Good afternoon and welcome to the council on foreign relations. I am president of the council and we are delighted and honored to have this is the first officiale program. Thi see a lot of friends out there, members of congress and its a particular honor. At the council for a couple of days and the chairman and the Ranking Member with us and congressman. Talking to businesses and a wide range of stakeholders about this we would love to get your perspective on first and foremost chinas role in the global economy. A. China has driven about a third of global growth. Do you want to china to slow down and the growth to slow down. Thank you for your hospitality. For those who dont know we have about ten members of our committee here. We started the day off by going to the 9 11 ceremony at ground zero which is very powerful and we will have a series of engagements today with people from the financial and economic leaders. A lot of wall street leaders and tonight we will do a tabletop exercise with the goal of trying to better inform us and the members off our committee to fulfill the mandate weve been given by the speaker of the house as well as the minority leader that i interpret to identify the Bipartisan Center of gravity and policy and legislative proposals that can put us on a better path to competing effectively. In that endeavor ive been lucky to be partnered with raja krishnamoorrthi. He hails from some states has been a pleasure to work with. One thing that makes me nervous, theres a lot of black male sitting in the audience on me. I was lucky enough facebook didnt exist until i was a junior in college, least likely to be a member. I very much would like the Chinese Communist party precisely to stop what i perceive to be a totalitarian ambition becomes a regionaltn hegemon that means cutting up our alliance and partnership. I dont think the ambition stops theirs e with the chinese econoc growth as a means towards that end or if that Economic Growth is just a way to build the parties congress and something we are seeing right now the Largest Military buildup at least since the Second World War and if you think about the t numbers theyli are daunting and overwhelming. Weve been twiddling our thumbss thinking of how to grow. China not only has the biggest navy in the world bigger than ours by 41 and growing on average and for those who say its not a big deal they are more capable. But they buy meaningful measures. At the coast guard, the maritime to say nothing about what is problematic which is the rocket force theyve been designing a force exquisitely over the last 20 years so as to push us out of the region. That to me is a problem to the extent they are leveraging their economic power to coerce thest companies. If that behavior we are trying to stop. I would love to see a world in which china continues to benefit. But if they continue on the current course i dont think we will have an option but to selectively decouple or the risk or diversify. I havent anyone affiliated anyone living in the prc. I think what we are very much concerned about his Economic Growth that comes from in part economic aggression. What are we talking about . We are talking about the theft of intellectual property, talking about dumping of products below the cost of producing them to drive our companies and hold industries out of business. We are talking about cyber hacking and about all the types of unfortunate moves the party has undertaken to basically get a leg up. They need a diplomatic visa. The scariest point here is they were on the verge of bankruptcy because chinese competitors had dumped so much product on the market that they couldnt survive but its to enable them to stand up operations and survive and thrive and that is a kind of competitive posture in. As the economy slows its less likely to make a move on taiwan. I dont know if that is true and i dont mean that to criticize but its equally plausible that as china confronts the serious demographic issues, he could get more risk acceptance and less predictable and do something stupid. They are sort of insulated from certain types of information so that is one of the questions we will be digging into today whats the Systemic Risk if he either invaded taiwan or did a blockade or some other scenario and that is a question that we both have a great deal of humility. Im not trying to pretend like i have the answer to that question. What do you view as the goal whats the equilibrium we should be seeking . Yesterday President Biden in vietnam said we do not seek to contain china as the new equilibrium as a containment and peaceful coexistence that has no analog because the relationship is different what do you think we are heading towards in this relationship . A conflict with china over taiwan would be catastrophically. The human costs even those that fought in wars the scale is just that equals the losses its crazy to wrap your head around that. Preventing world war iii as having the near term objective to most. The midterm objective is in our interest to have our allies control technologies and we can argue about what falls under b that definition but some things that are obvious the longterm goal i would argue i think we should seekin to maintain a word in which america is the dominant superpower and more peacefull ad just part of the reason we are in a such a position is because we have this fantastic network of partners. On the cold war i think we have a different view of this i find the analogy helpful both for the differences as well as the similarities and the differences are obvious. We never had at the selective decoupling because the economies didnt interact whereas china we are conjoined twins. Its what makes this so difficult to untangle. Its got to be a situation where we have a rulesbased of the region where as President Biden mentioned we are playing by the rules there are some rules of the road that neither side or no one in the region is violating. What does that mean . From a security and military perspective we dont resolve our differencesle anywhere except at the negotiating table. There cannot be coercion or military resolving these differences and unfortunately the ccp competitors dont necessarily abide by the fundamental principle. You see that in the South China Sea where they lay claim to the entirety of the South China Sea and im not just talking about the barbie movie of the lien but they are throwing their elbows and we all know about taiwan and this has got to be off the table. Previous generations of diplomats and american diplomats decided we are going to leave that question for the future. We cant do so at this moment. Thats what Henry Kissinger and his counterparts in the 70s decided if we arent going to get to that point we need to get to the Point Military aggression is at that point and secondly it has to be economic rules of the road that we can all agree to. What we are seeing right now are practices that the constituents will not tolerate you to those irritants will continue to destabilize this relationship i think thats why it feels so fragile rightec now because Something Like 80 of americans view china not as a friend, not as a competitor but sometimes as an adversary and when you see that you are on a road to a bad place and so we have to change that. Theres been disappointment along that path. Do we do that through the economic sanctions . Or is it through some overwhelming change in the military balance of power where we have such a great deterrent capability that it changes the calculation . On the military side we are in agreement i think generally we have not done enough with regards to equipping taiwan and deterring military force. We kind of know what needs to be done but itst not being done fast enough and there are people who would like to move faster it hasnt happened yet. We can get into more details but that is one issue that we are in alignment. The second is a tougher issue with regards to economics how do you get this ideological person to change his worldview and begin to comply with the rules of the road . Im not sure its even possible however we have to hedge on the if its not possible we have to protect our values and commerce and industries and work with allies, friends and partners and perhaps bilateral trade agreements that enable our friends who are collaborating and second, i do think that on the other handha its possibleth that these multilateral alliances and partnerships could potentially pressure the ccp to adjust. Thats one thing they fear more than anything else which is us gettingmo together with our friends and allies to put in place certain principles were kind of guardrails that would prevent the ccp from playing us off against each other. Thats something we should probably implement with taiwan as well. Theres no successful grand strategy with a closer partnership. It doesnt need to be a formal Treaty Alliance because some will never have a Close Partnership with those like india, indonesia as we see the authoritarian power china being the dominant partner with other indication only venezuela but we need to build a Stronger Team to counter that. At the even more obvious point is if you frame it in terms of over two decades of the engagement strategy it will continue. My view i do believe the hard power component of the strategy is the most important and at the best chance of deterrence is robust and a smart investment inhard power and sort of proves the point that soft power disconnected to detours like you are not going to detour the sanctions if your adversary doesnt believe you have a credible military deterrent and nearterm investment in the things weve seen that so important. Longrangeto precision. Autonomous systems. The thingsn that can be numerous or less expensive as opposed to massive platforms that take years to build. The final point i would say is wet do have to selectively and strategically decouple. Theres a point about the right terminology and diversifying sometimes im confused atco what these Different Things mean, but a few things to me are obvious i dont think that we should be financing our infrastructure. People in the room probably disagree with my views about the level we should put on capital going to china but we shouldnt be allowing americans in general to invest in companies that build artillery shells, aircraft carriers and fighter jets thats an obvious step we could take Going Forward. Zehow do you identify the manufacturing where do you draw that line because we are always going to have an economic relationship. I dont think either of us have a problem with you as long as it isnt made with slave labor. Its absolutely essential and implies a bunch of things to get our houseng in order but we are going to solve that. The Biden Administration has proposed some ideas about restricting the investment in areas of the sectors you said it doesnt go far enough and you want to look at passive investment index funds basically any purchase of Public Company stocks. Pros and cons and what that might mean for our own borrowing costs. Is the goal to deny china money for the expertise and the technology to be used against us . Let me Say Something nice. I dont want to be like the evil critical republican on the panel. At the principle that there should be some restrictions. Where i dont think it went far enough by putting treasury in the lead with a ton of off ramps given the past behavior. It just had a position that dependsab on who we are talking about but i would expect that there wont be a robust set of restrictions and even though they said it was sector specific we have these different lifts. Theres for others that are not routinely updated in a way that makes sense. Youre just left playing whack a mole and i dont think based on my experience in government that thats a workable strategy Going Forward and as you dig into the advanced rulemaking it seems less of a sector specific approach even though they sold it as talking about ai and quantum and microelectronics but if youre just talking about private events what do we do about the rest of the money flowing to china . Weve heard some constructive feedback in the meetings initially. Part of the reason we are doing the trip is to interrogate the issue regardless of where you fall on the issue whether you think it was too weak, too strong, whether you think we should go more aggressive, i think Congress Needs to step up and legislate so we are not bouncing back and forth between the different constructs and the biggest thing even those in the Financial Community one above other things is certainty, predictability, clarity and if we legislate it thoughtfully thats what we can provide andou if we have an appropriate path so people can transition to the new guardrail regime that would alleviate a lot of the concern. Some people think we are advocating for. Theres quantum computing, artificial intelligence. Why those areas and why not others . Some are being used for instance for generating surveillancecu systems. Most of you in the room are already aware of this but theres a genocide happening in northwest china today. A 23 million in that province. All of them are surveilled individually. Upwards of 2 million of them are in concentration camps as we speak. 80,000 women have been forcibly stereo sterilized. This is just unspeakablefr evil thats happening today. We should not participate in any type of endeavors that further that a genocide. Its that simple so thats the first thing. We shouldnt be funding the buildup of the pla. We have index funds today in the savingsm plan. There are index funds that build the fifthgeneration fighter jet that would be used in invading taiwan. Not only that but theres so many other military companies being funded by us. Pathey couldnt possibly buy frm the United States government because they provide backdoors to the chinese intelligence serviceit that we are funding today. It makes no sense. So i think that we want to be in thisua situation where we are ae tor invest just as they investn our country. Thats kind of where we are focused. Last week we heard the news that if they came out with of their new phone with a chinese made chip. The chinese are claiming that it shows the export controls they are able to do this much more quickly than anybody anticipated. How do you assess that into the export regime because a lot of these efforts assume that we can actually control whether its capital or technology. It was an interim rule with an eye towards shoring up the loopholes that allow china to get access effectively. Thats one of the biggest things we heard at the committee. There are some deficiencies you might want to think about reworking and thats a constructive role for the committee and congress to place the export control regime can be incredibly powerful provided its actually enforced. Restrictions that are on the books right now were capable of enforcing them i think it would have a more powerful impact. I do think though coming to the plaintiff your question in a way these controls c can deny critil technology to an anniversary adversary thatwould use that tea dystopian purpose and that is in general a good thing to do. Its a noble effort about impure economic competition may be all maybe allthey do is buy us timet we can out innovate and compete and ultimately thats our winning u strategy and that wee drawn upon the best and the brightest in the world i think thats our winning economic and technological strategy over the longterm. It cant just all be china bad. We need to do america good on the world stage, independent of the control we have. Behalf. You sound like a democrat. [laughter] i agree on the export controls but one interesting thing telling us exactly what shes planning to do and what shes going to talk about. They feel the pinch and he hates that we are able to target the very semi conductors that he needs to help power the natural language model to get faster and better and more adept at all the stuff they are trying to get at so i think its having some effect however mike is right we have to up our game. We have to invest in basic science and research that has a huge section for funding basic research however that part of the bill hasnt received any appropriations. Its a weird thing in congress where we passed stuff and authorize stuff only to have it die in appropriations because it doesnt get any money. That is crazy. We should be fully appropriating the money requiredy. For the bac science and research and ai quantum nanoscale manufacturing of robotics and the like because the export controls will slow people down potentially but we need to be much further ahead than where we are right now and at the government will never do the applied research and development or the commercialization to make the product. But they will take advantage of that research and development once it blossoms at the universities and National Labs and the like. This was the main topic just before we came down here. High skilled immigration is the key to winning the competition. We should do all we can to prevent the ccp from using our technology to compete with us and in ways that we dont want but unless we have the people to do the innovation here we have no chance. Yet its so messed up. I am an immigrant im one of the few naturalized citizens. If we dont get this right we might as well go home right now. So i think that is a bipartisan issue that we should get behind and it should be part of our general Skill Development package where we both stand up the high skilled indigenous workforce and attract the best and the brightest from around the world. Ranking member is pretty good. I think the principle is obvious most of america could get behind it to make it difficult if not impossible to come here illegally and make it easy for people to come here legally and we have to solve both issues. You can to get to an immigration fix if you dont solve the border issue. The two things are inextricably linked. We are to the broader point we are in a global war for talent we should want the most talented hardworking people to come here specifically in green bay wisconsin. We confronted this in the Trump Administration how you have adequate securityy protocols. The Trump Administration had a researcher ban in place. This was eminent to me. However its based on the assumption the community can assess whosaf affiliated, whos not, whos the members of an opaque organization. Thats a very difficult thing to do so youre left contemplating do you keep the status quo with the intellectual property or do you adopt a blunt instrument knowing full well youre going to deny a lot of wellmeaning chinese citizens from potentially one day coming to america or becoming an american citizenre and that is the real dilemma. I know where i stand on this. Chineseamericans, scientists, scholars, innovators and so forth are some of the most talented and i want to just applaud from the start of the committee saying they will stand against any xenophobia and prejudice, bigotry or hate directed towards anybody including chineseamericans and so forth. One of the things we found out in the committee thats very sobering but i should mention and we talked about this quite a bit the ccp uses coercive means against chinese origin people here to do things they want to aid their enterprise in a way that is deeply disturbing. They set up a Police Station im sure you read about it to go after people that are critics or dissidents to go after chinese origin students at the various universities i think you met with some folks at Columbia University and this is a troubling problem because we want to attract the best and the brightest but we need to protect them at the same time. Im going to open up for questions in q a minute. Where do you to disagree and we have half a dozen more members of the commission upstairs. Where are there the major divisions . Most of the disagreements are sports related. Most are from illinois coming in and buying of our land. Some of the biggest differences are not necessarily democrat versus republican. Theres the median view and thats kind of why we are here. I find that interesting. However the biggest differences between the parties putting aside what the system looks like i doubt we are going to get around to that. Ive been critical of the recent push for economic and diplomatic engagement. I think we would agree that it would be wise for us to have a Crisis Communications channel in place. Y we disagree but i will allow him to speak for himself. The relative prioritization of Climate Change as an issue and more broadly there are huge differences between the party and that explains why they voted against the Inflation Reduction Act and recent legislation about Energy Policy concerns and we may be making ourselves more dependent with this push. Both parties are hostile to trade. Ive been blaming you. But i think that if we just accept the reality that a multilateral trade agreement isnt an option anytime soon i think you could have a pretty robust set of bilateral agreements. I for one have argued for a freetrade agreement with taiwan, with of the uk. I get that isnt as big. It would still have a big impact. Theres no clear partisan divide. I think mike is right about those differences. I am a big proponent of the act. Theres the disagreement i think its principle. Let me put it this way. About should the United States government choose Certain Industries in worst case choosea Certain Companies to end up getting a leg up either on their competitors or industries to get a leg up on competitor industries. I think theres a disagreement fundamentally on that although it was a bipartisan bill which is going to make a big difference. The way in which we talk about it and we havent talked about it in depth, but i think it might relate to the engagement piece. Ee but they made with their ccp counterparts and i think that is a really good thing. Words are nothing compared to actions but we are not able to establish a regular line of communication where we can explore those areas where there is overlap and we have an interest in tackling fentanyl trafficking or other issues of common concern. Sometimes they dont like to even talk about it in this way because they fear that we are making concessions. I disagree. I just want to say how delighted i am that you are now president of cfr. [applause] into a comment about Mike Gallagher he is one of three. As a lifelong democrat i admire you enormously and want you to know i chair the commission onss the National Defense strategy and the board of freedom house. I asked this question on their behalf and also mine. If you were looking at the house of representatives and threats of closure, just a saying, and some of the ideas floating around, not commenting whether they are good or bad but commenting that they are floating around, would this make you more likely to be risked ready and say the United States is falling apart so i might as well move on taiwan or not . Great question and thank you for not only your remarkable record of Public Service but youve always been incredibly kind to me even when i was a noname congressman who ranked 415th, so i appreciate that very much. My whole hypothesis is the next window that we are in is the window of maximum danger. The reason for that has less to do with the t house of representatives at this particular moment in everything with the demographic and the challenges faced particularly if he wants to take taiwan and i know people disagree about whether he actually wants to do it. You should at least plan around it. He keeps telling us he wants to take it by force if necessary. I think this is the window it will kick off in earnest after the election but the other variable or set of variables because we have a bunch of big defense bills its going to bottom s out in 2027. Now its the most dangerous time so if we can find a way to make it work in this decade the decisive decade the Playing Field gets a little more favorable. Certainly government dysfunction doesnt help anything. I have probably more radical views about how to fix it that would anger a lot of my colleagues. But its hard to plan. And as a defense guy i will shut up after this. Think about the devastating impact theyve operated under for an absurd period of time in the last decade which means you cant do any new programs. Pr its the dumbest way to operate. Nothing of the effect of the sequester and by the way we will have another sequester if we havent passed all regular appropriation bills by january which would be and discriminant across thehe board. Like we just dont learn our lesson so that would be a bad outcome. Thank you for your service and i think we just had lunch with your son upstairs. The intellige, which i believe you are the chair for in the past, so thank you so much. Yes, the answer is yes. A Government Shutdown would absolutely give signals to the ccp that we dont have our house in order, would it lead to them more likely moving on taiwan . Im not sure about that because they have other problems, one of which is, xi jinping doesnt think his own military is ready to move on taiwan, and thats in part why he routinely exhorts them to get out of what he calls having the peacetime disease. He has use them currently as an inferior fighting force in a lot of ways. Whether they are or not is a different issue, but they are very insecure about their own capabilities to move on taiwan right now. That might change over time, so we should be prepared, and we have to make sure taiwan is able to deter that type of move. The other point i would make, however, just more broadly, i view this as kind of like a sputnik moment. This issue of the competition with the ccp has really united republicans and democrats in a way ive seen few other issues do in washington, d. C. And, i think we have to use this moment to get our own house in order, whether that is starting to deal with the longterm deficits and debt, which i think everybody in this room are concerned about. The way to make sure we have dollar dominance as many of our participants mentioned is, we have to start paying down the debt and we have to avoid the longterm debt. Another issue is, weve got to make sure that on the most pressing issues, whether its immigration or what seemingly intractable issues of Climate Change and so forth that we have a situation where we are not just driven to action in crisis, we cannot just be a crisis driven organization in congress. So, im hoping that whats going on with the ccp will help us to kind of fix some of our small democratic problems, even at the same time we are dealing with tactics and strategy, regarding taiwan or other issues. 500 virtual members are listening in to see if there any questions. We will take our next question from james simmons. Thank you very much for your presentation, im with the stimson center. I wanted to ask you both speaking about restrictions on outbound investments, index funds. Preventing those from being invested in Chinese Companies especially those involved in military civil fusion, etc. I wanted to ask of this was an instrumental approach to the modernization, or if you see this as a principled approach to ensuring that American Investments dont support human rights abuses in countries around the world. Ive always thought of it as a principled approach. The principle is not expediting destruction. I guess it depends on your views of the regime in china. If you think it has denied intentions, maybe youre less exercised about American Capital flowing into china. To me its obvious they are doing things that we find morally and geopolitically objectionable. And maybe there are times when you have to make difficult choices between moral concerns and strategic concerns on the world stage, at least history suggests thats the case. Our values align in this. Given everything that ccp talked about in terms of displacing us from the region, giving the ongoing genocide, i think theres a principled argument for putting in place restrictions on outbound capital flow. Again, im not exactly sure what instrumental means, but i think it may be a way of saying is this an effective way of also dealing with the modernization issues in the military civil fusion issues . I think so but it will probably not be enough. The amount of money that we put into these programs can easily be replaced. Middle Eastern Countries or others could replace our capital with their own, or the chinese could put their own money into it and they could continue with their modernization from a financial standpoint without too many bumps in the night. However, i think what we do need to do is, just like we did with the semiconductors, the highend semiconductors, weve got to engage our partners, allies and friends in a multilateral basis with regards to whatever endeavors that we are tackling. If we dont, they will play us off against each other and they will disadvantage our companies and industries with the french or someone else gaining an advantage. I think we have to do more than just what mike and i are talking about with regards to these outbound restrictions. It made me think about the massive opportunities we have now. Theres a ton of bipartisan support for australia, u. K. , america, sharing our Sensitive Nuclear Technology with the ozzies. And i have been very supportive of it. We risk screwing it up if we dont do a few key things. Beyond the longterm way we allow australia to have access with our Nuclear Submarine and sell them without going further south in terms of our own submarine requirements. Is your shortterm operation within the beating heart of the free will. We have no closer alliances than that which we have with the ozzies and the brits. Yet, we still have outdated road locks and cooperations in the form of international tracking in arms regulation that makes it exceedingly difficult for us to share human beings in knowledge and technology, even allies with whom we share sensitive intelligence. Breaking down the barriers strikes me as an obvious thing we can do this congress. Its crazy because theres a large caucus and people can act. And thus the sclerosis which presets congress. Congratulations, not only on coming in, but also on a terrific First Program of the season. Beijing has launched with some have categorized as a type of peacekeeping effort. Peace plan for ukraine, the saudiiran deal. So whats your perspective . Do we ignore it, do we counter it, do we engage in it in some way . What is the commissions word on this, and i have to talk tack on, youve been great on the uighurs. What about tibet . That was part of my portfolio at state. On tibet, we did have an event outside the Chinese Embassy in d. C. With a bunch of tibetans. As we talk about there is actual cultural genocide underway in whats happening there is horrific. I think its a story that not enough americans know about and a story that we can sell on the committee, i appreciate your work on that. More broadly on the peacekeeping effort. Accepting peacekeeping for xi xiping would be whats a relevant analogy in new york, accepting advice from Bernie Madoff . Its too close to home. That references outdated. Thats too soon, i dont know. Yeah. But he is putins no limit partner. He is, in some meaningful sense, funding putins war machine. He had the partnership agreement. Its clear that a lot of people underestimated the depth and breadth of this partnership and i would argue both of these countries are waging cold war against us and we need to have any attempt to this separate whats happening in Eastern Ukraine from the balance of power across the Taiwan Strait would be a bit myopic. I think we have to engage. All the more reason why there is the key point about building allies and partners systematically as we see this access of authoritarians great against us. Two planes, one, im not worried about their peacekeeping efforts, and if they want to play a substantive role on peacekeeping, like, they really want to use their leverage with putin to do something significant in ukraine, i think thats great, because we dont have a lot of leverage with them ourselves, and we want to see them adjust to the war. However, if part of their 13 point plan 14 or 13, i forget , 12. Always get it wrong between 12 and 15. This 12 point plan did not anywhere mention that russia would have to pull out of ukraine. So what kind of peacekeeping or Peace Agreement with that be . Thats one thing. On the other issue you brought up, playing a role with iran and saudi arabia, again, i think thats great. Anything that they do to help to mend fences there is fine. Its not really effective, based on what i could tell because they are not really willing to put anything into trying to play the role of mediator, obviously what we are trying to do, or the Biden Administration is doing right now, is much more powerful, right, and if they could weave a grand bargain involving israel, saudi arabia and do something with the palestinian question all of the same time, that would be a real cool coup, and this hasnt put in i towards whats happening in iran, and i think that wherever we can work with the ccp, we should, and i just really question whether they are doing it for appearances sake to show mccrone in his colleagues in europe that they are actually playing a constructive role, as he tries to drive a wedge between the europeans and the americans, or whether they are really doing get sincerely, i think its the former. Im going to violate counsel policy by asking for two questions. Daniel rosen and then one from our virtual audience. Thank you, den rozen from rhodium group. Your today, Global Corporate investment, fdi into china, has collapsed to a three decade low, black to the investment levels. This is happening without draconian controls on outbound capital flows. If we were to pass out right now, we would hand the communist party the perfect explanation for why people in free markets around the world are not going long china anymore. That could really come up with could be a great teaching moment , that the sort of cost of a liberalism that weve longer expected, would come to pass in china is actually happening right now, and we really need to put a light on that rather than letting them blame it on us,. We will take our next question from rice lee bryce lee. Please accept the unmute now button. It seems you are having difficulty so i will turn it back over to you. First of all, you have that recent analysis of a blockade scenario. Even in examining a scenario less than war or conventional strategic war, i forget that the overall costs were incredible, these are the stakes at the low end of conflict, think about the steaks at the highend of conflict. I take a point about fdi, alternatively, theres never a better time to put in place guardrails that will last regardless of what investment looks like over a twoyear timeframe or a three year timeframe over the administration in play or who has won over congress when it seems that people are more accurately affecting the risks of doing business in china. The risk range from having your assets in the taiwan conflict to the risks inherent to owning business entities which are there are no protections. Vips are to Real Security as what real football is to vanity football. I think your average american doesnt understand the risk. There is sensible legislation. Heres a point to wrap all of this up and i will shut up because i talk too much. It seems to me that xi jinping is preparing for war. And that may seem absurd to this audience and i may seem like unsophisticated group from the midwest for saying that, but we tend to underestimate the probability of these things. Roger forced me to teach a class on the korean war last month, and it was a really rewarding experience. Ipic about the time we were in, we had just one world war ii, massive victory, it economy was going gangbusters, the sentiment was bring the boys home, all of a sudden we had to deal with this new threat in the form of the soviet union. Because of diplomatic missteps, because we decimated our own military and civilian nightstick, we stumbled into a conflict on the Korean Peninsula for which we were not prepared and we lost 36,000 americans in a war that was largely forgotten. That is a bad outcome we should seek to avoid something similar from happening in the present day. The reason i have this on my mind is because theres a cult of the korean war right now in china. Xi jinping talks about it. Chinese students are forced to study the korean conflict. This was in the opinion a time when they stood up to the technologically superior americans and they won on the battlefield. Theres a movie about the korean war. The battle in a slightly different way that we learn to marine corps officers. There is something going on here that we need to take seriously, thats what the purpose of this trip is about. A war between this two country would be absolutely terrific. I view it as one of my missions on this committee and in congress. I echo that, piggybacking off of one thing said. Perhaps a lot of you already know this, xi jinpings role model, his hero is mall, and maos famous saying around the korean war is one punch saved 100 punches. It was a preemptive attack on the americans in the korean war over the river. That is the outcome we cannot have here and lets be very clear, if we go to conflict over taiwan, there is a nontrivial chance of a preemptive attack on american interests or targets by the ccp. Its not like this would be over there, it could be right on our doorsteps, it could be our american servicemen and women who would be attacked, or could be attacked on our Critical Infrastructure in america as a brush back pitch to keep us out of a conflict over taiwan. There is severe potential for miscalculation, he doesnt get it, i respectfully submit, thats in part why i so strongly support the diplomatic outreach right now, they dont understand that americans would not ignore an attack on our interest or on our people. We would fight, and it would be catastrophic. We cannot go there. Thats why in response to your question, i think we have to put the guardrails in place right now, make it super clear, if its not Crystal Clear to xi jinping himself, exactly where and where we will not go with our investments and send a powerful signal in the process to the private sector not to do the same. We must do that. Furthermore, i have to say whats happening within china is a tremendous economic slide. I think all of you probably know this already, but the one specific that jumps out at me is someone put it artfully today, 25 of people at the age of 25 are unemployed. The youth Unemployment Rate is off the charts and why does that matter . With the one child policy, as you know well, one child was supposed to take care of his or her, usually his parent, and for grandparents. There is no social safety net. There is no Social Security in china, they are relying on their children to take care of them or to help take care of them in the old age. When you have one child in whom youve invested all your hopes, your dreams, your money, everything to get educated and they come out of college and cant get a job, guess what, there are a hell of a lot of people who are upset. Thats whats happening within china right now. A hell of a lot of people are set, Consumer Confidence is at alltime low. They dont want to buy stuff, that is xi jinpings fundamental problem and i wouldst respect lees submit he should turn inward, sees with the economic and military aggression and if we can play by the rules of the road, other countries might be willing to engage more. Until he does that, it will be tough for them. It has been rokita chatting with you not just for the quality of the conversation but to see this bipartisanship in action and to see you traveling here and around the country to gather ideas, listen, incorporate that is very inspiring. Thank you very much for being here. [applause] relations