit in texas and austin in illinois and harvar harvard sorry i meant to mention harvard, it was an oversight. But i remember that you hear this and i want to say and i have said to u. S. Government agencies, do not try to turn universities into intelligent agencies. If you know somebody is working for the pla do not get them a visa and we will not admit them. If you start to undermine the ultimate of the core of universities, you have to have a clash between universities and the government and universities have been at the heart of innovation in this country, the silicon valley, route 128, the Research Triangle in north carolina, austin and lets not undermine that. The final one that i hope we will not undermine, we have a place for the best and the brightest have wanted to come because it really did not matter where you came from, and matter where you are going. You could come from humble circumstances and do great things. But the key to that was always a high quality education. And the chinese can do nothing worse to us than what were doing with the state of take country k12 education in the United States today. Unless those kids believe they have a chance to participate, by the way, that was a dream that was taken up by immigrants as well, i remember sitting at a dinner and he said you know why the United States will always leave because if you arent a Young Software engineer you might want to go to germany, japan, you can never be really german or japanese, you can go to the United States, you can be american on day one. And be ceo. If we refocus on our strength, i dont think theres a country in the world that can ultimately compete with us but if we take a page from their book instead and try to replicate what they do, we will fail. That is how they will succeed. Thats why ive said its our confidence that i think is actually our greatest challenge. Needless to say, i think the entire group is in an in agreement with you. Its beautifully said, and are red blue, northsouth, we dont talk about enough about our strengths and general jim mattis who we admire is a senior counsel of secretary cohen offered a dinner in general matus talks about what you do, he said the following, one more thing before we go to questions. He said the United States has two powers in the world. We have the power of intimidation, that is the marine corps, army, navy, we have the power of inspiration in general matus said that as the power, that is the secret sauce of the United States. That is the secret sauce of the United States. If you go around the world, people are grateful for our economy which drives the world economy, they are really sometimes a little intimidated but frankly when there is hard work to be done, we have men and women in uniform who volunteered to go to the front line of freedom, its appreciated by people. But with is appreciated is the central notion of the United States that you can come from humble circumstances and do great things. And to the degree that people begin, we as americans no longer believe that is true, too many are citizens that it is not true any longer. When i look at your zip code in tell a few get a good education, i cannot really say it does not matter where you came from and thats where youre going. I would not use the language that the president has used about America First and so forth and so on. But i think there was a bit of a lesson in 2016 election for those of us who have been part of the globalizing elite and capture with the idea that the integrating globalizing world would lift everybody in the 2016 election was a little bit of a wakeup call because people were saying do you hear me now. I am not doing that well out here, im not doing that well out here, i do not want to hear your stories about the global commons. I dont want to hear your stories about americans responsibility for the global common, i want you to come back here and tell me how i will deal with the fact that i have no skills, my kids are not well educated. In that sense, the president is right turning to our challenges here, is a part of making us confident again so we can lead out there. I will say one thing, a world that the United States advocates leadership is not going to be a world in which our allies we share our values step up to the plate. Its either going to be a world in which those who dont share values tried to step up to the plate over nobody does. Then you have the chaos and the jungle that we saw play out in world war i and world war ii under the United States and its allies decided theres a better way. Thank you very much, questions and comments for secretary rice . Secretary rice, how do we come to activities that were heavily engaged in where were taking control over dramatic Raw Materials that we need imports around the world where the military is concerned that we cannot go into these environments because the chinese will block us out in the latest thing that we saw in australia where they try to buy a guy to get involved in election in that kind of thing. Will we see more and more around the world about that. Absolutely, im glad you brought up the election issues because weve been focused on the russians but im told the chinese are a bigger problem if not a bigger problem. Part of it is getting our act together and doing something about it. One of the problems is the infrastructure is not owned by the u. S. Government, it is owned privately. When we learned that the russians were doing what they were doing through facebook, we needed better cooperation between the Intelligence Agency and the private sector in the level of trust is not very high between the privat sector and te government but we need that cooperation if we are going to respond to these issues. When you look at the bolton rope strategy, loan to own. The idea that the chinese will go in and get financing for a port or Infrastructure Project and then when the country cannot pay back, the chinese own control of it. I think you publicize it. I do not think this works in the 21st century. I think it is really well known exactly what they are doing, you will see countries have to respond to that and by the way, and some african countries where the standards, Environmental Standards were the health and Safety Standards have caused major accidents, that needs to see the light of day, sometimes truth is your best option as propaganda. And one of the most effective things that we did, the chinese used to essentially lie about the pollution standard the level of pollution in beijing. In our embassy put out a barometer that measured the particular. And pretty soon chinese citizens were getting their own app that would tell them what the air quality really was. In the government had to stop lying about it. I think sometimes we dont use the ability to expose some of these activities and put some pressure on these countries, not to sign on to bad deals. We dont mean to hi mimic but there is the build act, democrats and republicans supported. I think it has the right strategy which is what you really want people to do is to have systems with private investment. We are never going to be able, we cannot build infrastructure between nebraska and kansas so we will not build worldwide infrastructure. What we can do is and send these countries to have high enough standard, the president of liberia told president bush on once, she said i really want American Companies in here and he said why and she said because you have something called a foreign corrupt practices act and i know when my minister signed an agreement then thats where that is going to the project. So we have something that can demonstrate to countries that are looking for help. The mic will come right to you. Secretary, thank you ray much for a brilliant presentation and the questions as well. President trump is renowned as a businessman, Mike Pillsbury talked about this, how we approach this he is approaching Foreign Policy in a businesslike fashion pretty wants to put a cost benefit analysis on many of our relationships including the military where it appears if you get as you pay and if you dont pay dont go. But in terms of Foreign Policy where he is looking, why do we need to be in japan, why do we need to be in south korea, why are we still in germany, how does that philosophy fit into what you are just saying if we are withdrawing because they are not paying up, there is no return on investment, how does that keep us engaged in being the player on the global seem as its continuing to secure peace and security. All of us that have done this, transactional Foreign Policy is kind of hard. I do this, you do that, it does not work that way, you build larger relationships and support. But we also know, he went around the world telling them to pay up, not so much the agent or south korea and japan where i think if you look at the actual numbers, we do pretty well. But how many times did you give the speech at nato or did i give a speech at nato or did our president s give a speech at nato, how about the 2 and so i dont really blame the president for saying to nato, you want our support, i probably would not have threatened not to defend them but maybe you need to get peoples attention on some of these. But the core of your question, i think transactional Foreign Policy is hard and actually if you look at the American Alliance structures, i. E. As you probably have spoke for the national were colleges a couple of years ago for their Exchange Program with officers and there were 49 countries represented in that room, what great power in Human History has had 49 allies. And yes they can be frustrating and yes sometimes but you know when it comes down to it, i think you would rather have the lies the end not and sometimes if you are the big power you might have to put up with a little bit more than you would like. I would caution against transactions but i would say in nato i was cheering them all the way. I am compelled to say this as a former ambassador, on 9 11 we were hit hard, called the circuitry from brussels the National Security advisor from brussels and said that allies want to invoke article five and the first time of nato history. And you said to me, i need instructions from you and the president to agree and you said. I said its good to have friends. Ironically, article five never has been invoked, we always assumed it would be by half. By the way because we did not have a command to the United States we were dependent in the early hours o, the allies steppd up but we still could get better contributions. We have had a 30 year in the allies went into afghanistan and suffered 1000 combat deaths in several thousand allies, europeans, canadians, japanese, new zealanders, australians, and incredible show of support, nafta force thats the difference between us and the authoritarian power. Is also the case that i said would nato paying up but lets remember nato had an extraordinary role at the end of the cold war in helping the countries of Eastern Europe find a north star for democratic development, the twin of the European Union northstar in the nato norstar we have several military reform in the lot of these countries and a lot of people worry like gary and turkey goes into conflict, will romanian hungry have conflict . I think the nato relationship help to smooth the transition. It is been an incredibly valuable alliance, is still does need more in the way of transformation and that does take money. We have time for maybe two more questions. She is a phd that Harvard University but stanford undergrad, a former student of secretary rice and mine. And she joined us this past summer at aspen and she was a compelling speaker. The floor is your. I want to talk about something that happened after aspen. In october we sell the Houston Rockets controversy where the general manager of the Houston Rockets tweeted the hong kong protesters while the team was in china. And i think the response to the entire controversy was lacking. I never saw anyone from the u. S. Government stand up for rights or freedom of speech or things like that, were talking about the war of idea and i wonder what you would say secretary rice about their appropriate response to an incident like that. Yes, for those of you forgot the general manager of the Houston Rockets tweeted support for the hong kong demonstrator, the chinese mably overreacted including canceling games and all kinds of things in the mba im a great fan of adam silver but the initial response was not Strong Enough. Eventually the mba came and said we support the rights of our people to say what they wish to say. I probably wouldve said to the chinese, maybe quietly, youre always telling us not to interfere in your internal affairs, telling an american what to say is interfering in our internal affairs, americans get to say what they wish and i actually thought the mba was in a stronger position than they realize. Because, the mba is wildly popular in china. And it is not just ja the great chinese player, they love the sport in china. If the chinese threatened to take the mba off the air, i would say be my guest. Lets see how long before all those only child prints liens are satisfied watching the Chinese National team. I think the mba was in a stronger position and sometimes you have to force the issue. Dont be so diplomatic. [laughter] im no longer secretary of state. [laughter] please, the microphone will come right to you. It will take about ten seconds. Hi, im a bigger meyer of secretary of state. I am an american citizen and i originally work in the chinese government, i was a mason pilot at the Kennedy School. I want to mention that every chinese Government Official, every business ceo, every wealthy family in china are the only child or the second child to america, not to high school and then to college and then to higher degrees. That is a fact, secondly there is Kennedy School of alumina in china and i think in the past there is a trending program between the chinese and some organizations in the Kennedy School. I think some already reached minister level and though they cannot say certain things but within the decisionmaking category, they are very powerful and also there is a lot of resentment in china among the people, among the local officials in the policy because where does china get enough money to continue and why you dont spend the money for poor regions in china. That is it. Thank you very much, may i just say a point about Chinese Students coming here. I recognize fully that we face certain challenges with some Chinese Students who may come here, learn certain things and go back home. And that people considered us unforced error in terms of technology transfer. I understand that. I also understand that i want Chinese Students to experience the United States, i want them to experience what it is like to study in a place where you can study what you want, when you want, one of the Chinese Students that i know at stanford was asked, what was the thing that impressed you most about the internet and she said i could read anything i wanted to. I think we sometimes it goes to your point, we do not completely understand the power of an open society. And i understand we face these challenges but i certainly hope it does not take the form of cutting ourselves off from generations of Chinese Students who we will be better served if they had the chance to be here. I would make a prediction that i completely agree on the College Professor as well, i think there will be a big debate between those of us on University Campuses who see the power of our inspiration and some of the National Security community in congress who wants to legislate that certain students from certain countries cannot come here. We have to have an open discussion, it is right in front of us. You have to leave, do you want any parting words of wisdom to give us some hope . My parting word of wisdom, i think we will get there are challenges in the United States of america, people say the American People are tired and didnt we defeat this soviet union, didnt we defeat at least alqaeda that did 9 11 and can somebody else do this. Steve will remember in the oval office of august 2008 and president bush was looking at polls that were not so kind to the bush administration. And he said, i do not believe we are this unpopular. And i said they are tired of us. It has been war, terrorism, vigilant, i know there is a weariness with world leadership i know americans carried two contradictory notions in the hunt were tired but if theres nobody else to do that, i dont want to watch people beheaded on television. President trump said im not going to watch syrian children choking on gas. Im not going to watch as Vladimir Putin threatens the baltic state. Im going to put heavy brigades and im going to say to the russians you might have to kill an american right now to get to them which is always the way nato operated. And so i think an american president can actually determine which of those impulses he or she wishes to stimulate and the American People. And given how much we have benefited from the International System that at least in the half we were able to be more dominant, really believed and our values and help to carry our interest, i hope american president s, as we talk about all the problems we need to solve the home so we can be Strong Enough at home but we will not lose site of the extraordinary last 75 years or so of what was achieved. Thank you for reminding us what made us great. Thank you, madam secretary carmac. [applause] [inaudible conversations] we will continue this conversation in my thanks to secretary rice for being with us. We will continue the conversation with 215 minute discussions with two really smart people. We are nonpartisan but obviously we have democrats and republicans in our group, you just heard from two republicans, Mike Pillsbury Condoleezza Rice, now you will hear from two democrats, Kathleen Hicks and Kurt Campbell. Kathleen hicks is not the household name that rice is but in my humble explanation you will hear a lot more from her in the future, cat is the henry kinzinger senior Vice President of cis in the henry kinzinger chair and she was a senior official in the Obama Administration and is deputy secretary of state she was in charge of her Strategic Planning and i think she is one of the smartest people in washington and thinking about how america positions itself with strategic dominance, nato we have two ambassadors from europe and ukraine and austria and also around the world we have the ambassador of mexico here so its really a pressure to have kathleen here, theres a chapter that she has written and i want to talk to you about the military challenges that we face and to remind you we have a former secretary of defense of us who has the right if he wishes to give its on these issue, we have spent the last two years focused on two issues, issue number one, how do we working with australia, japan, singapore, malaysia and especially india, to make sure there is a wait in the indo pacific of free and democratic countries, most of those countries free and democratic to limit chinas military ambition. The other thing we talked about two years ago was a huge competition that was on us for military technology of the future in the digital age biotech machine learning. Just to open this up, are you confident that the engineering and r d talent in our universities in Tech Companies and the strength of the pentagon to do longrange planning not just to compete with the chinese but retainer dominance or do you think that is at risk . Thank you for having me here. I want to think my coauthor he was here. To answer your question, i am confident that we can compete and succeed, i am not confident we are undertaking the whole nation effort required to do that. That includes things like smart anger under immigration policies like secretary rice and you were speaking about, engineers, we will not grow organically from inside the United States at a peacefully need. We have to rely on immigrants and we have to and sent them to stay just as it is tightening its immigration the chinese open up their stem related immigration nations. Perfect counterpoint to the way the u. S. Is approaching this challenge. We have to invest federal r d dollars, even though we are not china or state run economy, there will have to be met unto much more incentive rather than dollars struck the from the federal government to create inside industry avenues of approach in the emerging technology that you mentioned and others. In create incentives for them to work at the defense department, we also have to live our values, people have to want to work with the defense department. We have to demonstrate that the United States and china are not morally equipped today, we do not spy on our citizens, we are not using facial recognition, we are not putting them in encampments like the chinese are doing with uighurs but we do have to make a case to people, particularly when people have had military or national when social media makes it so easy to pull into your own community because there is a commonality to patriotism. In your paper in the book if you look at joe and katz chapter, you talk about operations but you talk about the challenges that we face and a competition for naval supremacy in the south and East China Sea going to the Second Island chain, were talking about air superiority but were talking about cyber superiority and assets in space. Educate is if you will about the full realm of threats that we are facing how best we can respond. You are right, the way i would put it most easily is that the chinese and russians are different but they both have a fluidity working from what you might call routine statecraft scaled up to the way they think about strategically and everything in between that we are not yet similarly move fluidly across and, its created a lot of challenges, we set up a toolkit and although we are having trouble right now in the state department because we do not have ambassadors and people are leaving and that the higher end we have the highend military piece that i will come to. The middle as you point out that theres all of their tactics being used in our toolkit right now is a little bear, we of sanctions, diplomacy, sanctions and military power, thats what we like to lean into. Where the other actors are really good about including information, cyber approaches, information et cetera. When i get to the highend, the biggest challenge United States faces, we dont currently have concepts of operation that effectively married the way in which the theory of victory and how we expect to the chinese to fight and how they can be capable all along the spectrum of achieving the strategic interest. That requires weaving across things like space that we were relying on in the military round in the commercial sector is highly relying on space access, cyber as you pointed out where both have military requirements but also a lot of threats that could face the homeland in terms of core version over cyber. And on and on. Its building out the capability for the defense department, one of the Biggest Challenges is always managing the top line of investment in the pressure of continuing yearoveryear legacy system of investment versus creating room for research and development in the new Technology Era and having concepts of effective marrying that into capabilities. I want to ask two questions and then open it up, david was a key part of our meetings in the classmate of mine at john hopkins but also a great scholar. I want to bring into the conversation. But one of the things that we discovered two years ago on technology in the digital age, a number of real experts told us the following. Within 10 20 years the military technology that we visualized as representing power, a carrier, and have 35 might be outmoded and we might be in a situation of 100 years ago when the russians rode into the First World War and horseback in the tank and aircraft appeared for the first time in global history on the battlefield. Can you envision by 2035 that were going to be in that kind of a world that the fight will be in space in the fight will be in cyberspace and not really much on land and fee . That might be too deterministic. We do not quite know and neither did folks in prior generations. This is about how you manage investments and where you make your bets, what are your blue chips, what are your high return and low investment and where are the stocks here. So that requires a continual assessment. My answer to you is the hard reality that the United States basically has bought a lot of its structure for the next ten years. People say we have to get rid of carriers. Were building carriers. We have carriers, it will cost you a lot of money to decommission them. There is a lot of myth busting to be done about the speed in which you can drastically shift without a significant investment flow coming in which Something Like a major war. I do not anticipate that, instead what we need to focus on is the idea of rapid experimentation and prototyping and Unmanned Systems that have been around for decades and that we know how the systems work and how we can do more of them or cheaper in using advantages like a. I. , Artificial Intelligence that can help enough those capabilities. You have to test those and exercise with your allies in the pacific and then you need to focus on what the investment stream is and what i allows me too grow more relevant capabilities. Space and cyber will be essential. Space is extremely expensive i will point out so it takes a big chunk of money but the other areas i absolutely would be the last wednesday we will have to worry about wars on the ground or maritime challenges, those things continue, we just have to be ahead of the curve in a way in which they are evolving. Is a question for democrats and republicans, whether President Trump has a second term or Vice President biden is the president , what ever happens, do we have sufficient political will to meet the challenge. Some people have contrary meetings and serious scientist tech people say we need a moonshot, we need to treat this problem of competition with china the way we treated the competition with the soviet union. Has it reached that level . I think the overall competition has reached that level is just the moonshot is not going to be a widget, is not going to be primarily military although it has significant military element it will be overall the competitiveness of our economy, our military and Foreign Policy predeadlines network, i know you had this several times a day, its a bigr strategic advantage that we have, for markets, market share if we want to compete with china and obviously on the military side, more dollars australia, japan. If the Research Based is already nationalized whether biotech, and i, whatever area, robotics, all of that is being built in germany, certainly in the u. S. But also germany, canada, australia, japan, lets leverage all of that and think strategically about the advantage so we can have a way engaging china effectively. Thank you. I just got the two minute warning, we will make a three minute warning. I want to ask professor david who was a major part of her deliberation and written a paper for the book that you all have in front of you, you understand china and you study the chinese, how do you react to past presentation and was a probability for both of you . That the United States in the keeping par or maintaining our predominance and was a probability on the other side that china outpaces us . Thank you, you kind of put me on the spot but thats the way it is. I dont disagree with anything kat just said, my own contribution, you can all read for yourselves. I will add one other dimension. Actually a competition in my chapter is not an elusive concept or dirty work, we need to embrace it, is comprehensive in she spoke to those more of the security sphere. I would like to add, to my mind, one domain that will be crucial is information domain which i dont mean cyber, i mean information, Public Diplomacy and it goes back to secretary rice and what you are talking about in terms of competition of ideas, that is at bottom for me, itll plant insecurity, diplomacy, others Fear Technology but at the end of the day itll be about the efficacy of her own values, system and what we stand for. We have to go on offense and the pd realm. Diplomacy. Defense against chinas own influence activities worldwide, they are trying to control the global narrative about their country. And other issues. This is a very complex area, not exactly gray zone military terms, its a new domain of diplomacy, its an old domain but we need to resurrect and recreate the agency and compete headon with the chinese in the Information Space and be selfconfident, thats where the previous conversation is very relevant. That i would add. Kat a concluding remark, were talking about and all government approach, david has broadened Public Diplomacy, what we did in the Second World War in the cold war. Completely agree, our paper does included that in our review of what the tactics are, the adversaries in the use of information which by the way the chinese economics is a big piece of how theyre able to process information in narrative. In the u. S. Side, huge piece, one of her three key areas to reinvest the United States and those being information more on Cyber Capabilities and economic incentive. Whether usia is the right answer, i think the point is well made that we have to have an imported roof narrative interactions have to follow our words, the only thing i would add, one of the key aspects that the environment we live in especially the information environment is the position between international and domestic is very blurry and nowhere more in the Information Space and heres where you need to not just look at public and state, you need to think about what the approaches through dhs or elsewhere in the government for sharing accurate and truthful information with the American People to combat this information to the extent that can affect the election in the past and as fbi director said we will face in 2020 and we know thats at the heart of our core interest, the antidemocratic core is at risk. Whether that is clearly a broad or manifest here or a french group that is domestically based, we need to have a way to protect our society. You can see the competence and the depth of our service prethank you kat very much for being with us. We promised we would close to cspan, 2 00 oclock, we have one more conversation and it is with someone i want to say one word about my friend Kurt Campbell. We have been working together often on inference for 30 years. If theres anyone in the United States a thought more about our strategic interest in the indo pacific, i dont know who the person is. Someone who is a strong proponent of American Power buspar power and kurt has spent his life thinking about this competition and im glad he is on our side. We are down to the last very much but not least rapid conversation. We cannot imagine anyone better than to do it with you Kurt Campbell you need no introduction, he was assistant secretary of state for asia for obama, the author of the pivot which was later renamed, we will not heckle you on that one and slightly less well known, kurt was the first person to get me involved in the Strategy Group when i was a mere kid. Thank you very much for that and being so inclusive. Let me start the same question i asked mike, if we had a democratic administration, what with the goal before our relationship with china, what is the perfect relationship with china look like . Thank you, if you dont mind i want to take a few words of thanks, not only to nick who leads the group with your assistance but there is a whole team behind him and im sure you will have a minute to say thanks to them for putting this together. I am grateful to them and i would say simply, one of the points that people often make right now is probably inaccurate is one of the areas of bipartisan support or agreement is a general acknowledgment that we will Work Together in a bipartisan weight on china. Im not sure thats exactly right, i think there is a general dissatisfaction across bipartisan lines about elements of the u. S. China relationship and there are some things that people say working with allies and finding areas where we can compete smartly and understand where we draw lines. In fact, i think were at the very earliest stages of thinking about a comprehensive strategy towards china. That is often obscured by relatively simple rhetoric about the complexity of the china challenge. And the challenge of a rise in asia. Part of that, really has a country gone understoo such a sc detour we have gone on. Were added. Either the chinese have or we have. We have essentially been focused and preoccupied away from asia fundamentally for the last 20 years, thats one reason were so grateful for nick and joe thinking about china and asia. I think much of our strategic belief has been focused on afghanistan, iraq, iran, pakistan and i think probably chinas attitude on that would be something along the lines of you go girl, this is so important, you focus on these issues, we will work on asia and in 20 years we will sit down and talk about the way things are going. In many respects we are in a big catch up. A lot of things came out of our summer session. But i think at the core is a recognition of the United States that will have to do more acrosstheboard quickly, it is a. Of incredibly exciting and dramatic strategic debate about diplomacy, technology, military issues but i think at its core is a recognition in our position is more challenged than people realize and the dominant idea is that we were talking about chinas arrival and for most of asia and the world, they dont think in those terms. China has arrived along ago and they are dominant force in asia. Travel to asia. You will hear the country is saying we would like to keep you as a security partner, but china is our most important economic partner, the number one trading partner of the far more countries around the world in the u. S. There is no way you are going to get a cold war where uniquely divide the world into two. What is your solution to that and how should we be navigating this . The first part, anya, is an accurate diagnosis. I think too often you will ask people about this, and the residue of thinking is the cold war where thercoldwar where thee that ran geographically through europe and you can decide who is on which side and whos with us and against us. Even though we would say to ourselves we understand the situation is more complex, i think that still permeates a votthelove of our strategic thig and in reality those lines dont run across borders. They run through countries and is a groups of people that are much more inclined thinking about asia and china and those on the political side who recognize that for the country to survive they need a strong sr relationship with the United States. What i tried to write in my paper is whats happening in asia right now is one of the most interesting periods of Strategic Orientation and so in india, japan and lamenting the incredible diverse multifaceted strategy which is not as well understood by us and so they are not saying we are with you or with the other side. They want to build a better relationship and they are trying to increase the contacts. Hispanic mostly on the military side. Across the board but every country is weary of the united dates right now and understands there are enormous risks you might be cited for trade violations and find yourself in the crosshairs so every country is trying to develop relationships to the United States probably secretly hopeful that we will go back to something that is more recognizable but also believing fundamentally the system is changed and not just a trump phenomenon. It might describe linkages between australia and india and japan and others working together. We couldnt have imagined. And they are doing that on their own. Every country is trying to increase their own independent capabilities and that is dependent. The spending is higher now than any other place in the world. They want our ability to shape their own futures. They are also thinking very carefully about international organizations, but at the core of the strategy its doing what you can to build a strong relationship with china so every one of the countries, the biggest event is taking place right now is that preparations in japan for the visit. For ththe japanese are very goot reassuring us which we appreciate that of course we are number one, but they are also thinking very clearly about a multifaceted diplomatic strategy. So, number one, we have to accept and understand that we cant overreact and say no, we want more of number one and less of number five. Youve got to understand that you are playing a brigade. Another thing i think nick highlighted in the conclusion you will see it in so many respects this is a domestic game. The judgments in asia about the United States will have a huge impact on how this plays out and the interesting thing if you look at asia and the United States is your consistent in their belief over decades that we are in decline after vietnam and after the cold war and the Global Economic crisis. And each time we have managed to recreate ourselves and to charge forward. In many cases surprising our closest friends and allies who was a deep believer in the period of american decline. So we have to do that again to make it clear that we have staying power and we are innovative and we are dynamic and that we welcome competition and engagement and even the dirty work that will keep us in the Playing Field for the next 50 years. I make this point when i give speeches in china and im sure you do, to back. Weve been through worse but there is a sense that we are declining. Let me follow up because we have little time where david left off and is a great interviewer chapter. You wrote that the u. S. Strategy is more confrontational sort of antichina is more sophisticated than the influence operations i will give you one concrete example i think fast tracking chinese goods through customs and all sorts of things. David asked should we be doing more on Information Operations and how can our strategy boat believed to be more sophisticated . I want to commend david. The last couple of years he has been courageous in ways that is not easy in the public debate and his paper here is really good. When i say that the chinese strategy is more sophisticated, i think that we have to be careful. I think that condoleezza is right, we have a tendency with our competitors we did that with japan. We did that with the former soviet union and now we are doing that with china. I would be the first to say they have huge limitations to their overall approach and you see it just in the response of the tragedy of the virus thats playing out now and the tendency of secrecy lots of anxiety. On the virus wouldnt you argue they are handling it much better than the crisis . It is too early to tell honestly. I am trying to follow the debate in spite of china. There is a group of people that profoundly believe the horse has left and they are at least a month behind. We are going t not going to knos for another couple of weeks. Every day it appears that in fact more is coming out and questions about local and provincial leaders took steps to rightly alert health officials. But to the larger question, one of the things you have to read when you look at this, we have a tendency in the United States to focus on the weaknesses, and there are places. But at the same time, you cannot underestimate how important the Infrastructure Projects or and what they are bringing to the countries surrounding china. I had the good fortune to be when xi jinping was here i was an escort officer along with several of us that spent quite a lot of time with him around the United States have got to see him in action, he is not. Interested in economics, not actually terribly curious, completely unsentimental with super interested in infrastructure and what infrastructure worked and what didnt. We have to take him around some airports that were not our finest and i remember him looking at me and one o in one e airports we took him to an airport in iowa because he wanted to reconnect with family and that he stayed with when he was a student. We had problems at the gate, just the typical thing we all face at certain airports in the United States. But he was very focused on infrastructure and many countries around asia are grateful. Of course they worry about the end is but fundamentally they are welcoming of this. And i remember i told a story at aspen in the summer when i was the assistant secretary we did some good work that i was on an island that was in the pacific and the ambassador picked me up and we were excited. We got in the car and we were driving on a nice road and she said how do you like the road, this is a product of the millennial challenge. I said this is eight. A nice road, we are excited and driving into town. We get about a mile from town and then we are suddenly in this address horrible rut and a terrible and she said we didnt have the funds. We are going to get a second challenge grant and probably finish it in a couple of years. That matters to Asian Countries and i think we have a tendency to look when he countries as they are uncomfortable with Something Like malaysia or pakistan to say its not working, they are not interest interested. I think that is completely wrong and it is completely reshaping asia and south asia. And many others would say look, if the roads are smoother, it is actually good for all of us and the world economy. I agree. In many respects, when you ask the question with the strategy should be, if most of these countries have a solid stable relationship with the United States, it gives them more confidence and greater ability to navigate their own future and their status with china so that is what they are looking for a and that is a good outcome for us as well. Said your bottom line but he dont make People Choose . I hate to say this, but that is a really western european the key honestly, anya is never ask the question. Never be in a situation where anyone would suspect that you wouldnt be completely behind them. Assume that they are going to work with you and configure your relationships in such a way that you are the dominant player in many of the decisionmaking. And to understand clearly what your limitations are and where you will not be able to play this out effectively. It is incredibly hard, and its also the case that china is a player in asia the one thing that ive asked all of us, it is not in an arriving power, it ia dominant power in asia that most countries will say is the dominant player in asia. Absolutely. We are respectful of peoples time because we are near the end but i will take one or two quick questions from the audience. Thank you very much. I write the mitchell report and want to ask a question that relates all the way through the session and that is if we work e to identify the greatest strategic strength that we hold in thei our relationship with ca or russia or other countries it would seem to me that it would be the fact we have developed alliances and strong alliances and that historically china has not. My question to mr. Campbell is does that still hold true today and if there is a way in which you can do it, how do you read the strength of our alliances in the year 2020 piece of visavis a decade ago . I would say that our ultimate strength is not just in our alliances. I do not want to quibble with your point, but in fact we have created a website with described as an operating system in asia. It is our alliances which are strong. It is our commitment to values, democracy and human rights. It is a very Strong Defense commitment that is generally stable and understood, so persistent and consistent with the congress and secretary defense i was honored to be able to serve with them. It is also a strong support in the concepts that seem arcane make the peaceful resolution of disputes and the freedom of navigation into some of the stuff that condoleezza is saying. This operating system, this what you call the liberal world order and the commitment that we built it is our single greatest contribution and the greatest experience of the accumulation of wealth and maintenance of peace and stability of any other period in history. The challenge if i could say if the system is being challenged by two countries right now, first more subtly by china who like state didnt like elements of the system that wants to redo it in its own image and that is a challenge we can meet and affect, but its the second challenge that is much more pernicious and that comes from the United States comes with the greatest question about our operating system comes from our political establishment who believe that asians are judging us and our security alliances are unbalanced and that trade does not work and fundamentally we should be more than a lot of the land withdrawal from some of those institutions. So, at the core the biggest challenge comes from the United States and i would also say many would say that this is a trump phenomenon. I can see elements in my own party raising questions about why we are doing this and do so in many respects, those of us that our liberal internationalists its a little bit like being kind of a samurai to jump countries you are not sure who is going to support your belief in the kind of things with several of us around the room but have devoted their lives to. Thank you so much i will leave it on that note of bipartisanship and we can all gl go back to watching the impeachment proceedings that thank you all for being here. [applause] let me close with a couple of small remarks and that is we obviously could only feature a very small number of these fantastic papers in the book and on the website please read them people put a lot of effort into them an and theres really a tht of new ones and finally none of this would have been without our fantastic teams so can we please gegive a big round of applause o all of