in a couple years take nuclear weapons, put them on missiles and reach the united states. very quickly and last word. you are just back from china and japan. is everybody in asia thinking about a post american world that is stepping back, seems less active, and what did you hear. japan is not. they re paniced because they see the defense relationship with the u.s. as key. that s why they re not worried about change in u.s. president. threw got on a plane and said we ve got work with you. but the chinese see opportunity. one of the biggest problems with the taiwan call, american allies in asia, what s the consistency? china sees a big opportunity to become a bigger leader in the region while american allies are saying you can t count on the americans. that s a very big problem for us. fascinating. thank you all. next on gps, why are america s ninth graders ranked 39th in the
that it spends an enormous amount on education. i want you to talk a little bit about what i thought was one of the most surprising countries which is vietnam. poor country developing country. and yet, massively outperforms the united states. why? you know, the world is no longer divided between rich and well-educated nations and poor and badly educated ones. if you look at vietnam, parts of china, singapore and many parts of asia, they have made education a priority. they make sure that they attract the most talented teachers into the classrooms. they get every student to benefit from excellent teaching. they have made huge investments in education and today, the 10% of the most disadvantaged children in vietnam and they grow up in very, very poor households. those children do better than the average american child at age 15 and better than the 10% wealthiest children in some of the other countries.
place in many airplane i can t say. but what i m hearing and reading from people abroad, the concern is this the united states has been the upholder, the preserver and the guarantor of a kind of international order since the end of world war ii, since the united states helped lead that coalition to defeat fascism in europe. it set up an international system and it has been in a way the upholder of it. america through its words, its deeds, its actions, its foreign policy. trump seems to dissent from that. he has said so many things that seem to suggest that he d rather every country go on its own and that is what worries our allies in europe, allies in asia. does he really mean that the japanese should just fend for themselves and maybe get nuclear weapons, the south koreans the same? let s cut a deal with putin so we don t have to worry about this business in ukraine, should saudi arabia get nuclear weapons? you know, that s the part that i
colonialism to secure their independence. in the united states, citizens took freedom rides and endured beatings to put an end to segregation and to secure their civil rights. as the iron curtain fell here in europe, the iron first of apartheid was clinched and nelson mandela emerged upright, proud from prison to lead a multi-racial democracy. latin america nations rejected dictatorship and built new democracies. asian nations showed the development and democracy could go hand in hand. the young people in the audience today, young people like laura were born in a place and time where there is less conflict, more prosperity, and more freedom than any time in human
future. to be honest, if we defined our interests narrowly, if we applied a coldhearted calculus, we might decide to look the other way. our economy is not deeply integrated with ukraine s. our people and our homeland face no direct threat from the invasion of crimea. our own borders not threatened by russia s annexation. but that kind of casual indifference would ignore the lessons that are written in the cemeteries of this cabinet. it would allow the old way of doing things. to regain a foothold in this young century. and that message would be heard not just in europe, but in asia, in the americas, in africa, and