Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On Crouching Tiger 20160130

Military powers, reason for todays special event with professor, author, and peter is 11th newest book is entitled crouching tiger what China Military means for the war. And delighted to have not only peter here today, but also to also distinguished psychological larceny of china toshi and steven helper hear from each of them after the main presentation by peter, but first let me just say a few words to frame the china debate in the context of todays event. This is december 7th, december 7th is reminder of both straw toggic surprise and how a raising asia power might seek expansion of the influence and control throughout asia even at the expense of major power war. The concern today, however, is that a reemerge nationalistic and increasingly revision of china is bent on a influence and undermining First World War order. Trying to restore china greatness and he simultaneously thinks to rejuvenate chinese nation and preserve communist party. In addition to comprehensive reforms at home she is reasserting claims, challenging global rule thes and, in fact, militarily pushing back United States enjoyed a preponderance of power in the asia pacific region. China has military and modernization, in the short run, it seeks to have establishment over the first chain within the east and South China Seas. And long run, china is building up a Global Maritime presence on route to realizing china dream bit. s republic in china in 1949. Security analysts, debate whether china trajectory will lead to a great war. Experts disagree on conflict we cannot avoid the impact. Afterall china sneak attack on u. S. Forces stationed at pearl harbor 74 years ago many thought the idea of war between japan and the United States unimaginable. This is why peters book and accompanied documentary series are so important. They distill down and raise issue to have analysts understood and to inform a broader audience. They have fashioned a career out of the enterprises each is built around a book and he has published ten could inning several related to china. A professor and dwish economist at the school of business at university of california irvine feater is here to tell us more about crouching tiger what chinas militarism means for the world. Peter. Thank you patrick great pleasure to be meerp great honor. I really appreciate the new center for americans sponsoring this and patrick a special thanks to you. When i was doing filming for this documentary and book and interviews patrick was kind enough to put up with us. We got stranded out beyond the beltway in a torrential rain. Got here two hours late, it was 8 at night. It was just horrible weather. He lets i into into his office and redecorate the whole thing so it looked nice. We put everything back. But the interview was even better than his hospitality. So i thank you patrick. My Mission Today really is to talk about an issue which i think is one of the most pressing issue was our nuclear times, and one which i hope would become front and center in the 2016 president ial election. So emission here is to use the crouching tiger book, to discuss these themes against the back drop of what is today an American History a very serious and somber day were celebrating the 24th anniversary of the pearl harbor attack and we should never forget that. And what im going to do is weed together the themes of the itself and chinas military, and show you a number of historical parallels between imperialed chin no japan in the 30s and 40s and rise in china. Enalso show you one key difference because ultimately it may be the one key difference between Imperial Japan and rising china. That may make the biggest difference to us and maybe most dangerous. And that has to do with a fact that china is World Manufacturing floor and we recall the stall adage quantity has a quality of its own. Imperial japan never faced the ability to produce as china can to today. I want to talk laicts a little w the book came about. You know as patrick indicated, my mo is when i do a serious policy book, one of the most important things is to go out and talk to the experts so is preparation for this book, i went and interviewed close to 40 of the top experts in the world we spent a bunch of time at the college elsewhere and i think whats interesting about the book is that it reflects a Broad Spectrum of opinion. Weve got a bookies institute folks, we have heir taj institute folks. We have got people from the u. S. Institute of peace. And from the Naval War College and everybody in between, and most people sat for door and just amazed at how they were willing to do this but we would sit for an hour and a half or two and got 70 hours of footage. I think that book really reflecks wisdom. About of the course and my own ultimately. But its an interesting experience. Most of you out in the audience today are serious policy walks. Analysts this book will have great appeal to you. But what im trying to do with the book is reach the American Public and broader public in the world about this issue. And ive written it as a g. O. Political detective story thats i think the best test moin yall the one i like the most is the one that toshi wrote, he said its a u fun read. Its a dark subject. But its actually very accessible. So what im going to do for you today which i think is something valuabling when you talk with people outside expertise whether its counsel or people give whatever youre thinking about this problem in a way thats accessible and understandable, and the frame work i use in the book and film is one thats straight out of the international regulations. You first of all ask whats the intentions between chinas Rapid Military build uup. Are they good, trying to protect home lanked or trading route or o are they also possibly bad maybe try to take territory from the neighbors and maybe push u. Out of asia and you have to turn to the capability question. If china is weak, we still dont have to worry. But if china is strong, if its growing in military which is going to be comparable or even more powerful in ours. Then we have some serious issues, if thats the case we have to also look at the strategies that china is adopting in order to fight what it sees as the war ahead. And this gets into the realm of words youve heard. Jargon antiaccess area of denial which is really much what Imperial Japan was all about, and asymmetric war far that is what had Imperial Japan was about. So we got through contention, ability strategy, and once i get to that point youll be convinced that theres an issue that we have to focus on and ill go through flash points to whether its South China Sea, East China Sea, taiwan, north korea. And then finally i think most part of this whole important effort is to how do you prevent whats what seems to be an eventual conflict with klein. This is where ill talk about the path with pass. Thats what iemg im going to do and move through this fairly briskly. But lets begin with the intentions. Question, and we start with theres absolutely no question that after the socalled century of u humiliation china needs to have a strong military. Theres no question about that from 1839 to 1945, the british took the ports, opium wars on them. Russia and putin is doing same thing today using coercion to take territory from people that still has a lot of optic to this day that it took from the chinese during that humiliation. Germans and french were absolutely brutal when it came to things like box rebellion. U. S. Was right right there as kind of the junior imperialist at the time and, of course, we know the history of what japan did. As he said in the interview i did with him, chinese added it to it never again. Never will they be weak because that invites foreign aggression so say yeah they need to do that. The second thing in terms of good intentions is protecting Global Trading routes. And i do very heavily from toshis fine work with his colleague james holmes they have written a wonderful book red star over the pacific which basically is a look at chinas emergence as a naval power through the lens of alfred the father of the American Navy, and his counterpart in china chang who basically saw early on when ping opened china back in the 70s. Saw the need for a globalized navy, and you know, muhans whole idea i think its absolutely correct is that in order for a global power or like parking the United States or o china to prosper you need to be able to have some command and some control of the sea lane that is strictly mahan. No question that china wowtdz build their had navy from that purpose. Its good to drag it too, thats okay. We shouldnt fear that. Bsh but the problem comes abouts ding says about it in the heritage to project sea lanes its another thing to build offensive weapons which are aimed at pushing u. S. Out of the western pacific. And there inlies the detail. There in lies where we begin to talk about the the parallel it is between Imperial Japan an rise in china. Because if you look at to me its like fascinating, if you take the proposition that china basically is a expansion of power. Revision of power as john mereshimer would say and seek to take territory from their neighbors and you look at the map and chest board theres not a lot of difference on eve of pearl harbor and chinas vision. I mean, look at impearl japan that controls the Korean Peninsula and taiwan and controlled much much much of china, it was their vessyl and on the eve of pearl harbor, there are armies and military were with to drive the british out of o hong kong, drive u. S. Out of the philippines. Drive the dutch out of west indies. So east indies. So if you look at china, it puzzles me why americans think theyre not a threat because china has made it clear. They claim 80 of this South China Sea here in the film talks about how preposterous like mexico claiming the gulf of mexico. But that is a claim in the island in the East China Sea. Japans control those for over o 100 years. They even claim Continental Shelf right up to japans territorial limits. Of course taiwan. Theres no question that china has the intention of taking territory from its neighbors. It is believed its own, that it owns, and then the other parallel there that you can draw with Imperial Japan is that in order to do that, Imperial Japan and rise in china share this fear of the u. S. Intervening. Just as u. S. Was the barrier between Imperial Japans vision of a cosprues prosperity fear and we are of china of today and what japan did was it is set up a perimeter to keep us out. What kin comien wants to do is push us out and maintain that perimeter. So you can see the parallel. So theres no question on the intentions question that there should be concern. Chinese has told us this, this is no secret. So then you have to go to the question of capabilities, and i think theres theres a human within the beltd American People that were the toughest most modern military in the world and nobody can mess with us. Let me count the ways. Harbor many of you know my interview with him, he talked about how china has the largest most arse l that of missiles in the world. They range from the tactical and theater all the way to the intercontinental. They have their great underground wall. We dont know how many missiles are below that. They have the antiship Ballistic Missile which can allegedly hit an Aircraft Carrier from a thousand mile away when its zigzagging at 30 knots, and they have the hyperson pick Cruise Missile which comes in at mock 10 and can evade air defense systems. On top of all of that, theyre not bound by the stark treaty. All right. So thats their comparative advantage its what they tell us because you know the tip of their spear. That alone is a serious, serious capability that the American Navy needs to take extremely seriously in asia. But then you move on from there commander Cole National Defense University had a very interesting talk with him about mind warfare. China allegedly has largest inventory of mines in the world and thats your grandfathers mine. Right. So toshi walked me through how a mine on the bottom of the ocean and East China Sea or the South China Sea can let 100 ships go by. And then pick up the acoustic or magnet signature of a vietnamese submarine and carrier and 70 Miles Per Hour through the water, its a mission kill. All right. These are serious capability les. Applicant in the islands and taiwan scenario. Of course o theres this submarines that come back again to a very interesting parallel between Imperial Japan and rise in china. Restoration, japan, brings in a british and the french basically to krampleg krnch out what, they warships. Most in the warships in early year were produced by british and french and then they learned how to do it and produced it in their own shipyard. Comien is doing the same thing. Their submarines right now are running with german air indpiewns propulsion system and making some of the quitest in the world. And theyre also buying even quieter subs from the russians, and its the Fastest Growing fleet in the world. Missiles, mines and subs and then you have the stuff, space weaponry one of my favorite interviews was with chang at the heritage. He made a delicate situation between weapons hard kill versus soft kill. Hard kill you snatch the satellite like we saw in 2007 when china created largest amount of space debris in World History by knocking out one of their weather satellites but chang talks about how its much more difficult to do soft kill where you grow up like tapping an egg he say. Where you just nudge the satellite away so that had solar power doesnt see the sun and slightly out of orr o bit. China is developing capabilities and reason theyre doing that is because they understand that we control the straw strategic high ground and air dominance in theater and they think in order to to deal with that but its very disstabilized. If you knock out our satellite and we dont know whether youre launching Nuclear Missiles at us, what do we have to think about doing . We have to shoot before they shoot. But chinese they dont think like that. We had deals with a soviet, we left peace space in peace. China sees it just as another front. And lastly, on the warfare front theres the cyberwarfare which as we speak hitting our pentagon, hitting our businesses and stolen virtually every major Weapon System that we have. F22, 5rbgs 35, the helicopter. The battlement. Management system. You name it. You just go down the list. That gets back to this United States believing were always maintain superiority if theyre steal our weapons and they have manufacturing cape abilities u do the math. And finally im going to let steph talk about this later, theres also what they call the three warfares, steph was kind enough to have me out to o his house to sit with me and talk about the three warfares and line i remember the most from our interview was its not the best weapons that win todays war its the best narrative. And the three warfares media psychological and legal are something that the chinese take very seriously whereas were still in kind of a military mind set. The bad intentions capabilities that are growing very rapidly. But then lets talk about strategy because even if china never approaches us, in terms of technology, that still doesnt matter if they asymmetric warfare, and toshi has a wonderful segment in in the film in the interview, talking about how an antiship Ballistic Missile 10 Million Dollars which is able to hit a 10 billion Aircraft Carrier, right, and what he said was they can build many more missiles than we can build Aircraft Carrierses and again talking about parallels between that and Imperial Japan of the long land torpedo. It was the predecessor essentially of the antiship Ballistic Missile. Japanese knew that they needed to use Quality Technology to win, and that long land torpedo was a way of outranging their opponents just like antiship Ballistic Missile in some of the other weapons through the same. So bad intentions. Strong capabilities, and a strategy which is unbashedly aimed at killing terrors and pushing us out. Or again one of the fascinating thing with toshi inseparately with tom helms this was relevant to where we are right now in washington, and how close we are to that white house. Because this gentleman says that the idea is not to put up a hard shield. Necessarily and push us out, its simply to create unsernght. And then we have a white house that hem and haws and indecisive and things are incomplete. So lets turn now to the flash points and ill work you through those quicklys a i see them. Lets start with north korea. The reality here is that china could shutdown the wild card and wild child of north korea tomorrow because they have 40 of the food and fuel to that country, and its a state essentially. But they dont do that. But what to me north korea represents most is something Michael Hanlin showed with me in the interview and this is the interaction weve had with the middle east. On the eve of 9 11, the Bush Administration was actually aware of a rise in china with pivoting back then. But as soon as everyone in hit that was over. And in 2003, well the the Bush Administration ftion was preparing to evade iraq what do they do . They spirited 8,000 spent fuel rods out of the civilian reactor which we had been watching and they had agreed not to do. They centrifuge that and they got that reactive material to places we can now no longer find. And that was the day because we were interacted in the middle east. That was the day they became a nuclear power. It has taken over ten years in order for them to get to where they are, but theyre going to get even further. One of the most chilling interviews i had was with david at john hopkins university. I asked him, i said theyre going to get pretty good at seattle hitting seattle with a nuke. They said yeah, but nothing we can do about it at this point. So north korea is very much a trigger point. If you swing around the ark and you go to this islands yeah its 1. 3 square miles of territory. Rock it is in the sea, no problem. Well its also 200 miles of an exclusive Economic Zone in a circle. Its resources but its also the southern on the flank of taiwan and the islands, if china is able to grab that and turn it into a fortress so they have mass riots in hundred city in 2012 and in china. Crazy nationalists going crazy talking about going to war with japan. Thats a flash point. Swing around to the South China Sea. Nine will have 9 thats the claim that began in 1947 that basically is called cows tongue because thats what it looks like 80 of the South China Sea. Were there now. Our warships are there now. As we speak circling around some of these fortress which china is trying to turn into artificial eyelets in the real territory. Thats a flash point. Of course, youve got the perennial issue of taiwan. China called it the renegade province thats on a island over 20 Million People who were right now really depressed and afraid. Theyre depressed and afraid for two reasons. One is that they see china slowly just like a python encircling l them and they also see a u. S. Which may no longer have the roflt. To stand with taiwan. I interviewed charles, one professor who proposed a grand bargain that basically trade taiwan for peace everywhere else. Yeah. I fortunately every else i talked to think didnt think that was such a good idea. But i think it does reflect the fact that if push comes to shove, we night not have American Forces standing up for taiwan like bill clinton did in 1996 or eisenhower did several times in the 50s. And taiwan theres a lot of reasons and toshi might have reflection on this but its not just about the morality or ethics or the commitment of democracy of taiwan. Thats a center of the first island chain. Chang said it best you give that way. You give that Aircraft Carrier unsink Aircraft Carrier away and that opens the whole pacific to a chinese navy which is now more or less bottled up. So thats an issue and even issues with india fascinating to me i mean you can theres exide they have a states of india and where does china go southern tee bet push cool to shove on that, i dont know. But Biggest Issue on india and theyll tell us about this is actual water this is a plateau. Chip controls the water supply of the entire southeast asia. And india. Building big things and making rover run dry. Youve got india and china 40 of the worlds population both water con strand. Few dont think war can happen. Its possible. Those are flash points, so lets see if we can get to some good news this is what ill finish up with. I want to walk you through pathways of peace as i see it. Theres three that i think that we cannot depend on. But theyre the ones that i think that we are depending hon now. Okay lets start with the kneel isolationist the idea is to walk back. Now, john mereshimer talked about how attract of that is but he was also very real about why we should not do that and strategic reasons, theyre economic reasons, thats the most vibrant area of the world 50 of the population. 70 of the economic growth. Michael grain at csis points out correctly that Pacific Ocean is not a barrier. To threat, right, theres a reason why were forward based there. Cruise miss the or excuse me Intercontinental Missile goes off from north korea or china. Its attracting stations in japan and australia and elsewhere that are helping us track and possibly deter that threat. So near isolationism will be attractive to American People who have had to deal with afghanistan, iraq, syria and all of that. But smith said, we have to be there. And sheila smith is right dead in the center of things. Now, the two i think that are most serious that were fooling ourselves on are the Economic Engagement argument in the Nuclear Deterrence art. Economic engagement is evade, trump idea and you have to go back to 19and reread the clip there and see the same kind of rhetoric about how trade between kaiser germany and Great Britain and france and all of that would prevent the great war from happening. But one of my funniest interview ee was for hans youll understand what had im saying there. But he has a great line about dont underestimate ability of people to do stupid stuff when oarpghts operating groups but theres a more cuts argument why it doesnt evade. If you have a country like china that is heavily dependent on natural resources, then that actually increases the prospect of war. Kaiser germany, one of the reasons why they went to war is because Great Britain was going to possibly embark food. They took some of their oil and then france tried to take some of their iron ore. So trade doesnt always trump and and invade. Other one Nuclear Deterrence argument this is the highest level one. This is the hardest one to think about. But but toshi and ashley tell us basically beyond what is called stability, instability paradox. Which is the the idea that if you have stability at the nuclear leaflet, that is if china has the ability to launch a second strike against seattlen francisco or l. A. An they need to hit one eve those places then that deters us from launching a first strike, should they go in to taiwan or somewhere else ore hit one of our Aircraft Carriers conventionally. Right, and both actually tell us and make a compelling argument that that nuclear stark capability that china has now developed more fully actually opens the door. For conventional war dpsh in asia. I think that is exactly right. I mean, you can debate that. But i think that it leads to something that should give you pause. So then the last thing is what do we do . And the interesting thing is the unify thought here coms from the chinese themselves that was brought to me by two people who couldnt have more different outlooks, and if you know them youll know what i mean professor david at st. Johns hopkins university. And Michael Pillsbury who does a lot of work for the pentagon, wrote a fine book himself 100year marathon, and both of them brought up this whole notion that chinese notion of comprehensive National Power. Its the idea that if youre going to deter china from its aggression and if youre going to be able to maintain a presence in the western pacific, this country has to have a comprehensive National Power. Its not just about building weapons. So what does that mean . What is xressive natural u power and the way that you can explain it simply is it begins pat malloy sitting here from the China Commission he was on for many years, hes really an expert on this and i drew heavily from him on this. Its the idea that it all starts with a Strong Economy. You have to have a Strong Economy to generate growth, tax base in order to afford whatever morel hard had ware and defense that you need. And the thing thats kills us now with our economy not so ironically enough is chinas unfair trade practice. And they join the World Trade Organization of 2001, over o this 15 years weve lost 70,000 tax we have millions of people unemployed. Were growing at 2 instead of 3. 5 . And if we were grow at 3. 5 we wouldnt be having any of this conversation. That would be life on easy street. Okay o. But its not just that we have to deal with exhibition on trade issues but other parts of comprehensive National Power that matter which is the strong Education System which creates the innovation that drives the economy. That is really so critical. And you need a Business Climate which allows innovation to grow. You cant have a tax system which thrives our Companies Offshore and then allow it is that technology to be shipped offshore and we need a stable political system that can make decisions in real time about competing needs. And we dont have that now. We have a stable, political system in the sense that we have our plexes and we put people in office and were kind of muddling through. But were not making any of the tough skis ises in our political system is dominated by the big money basically that benefits from the china trade in many ways. And by some ideological split in the party system which basically leads to a congress that is marked by extremes rather than the middle. All right. So this is why this is what ill end with here, this is why openly, this president ial election, this 2016 president ial election is so important if we doajt deal with china as one of the top issues and dont understand the need for comprehensive National Power, if we continue to spike between the left which maybe focus on trade and jobs and right focuses on military hardware were not going to have meetings of the mind that we really need. So what i would urge you to do is think through kind of what ive tried to share with you today and i think this is some sense of a way to talk with the American People this is the dialogue i think were having. I mean, nothing ive said today was technical but logical intention, capability. Strategy, flash point, solutions, and thats kind of what we do. So with that, im going to turn it back to Patrick Cronin an my colleagues here. Peter, thank you very much. [applause] so masterful and the book is full of chapters but crystallize key issues so its wot reading the bock even though youve given us in 30 minutes or less a great overview. Lets turn first to dr. Toshi professor of strategy an of the john a. Van buren at the u. S. Naval war college in newport, rhode island. Professor is affiliated with the colleges China Maritime Studies Institute doing great work on china. And hes current author of the aforementioned volume red star over the pacific. Tosh oi. Thanks patrick thats for having me to talk about peters excellent book. What id like to do is use various chapters in the book as jumping off point to make my own o oarvetion abouts chinas military, chinese strategy and u. S. Interactions. Potential great power war and the issue that the book is about thinking about prospect for essentially a great power struggle between china and the United States. So im talk to talk about one capable. Second, issue of interaction between comien and the United States. And third, implications what had it means for United States and ally. First of all regard to capabilities, peters book covers a great deal on capability, in fact, a entire section summarizing surveying various cape ables that theye been able to develop. I think it overscores that the rapid pace of it can no logical change that is occurring in chinas military and, in fact, it is at a pace that has consistently deminimized the prize and elsewhere. One data point for this case of change is the unveiling of the df26 medium range of Ballistic Missile which claimed an antiship ballistic miss el. Paraded before the International Audiences during military parade in september. I want to talk about an article pinned by China Academy had and military science. And whats surprising about this article is really just how blunt and how open they were about why the chinese felt they needed to develop the df26 missile and really its all about operational flexibility. The article talks about the fact that the missile has an added range and we think that the missile has range now to hit guam. The missile is capabilitiable of hitting six targets including bases, airfields, ports as well as command and control centers also if it is indeed an antiship Ballistic Missile then capable of hitting moving targets at sea including carrier and possible other large surface combat at sea. Also they reveal quite clearly that it is also dual capability a missile capability of conducting both conventional and nuclear strikes this gets at the Nuclear Stability question that peter just mentioned. It can use multiple i toos of conventional warheads for different types of tactical missions. And finally missile can launch on the move in other words, the missile does not have to be scary to a prepared site in advance. The miss the can launch any point in transit depending on the operational circumstances. I think what this highlights is the fact that not only is china enjoying a growing military arsenal, but it is one that is increasingly sophisticated, im not saying that we should rivet our attention on df26 but simply to highlight thats it has an additional tool in chinas growing tool box. So thats my my first oarves about capabilities i want to spend most of my time on this concept of intersection in the possible great power of war between china and the United States. Im not making had a judgment about the livelihood of a great power war, but to highlight things what we should be thinking about when we think about interaction. War is an interaction of two or more living forces. That means that neither side is a potted plant. That each side has an agency of its own and each side will try to do their best to outsmart or outmaneuver adversary so expect that kind of interaction will take place between china and the United States. What i would like to do is highlight three interaction that are worth thinking about. The first is i think peter mentions this that china needs to extend perimeter from the chiendz home homeland recognized that china is vulnerable to long range precision strikes of the United States especially along a long coastline all of the important political and Economic Centers are located. And so therefore, chinese hope to extend that defensive perimeter as far forward essentially to keep the United States as arms length to have a keepout zone that preskt United States from getting within range to conduct those very potentially dev starting threatening strikes. And that the recent literature suggests that china wants to reach into the heart of the western pacific as well as interestingly enough northern indian ocean. In terms of interaction, the United States on the other hand needs to find effectively inside this expanding contested zone as we saw with the df26, we can imagine that defensive perimeter then begin out perhaps out to the Second Island chain. And at the same time the United States has to develop cape pbility that enables it to launch a tax, launch strikes that are had beyond range of enemy firepower. Thats one set of the interactions that we need to be thinking about. This is competition right now between china and the United States. The second interaction that i want to highlight is that role of sanctuaries important or for both sides. I think it is increasingly clear that the United States cannot take its access to bases on foreign soil on allied soil. Particularly along the first island chain for granted and that with the debut of the df26 i think what were recognizing is that u. S. Territories like guam will lose their value as a sanctuary as well. At the same time, we are confronted with a political dilemma of deciding whether we should or can hit targets on the chinese mainland. Right deciding intent to which had targets on the chiensz mainland are offlimits or not. And again shore based firepower like the df26 is depriving United States of its sanctuary even as the threat itself and missile itself may be justify limited based on strategic circumstances. Whose sanctuaries are more vulnerable to the other . Third and final intersection is the tension that peter identifies in this book between short war an versus long wars. What were seeing i think is a quest, a mutual quest for a victory on both sides. These are things we should be thinking about and devoting energy into thinking about what happens after the first move. Again, it is easier to get into a conflict relatively speaking but it is much harder to get out of it. What is are the conditions one can terminate with satisfaction and end a bloody war. The third is implications and what this means for the United States. We need to pit our strengths against vulnerabilities and weaknesses. So there are again two things that we should think about. One; a response is the operational one. Threaten to deny chinese access, and the very thing they would need to achieve their operational judgments. The other the presence of other high quality friends we have and they dont have as many. Here is other intangible and that is the fact the u. S. And allies are steakeholders in defending the nation is a very good idea. The idea of the notion that smaller states in asia should pay deference to china is a turn off and turns off many of chinas smaller neighbors. So these examples of asymmetry that the United States can play up. These are not fixed or permanent. They may be up for grabs and that is why the United States needs to widen these areas. Learn turn to dr. Stefan halper, distinguished career including scholarly and policy achievement including working for four president s, and totally among many books notable author among many books peter, congratulations on an excellent book. Peters book clarifies and guides our understanding of chinas current military trade and policy and perception of its relati relations with the United States. What is at stake in the evolving u. S. China relationship . Well on this side of the pond; american jobs, businesses, quality of life. In asia, asian stability, u. S. Alliances, friendships with japan, australia, korea, indonesia and others, the South China Sea, and the rights pertaining to the maritime commons. But perhaps most importantly china has put the rule of law in play. This book covers a wide range of policy questions. It assesses chinas military capability, its rnd, and geopolitical advantages, and its relationship to peace and how to handle the situation going forward. It comes at a time where Economic Engagement has run its cour course. A mild cooperative diplomacy will not make china like us. The data tells a sad story. In december of 2015, the import and cap numbers adjusted for inflation and Exchange Rate were the largest since department of commerce started collecting trade data since the early 70s. In october, the Monthly Trade balance with china stood at a negative 32. 9 billion. As we pivot to east asia we pivot to a realism and we beijing has embraced policies that project its values and influence across the south china see. The cutting edge of the process is three warfairs. They combine psychological, media, and the use of bogus law to form a three dimensional war process. It uses false history, bogus law and intimidation to create a cuttingedge force multipleier. Chinas three war fare is warfare by other means. It extends back to sun ben and soon zoo in the 475321 bc era. Just as china sought without fighting all those years ago it does the same thing today. When china looks out across the ocean what does it see . It sees the United States. These days chinas two warfare is used to counter the power projection as part of chinas broader military strategy or antiaccess area denial in the South China Sea. A point well developed in this book. The u. S. Depends upon access to the maritime commons and japan to anchor its strategic position in asia and china seeks to curtail this by limiting the access. The three wars is the mechanisms china uses to its advantage. China alters regional expectations and raises doubts about the u. S. Presence. This is an objective beijing has reached on mischief reef, Fiery Cross Reef and a number of others. The three warfare play a crucial role by altering the facts on the ground and supporting the enforcement of this new reality. Over the past two years, chinas land reclemation program has been drudging the sea bed and using the sand to build artificial land features and attempting to take better control of the disputed island has created 2,000 acres of artificial land mass on chinas reefs. They have put air strips on 45 air reefs they control. On the Fiery Cross Reef, china build a 10,000 built militarily capable runway divined to enhance the sovereignty claims and potentially set the terms of access in the region. One might say this is where the three warfare begins to connect with hybrid warfare mainly the strengthening of assets and boundary control providing the option of kinetic engagement if necessary. Law fair, the use of the law, plays a crucial role here to support the transer of facts on the ground china manipulates legal conventions, primary the 1982 un conventional law of the sea. Here the challenges the principle of freedom of navigation my arguing it has the right to regulate Foreign Military activities in the Economic Zones, the eezs, that are created by the artificial land masses supposedly. Such a claim intervenes article 89 and i quote no state may subject any part of the high sea to its sovereignty. End quote. Further more, while a state may construct artificial islands it may not subject such islands to its sovereignty and preclude it from interfering with the freedom of navigation and overflight end quote. And there is more at play than the dispute of recent islands. These claims and seizers threaten to up end the regional order and place u. S. Treaties and friendships in danger. It doesnt end there. China wants to force the u. S. Navy back to hawaii by the midcentury. This would alter americas status in global affairs. The South China Sea chapter is far from closed. It is critical for the administration to develop a response to the three warfare, effective Counter Measures should include the following elements. Number one; forceful legal action and establish venues to force china to defend its claims in an established court. Two; strengthen u. S. And allied Public Diplomacy programs to combat chinas information warfare. At home and broad both. I would say on that that the United States has been woefully lagging in generating a powerful Public Diplomacy program that actually presents our viewpoint and our values in the region. This is so critically important. It is hard to know why we havent done it. But we simply havent. Regular briefs on the South China Sea, and chinas tactics are needed to provide reliable, unbias commentary along with the continuous publication of satellite images such as the island tracker which many of you are familiar with that. Pings statement at the close of the u. S. China summit that beijing has no intention of militarizing its outpost in the South China Sea must be tested continuously and the results made public. Fourth; there must be an ongoing reaffirmation of u. S. Security commitment as was the case with the renewed commitment into the aftermath of chinas behavior. Fifth; the u. S. Must proceed with targeted investment and Development Efforts to decrease the impact of chinas economic inducements and the United States has to move quickly to conclude arrangements for the ttp. And finally, the United States must coordinate freedom of navigation exercises within the eez. This should be coupled with increase tempo for joint exercises to train and boost the confidence of the u. S. Allies in the region. This is just a snippet of what you will find in crouching tiger. He addresses a range of issues, what he calls the dark strategic beauty of the nonkinetic free warfare to offshore patrol to the question of whether economic independence will prevent war. It is a Remarkable Book and a great read. Thanks. Thank you very much. Thank you toshi as well. We have a room full of experts and in a minute i want to open it up to that. But i want to say from a policy administration that will come after the Obama Administration it as a luxury to be able to focus on one country and one big issue but in reality the United States remains a global power and will have having to deal with russia, the islamic state, middle east turmoil, iran, north korea, and china no doubt. So all of this approach to countering china, managing china, to dealing with the rising chaina comes in a global policy. We are focused on all of these policies and we hope to explain what we think the approach the administration should take. But lets not waste time with that. Lets move around the room and ask questions. Wonderful presentation. The videos are really terrific. I can understand going into this project and trying to ascertain where china is in this emergence and what it means for us but yesterday you wrote an article that asked whether or not china was it says would cline china launch a Pearl Harbor Strike on america . That means to me you have learned something in this process. Maybe you got it through the process. Maybe war hawks like toshi just kidding. You know i am teasing. I dont know what the process was. But this article tells me you are quite far along in thinking we are in serious trouble. What was it about this process that got you to that point . That is a great question, paul. Let me welcome you from the u. S. China commission because you have been a great inspiration to me over the years. I think i tried to write a book and do a film which was bipartisan in nature and across the ideological perfecspectivpe. I thraw draw draw readers to draw their own conclusion about the would be with china. That is the objective landscape. When i go through that process, i am convinced there is a c convergence between chinas defensive needs and its offensive goals. Its territorial goals. I am more than convinced that the capabilities that it is building are going to lead it to a point where, if is not every bit as powerful and advanced as the United States, the strategies will level the playing field. Bad intentions plus that. And going over the various flash points. The fact that china would claim 80 of the South China Sea and we didnt even get into the white hall fleets out there going out there and imposing their will on other people. It is a crisis that has been a long time in the making and we as a country have been totally distracted from. I am totally convinced there can be peace with china. But i am also totally convincedconvinced if he let events unfold as they are there will be conflict. So simply as an academic looking at the chest board saying unless we are make different moves we will be turning over the king. Lets go back here. Dana marshall. Thank you and nice to see you again. My question is on the interception of economic leverage we have. We made the point. You say that peace is possible but we need to do something to keep make it occur. I think dr. Herbert put out a few ideas with a more rigorous Public Diplomacy program. Some of those might help. But i think if we are going to create tools that go along with what we are trying to achieve i dont know if those are going to be enough. What i want to focus on, peter, is the question you raised and that is the enormous and growing trade deficit not only we have but our allies have. There is the transatlantic dimension to this as well. Not just on the trade deficit problem and the problems that causes for their unemployment. I guess the question how do we use effectively use economic leverage than we have . That is a great question. Pat maloy here has proposed a policy and balanced trade for this country rather than a 300 billion deficit with china and offshore the jobs and productive quality. We need to bring that back here. That is an important part. I am a professor and economist so what am i doing looking at military . I want to put dan on the spot here. He won the award in my last film, death my cline china, for the shortest clips but if you could, comment on the question because you can say it more eloquently than i. What is this relationship between the trade deficit and our inability to defend ourselves . He is probably more of an expert than i am. But when you are consuming more than producing you continue to run this trade deficit and we saw that in the National Debt going up and in the loss of jobs. China wants to be the dominant Economic Force by 2049, their 100th year anniversary. To do that they feel like they have to weaken us economically because they believe we cannot have Strong Defense without Strong Economy. So they are systematically trying to extract our manufacturing jobs over to china and steal our technology and all things we know about. The ultimate game plan for the chine chinese and being a consumer of high tech products. By dominating us they can control us. And you may want to add to that. I was going to say there are two posessers that the harvard professors Business Review posted saying we will be the great innovators. Let the chinese make the stuff but we will be the innovators. And they point out when you are weakening and offshoring your manufacturing and technilogical capabilities is weakening the industrial commons and the idea you will be the key innovators is a myth. The key innovators are the guys who make the stuff. The chinese have a particular policy of incentivising our corporations to transfer our technologies to them to be considered friends of china. If you want to do well on the Chinese Market you have to be a friend of china. We want more Technology Transfers here. But that is not the way trade is supposed to work. But it is the way it works here. Our companies who are focused on shareholder value and the ceos are tied to their own compensation to shareholder value so they get a lot of money short term was going on. Why dont we have a tax system where if you are an American Company and you are producing jobs and technology here you get a low tax rate. If you want to make all your money in china and ship stuff back here, maybe like apple does, you should have a higher tax rate. We have to really stop this game where we are transferring our wealth and power and strengthening chinas capabilities as a very rapid pace. That is my take. One of the things i am trying to do with the crouching tiger book is break down the silos. Many of you in this room are military experts, Foreign Policy experts, and you know, i talked to the folks and it is like if you are military folks they dont want to hear about the economics and if you are an economic folk you dont havent to hear about the military. But i am saying that time is over. That is why i am hoping this president ial election will have someone emerge as an eloquent voice of someone that ties it together. I agree. This isnt a time we can afford to live with those silos. We have to break them down. But whether policy can be made with that agility is a huge challenge. I hope it. It will take leadership to do that. We will have to see. Other questions . Yes, sir, in the back and then to the front. I want to take two comments. You alluded to certain possibilities of Nuclear Stability resulting in instability and i was wondering if you could unpack. The idea follows the cold war logic and the idea was that u. S. Soviet relationships was based on peace stability which is code for mutual vulnerability and the idea being we would be detered both at the strategic level and beneath that level you would see adventures by one party or the other having a greater stake. That is an old problem. We solved it during the cold war and think about it in the Asian Pacific context. And then the second point, you lost the range of interesting facts, i am certain you are working on this today. But it is a view of china and you talked about it in the briefing. But it is not looking at a whole or really an order of battle type of approach to the challenge. In other words, what we are doing and we are not standing still. We talk about concepts like the marine cores concept to the Asian Pacific. But we are not standing still. Those things you point out are concerning but it isnt an 800pound gorilla. We are change our concepts and changing our approach to meet that challenge. And for dr. Halper, you talked about Public Diplomacy lets do it in order. Let me respond and then you can ask your question to stefan. I think all of that is fair and i talk to ashley tellus, for example, he said what you did; it goes back to cold war thinking. But his ultimate conclusion on the whole idea was we dont know. We dont know. But if you think it through there is the possibility there could be instability at the conventional level. The other thing lets hershy make a comment. Would you like to have the chip . Going from 600 down to 200. I see talk, but i see budget sequestration and pat had a beautiful point in the film where he proceeded to list more this and more that and more high tech that. My concern is no matter how smart we might think we are, we dont have the money to do what we need to do because of what pat maloy said. Do you have comments on the instability . I would add it behooves us to study the chinease documents. They talk about dual deterrents and operations. It will be back stopped by Chinas Nuclear forces and that is a different way of thinking about how you mix the conventional with the nuclear. So again, it is not to go against the stability vparadox but urge us to think about it from chinas perspective and nuclear instability. I will add in the book, although it is not in that assessment, and that is needed when you think about the issues and your point is valid, but this is a valuable contribution that included views from people aware of that assessment with u. S. And china and red and blue. It is sort of assumed in part in the analysis but it is not an assessment book. That is another book and another study. I point that out. My question is your concern about Public Diplomacy the wrong message or do we need to be louder . We dont have a message. I think that is a wonderful step in the right direction. He has been there several times. Two or three times. And the president has been out there twice. But that is not adequate. What we need to be thinking about is developing programming that can be provided to local networks so that it is moving constantly in bangkok and manila, working with the bbc, and work with the french press, cnn, and what i would like to see is the usia doing is developing programming on a regular bases that is relevant to unfolding events as the region sees them. But our spin on the events as they unfold, put our values forward and our concerns. I mean you said earlier that one of the greatest strengths we have are our values we project. They are different from china and would be embraced more quickly. Secretary of defense, ashton carter, has been an effective spokesperson, but there are so many narratives from china out there. The question of does america do Strategic Communication well or are we out of the business of strategic communeation is a legit question. Remember what eisenhower did with esia. He used that to project an entire line. In the case of china, he emphasized blocking the move of communist behavior into the southeast asia. We have done it before but we are not focused right now. Thank you. I enjoyed that. I discovered what we all take for granted, that everybody is paying attention to the china problem, is not true. You are trying to reach an audience that thousands of us in washington, d. C. And tokyo that are talking about china and the security balance constantly are not quite as aware. I feel you do a disservice to the u. S. Government by claiming we are not doing a lot of the things you recommended we do or not be aware of. I am nongovernmental so i am standing outside looking at the state department, white house and defense department. I feel like they have already thought through most of the thingst that were discussed. No offense intended but i feel like they are very smart people, very aware of the problems, and that you setup a straw man of this lazy government that is only taking chinese money. I dont think that is fair at all. But my question was about the path to take. I think deterance is probably the safest way to peace and maintaining that in the western pacific is a shared myth as you say all the way across to the right. I dont quite understand your suggestion in that regard. You talk about comprehensive National Power. Is that maintaining deterrance through u. S. Strength alone . Or allies . Countries china is pushing into our arms that are more prowest because of chinas aggression . I dont see the link between comprehensive power and the maintenance of deterring. I love your comment at the beginning. I understand what you are saying. I have tremendous respect for the people who have been studying this for decades and are entrenched in the pentagon or another area of the government who understand this as well as i do. My role is not to teach that. My role is to act as a vessel for the wisdom of folks like you and toshi and stefan and pat and dan and as a vessel to the American People. Okay . As for whether the government has been doing enough, look, you dont have the resources you need to do enough. I dont care how much you might agree with the existence problem. There are not enough resources being devoted or more importantly attention. We are distracted. We announced the pivot to asia and we have not pivoted to asia. Seth and toshi go through great ways of this. If we continue our trajectory right now pivoting to asia with 60 of the ships there by 2020 is the math of the pivot as our ships go down. So i dont know mean to criticize people who understand this issue. I am just trying to help here. Okay . That is my mission. Okay . Now, in terms of the solutions, as todd said, i went through this in 35 minutes. There is a whole book. And 11 episodes, 45 minutes each, in the miniseries that deal at a fine grain level of what we need to do this. And what does it mean . Of course we need to take care of our alliances. The japanese, right now, the taiwan government, is wondering if we will be there. If we are not going to be there is japan going to bandwagon with china and create an economic condo to bust or out will they go nuclear . They can go nuclear in a heart beat. We need to take care of our alliances. We are not doing that. We need, as i said, to take care of our economy, we need to balance our trade deficit, have a tax policy that keeps our companies here and doesnt push them offshore. We need to deal with our Education System so that the people coming out of that system have the brain power basically to spur us forward with innovation. And politically you can defend all you want, the pentagon and smart people in the bureaucracies. That aint work. That is broke. I think the answer to your question is i think what makes our military so superior is our technology. And we have such advance technology in the Weapon System. We cut the military defense rn d by 40 and that is a failure of the United States government. And the chinese believe the next war will be fought in space. They are developing the satellites to dislodge our gps satellites from their orbits where our Weapon Systems are operating off of. I think we are shooting ourselves in the foot when we start severely cutting the rnd budget because the commercial world and private companies are not going to do it. To answer your question about peace, i think the only thing the chinese understand is strength. If we want peace, the only way we will get it is if we have a Strong Defense. They perceive the United States in relative decline. That is why you are seeing a lot of activity in the east in theshithe South China Sea. I think your book is sparking debate like you wanted i have a question about sourcing. People in the chinese system that make policy and know what they are talking about dont say anything to the United States. The top of the pla people we rarely here anything from them that is not opaque or dressed for our consumption. How do you weigh the voices we are not hearing, but are much more important, with the voices from other parts of the chinese system who sometimes say things that are much more radical but dont necessarily represent policy or mainstream policy . That is a great question. I think one of the beauties of writing this book was access to people like toshi and stefan to david lampton. These people do have access to those people. And so yeah, i probably heard this second and third hand from the experts. There are ways to hear from those people, i mean, a number of the folks i interviewed regularly read the memos that are circulated in china and the native language. I think the policy is clear. But i think toshi is ideal to make comments on this. It is important to recognize the limits of the sources. This is a challenge for pla and china law in general and that is the ongoing debate about the athoratative behavior. One of the things that makes sense would be making common sense judgments on the sources you are using. But also being very transparent about the sources saying this publication came from the academy of military science. As long as you keep your eyes wide open about the sources you are using, understanding the limits of the sources and being transparent about the origins of the sources i think you can make a fairly responsible story about what they are trying to argue and how it duct tails with what you think is chinas strategy. I would argue the military complex in china is open to air, military officers, formal pol y policymakers and other people that are speaking out on what they think china should do. If you think about the open source literature, they have been writing about this since the late 1990s that are open to the public and available for public scrutiny. We have seen the progression of this Technical Capability and it is in line with the availability of open sources available to outside observers. So having a balance and understanding the limits and acknowledging there is all kinds of stuff out there you can dig into that can provide very interesting and policyrelevant insight about china. My quick question, trying to make it quick at least, in this book, which i have not read, you talk about the other countries you mention al lies like japan and taiwan, but i wonder if china, i feel like it scoreded a lot of its own goals. In japan you had a more i dont want to say prochina but they reached out in 20092010. The election in taiwan in january where it seems like a more cautious toward china. Vietnam, while the chinese leadership was visiting, had a Japanese Defense minister there at the same time. I wonder if you could talk about the other countries and how you see the growing chinese asse assertiveness and aggression . And someone mentioned they are moving closer to the United States and i think that is a fair broad assessment but can you talk in more detail about it . Sure. I think that china has shot itself in the foot. I think that because i was told by a number of experts. I think they made a miscalculation in 2008. In 2008. Up until that time it was a peaceful rise capability and it worked. It was a surprisingly effective form of soft diplomacy and people were buying into it. Then the crisis hit and i think they thought was the end of america as they knew it. And it was said chinas view of history is they dont try to do what we do in the west where we see something, take it and try make things happen. They wait and they merge history and act with opportunity and i think at that point they saw an opportunity which really wasnt there. The other is had rising nationalism within their domestic borders. And i loved the view of how the Chinese Government works and it isnt this top down thing but it is being propelled along by all of these special interest which gets you to the same result post which is more aggression in the South China Sea and so on. I think they made a mistake. I think i say this in the book, and if i havent i have said it elsewhere, shento abi was created by china. There is no way the Prime Minister of japan would be there without taking into account what china has done to japan. What is china thinking . Japan, Third Largest economy which we know it is rising, high tech aware. So they push them in the wrong direction. They have vietnam thinking about whether we should be at cameron bay. They have the philippines wanting us back. They have singapore wanting us to do whatever we want in singapore. They have burma just totally upset with being in a colony and maybe rethinking their priorities. And i tell you what, to a lesser extent there is a lift from the chinese in india because of the shanigans in that area because they sometimes make it worse. And i think stef is right. One of or strengths in asia is we have more friends than enemies. Or it was toshi that said that. All china has is a couple of laos, cambodia and every time there is a meeting they try shift that around. They mucked it up. But that doesnt give me any comfort because and one of my worst case nar scenario is the continued decline in the chinas economy and the chapter in crouching tiger called wag the dog. I have strong opinions but the book itself is, i think, an objective presentation of the chess board. Here is a detective story. I give you clues in each chapter and evidence as i see it you make your own conclusion. I am sympathetic to all points of view and next time around i will interview you and you and get it better. Want to make a brief comment . I was going to add to the point you were making. The point you make about 2008 and the reversal of the chinese diplomacy which had been successful and went sour and isolated other regions is a very important point. But we have not mentioned to other points dealing with china which are quite negative. Chinas gdp growth is dropping. But it is likely to drop a lot more. It is, imf is projecting in the 34 percent range in 2020. You have World Bank Projections which are quite low. They say at the moment they are at 5. 2. That is what seems to be coming out. But, you know, it is a dramatic reduction in gdp. And the other thing worth looking at are the demographics. The demographic growth in china is such they start loosing population in the 2030s. There has never been a nation in the world that can achieve global influence and power with a declining population. Just making those two points. It comes back to keeping a Strong Foundation and a positive vision and avoiding the worst we should do well. I just want the whole idea of the comprehensive National Power china had a bad 200 years. They were taken apart. They want it back. If i were chinese i would be doing what the chinese were doing. But i am not. I am an american. The China Commission, which is a bipartisan commission, half republicans and half democrats, issued about 14 reports to the congress now, one each year and almost all of them are unanimous because when you get into this the facts tell you what is happening. With you see the transfer of wealth of 4 trillion since china joined the wto and you see the detriment that has done to the American Economy and a lot of people say we are getting cheap consumer good but that doesnt good when you dont have a job to buy them or your job is being dumbed down. This has an enormous impact on the American Economy. And the commission each year points out, in a bipartisan manner, how this is affecting the United States and helping china grow its military strength at our expense. And i just think the military guys and the economic guys have to get together and figure out National Strategy for the United States and how to deal with this issue. A key part of it would be to me instead of running a 360 billion trade deficit with china would be how to balance our trade with that county. What are we doing transferring all of this wealth and power to china at a rapid pace. Thank you. One interesting question it appears we need to get rid of these silos and cant afford to have them any longer. Here is a question hat that the connects the silos. If we can achieve the balanced trade or the deficit which means they will not get that kind of capital in there. There is almost 4 trillion in reserve. What is the best estimate of what impact that will have on their military and Weapon Systems . They cannot do everything. If that money were not available that is a question well worth looking at. Lets go to two other people who have been waiting patiently. Paul and general. There is no time he is from the center for american security. Please go ahead. Thank you very much for the wonderful comments. I have a question and maybe i am asking to toshi yoshihara. I am wondering the nature of and how do you assess the potential of the future relationship between the communist turkey and china . I am not an expert by any means on the kind of pla as an organization or the Civil Military dimensions of the pla. But just a couple broad observations. First is just how relatively atonomous the organization is. You can hear this from the Ministry Foreign affairs and how they feel marginalized in an era where there is an upper hand over the internal policy debates. That is one piece. The other piece related to the military operational dimension is what extent there is a proper military dialogue within china about the military plans or operations that the chinese are thinking about. I think the docternal writings offer plans that are highly destabilizing and may make sense operationally but might be a disaster for china from a strategic or political perspective. What extent to the masters have a grip on what is being thought about inside the pla is something i dont have an answer to. The pla is more autotonomous. And my question is what will have leadership say . Will they have the authority and confidence and knowledge to say this is a terrible plan . Or do they get pressured into say yes for a variety of reasons . We know there is a historical presence for that. That is my concern in times of crisis. That is exactly what i want to mention. Normally there are all sorts of conventional or familiar ways that the chinese can get themselves into that trouble. But with space and cyber now on the table these are potentially, certainly cyber and i think space, too, are literally could be civilizationalending thrust and blows. I wondered what side of the stability curve do you think we are on in that regard . In other words, are we before hermon who conceptualized and found ways to approach this profound instability . Or on the other side where we have some accommodation . Did you get at that in your work . I am an optimist and a jeffersonian. All i am trying to do here, paul, is identify a problem and a course and possible solutions for the American People and hope that bubbles up through the grassroots through the polittle process so political process and you supportive of government in think tanks and