we have a really terrific team. we could all do some other panels as well. these folks are really security focused. right,, to my extreme pat but can. he runs our alliances and american leadership project. and then to his left, victor cha. senior advisor and career chair here. and we have greg polling who directs our asian maritime transparency initiative and is also a fellow with the southeast asia program. to my right, the deputy director and senior fellow at the japan chair. i'm bonnie glazier. so, we are going to start, i think, by looking at a slide from last year. if you could put that up. year with thet question of, where will a major security incident most likely occur. you may all remember, we were here in january. we were all thinking we were going to have a real crisis on the korean peninsula. we were talking about fire and theory. the potential for the u.s. using force. later with aa year totally different situation. sea, interesting in 2018. we have the incident with the decatur at the end of the year. ship goingese probably within 45 feet. no major incident. east china sea, really interesting. in the end of the year, there was no incursion by a chinese coast guard vessel into the not coup miles around the islands, which is interesting. we party had three this month. maybe we are heading back to where we were. straight looksan pretty low this year. it'll be interesting to see what people say about that this year. we were still six months after 2:00. people were worried about the potential after of another incident. then we had modi's meeting with xi jinping. they really diffuse, i think, that issue. although, there's been a pretty major poa buildup in the area since then. that's where we were. we are going to ask the exact same question now for 2019. take us to the next slide. make sure your clickers are on. i hope you'll although. you can see the total number of posts being cast. i know there's more people in this room. we don't have the ability to actually identify what your vote is. it really is anonymous. no great cyber capabilities here. we hope that you will cast your vote. we will look at where a major security incident is most likely to occur. interesting, of course. we have korea down. we have south china sea up. we have east china sea, interesting. even lower than last year. it increased in taiwan. since south china sea seems to be the biggest concern, what we start with you, greg? is there a likelihood of a major security incident in the south china sea? >> share. i flipped a coin in my head and picked korea. south china sea is a perfectly reasonable choice, i think. year, a number of instance happened to indicate the way that this year and the following year going to go. we had the decatur fall off. the chinese response was much more aggressive, much more reckless than previous responses. partially that reflects broader discontent with the way the relationship is going. it reflects china's anger over the multi-lateralization. onead the first british that was clearly british. we have increase in activities by the french, the pace and scope of australia patrols. the japanese continue to operate. china feels like they win the south china sea if they keep it as a bilateral side of the u.s. narrative. if it's an issue of china versus the international community, it's harder for them to win. we may see more aggressive attempts to dissuade other parties from trying. the philippine review is also a potential trigger. forwardmericans come with the statement that is insufficiently clear, it might very well provoke adventurism from beijing. conversely, if we are all clear on nbp scope, it dissuades china. it lays down red lines. it makes clear to beijing where the trevor -- trigger would be. it's clearly an open question. we saw yet another example of china using the threat force to force the vietnamese to cancel oil and gas trilling last year. the same happened in 2017. the vietnamese are going to take this forever. they are not buying the narrative that the code of conduct calls for real. france and the philippines do. there's always the potential for a small-scale incident between vietnam and china to escalate. my prediction is, i don't know if it happens tomorrow or a year from you. there will be a violent incident in the south china sea. i just have no idea if it's going to happen before december 31. >> second is taiwan strait. we've gone up now to 22%. have a is, the chinese toolbox of ways that they can put a lot of pressure on taiwan. which they are doing. we see it diplomatically and economically. we have elections not in 2019 but in january 2020. usually the chinese, as you get closer to elections, they go more into covert influential and lessen this over way of influencing taiwan. there's been a lot of their activity around the island. perhaps, that represents concerns about what his speech means. i will go on the record to disagree with most people. china hashink that set a deadline for unification. i think a close read of that speech that he gave, not the new year's speech but the 40th anniversary. this was basically a requirement, a speech he had to make. they was long, comprehensive. you can help a number of times he talked about peaceful unification. it's not surprising. i think a close read of that speech shows how little room to maneuver he actually has on taiwan. he has to shore up his flank. he can't be vulnerable to criticism domestically on taiwan. he has certainly had to restate china'scy and determination to unify taiwan. i don't see it is urgent. will move to korean peninsula. about, we've gone down from 42% last year and now we are at 16%. pretty significant drop. you agree you go -- do you agree? >> it's interesting. south china sea went up 27 points. korea went down by the same amount. everybody who voted for korea this year has voted for the south china sea. it's hard to say. of the factflection that people think diplomacy is succeeding with north korea? is it a relative thing, relative to the south china sea? i think that reflects a general view among all of you that when there's positive talk about diplomacy and the leaders themselves have committed to a diplomatic process, that gives of confidencense that this thing work -- one wrapped into a crisis. i would remind everybody that it's north korea. today, everything could bps full. the second something doesn't work out, there's a lot of pressure on the second summit to produce something tangible this time. this is the danger of negotiating at the summit level. if you don't achieve what you want to achieve, by definition the negotiation has failed. there's no place else to go. sense, i understand that the audience is reflecting what they see as positive statements from leadership. there has been no tangible change in the security situation on the ground. that's ok. i'm happy to see the south china sea win this year. sea, wee east china will probably have a summit abbe, xirime minister jinping. does the improvement in japan-china relations make a security incident in the east china sea less likely? >> thanks, bonnie. that's probably true in the near term. you already mentioned the operational tempo in the east china sea has decreased of late. desireobably speaks to a for bilateral diplomacy this year. time, japan is fundamentally concerned about china's long-term military ambitions. in mid-december, released a new defense strategy and a five-year procurement plan focused on defending japanese territory in the southwest island chain. aboutstill concern china's long-term ambitions. you will see japan continue to invest in defense capabilities, strengthening the alliance with the u.s.. why thiserstand question only garnered 2% in the near term. hopefully the relative stability will reduce the likelihood of an incident in the near term. >> if there were to be an incident, would it be controllable given how potentially volatile that relationship is and the very strong nationalistic feelings on both sides and the history? certainly there's ongoing concerns about the potential for accidental escalation. on the other hand, the bilateral diplomacy we saw last year produced some progress in developing hotlines between japan and china to to brent -- prevent accidental conflict. the chances of avoiding such a circumstance have approved -- improved. it's still a very volatile situation, one that needs to be watched closely. >> looking at this from the perspective of australia, what is australia most worried about on that particular set of issues? south china sea or something else? ast is australia thinking the most likely security incident that could involve australia, politically or militarily? when i saw had to sit on the doom and gloom panel, i was bit upset. i'm an optimist. i wonder if we have a bit of a false positive here in some of these answers. i think the world has had enough drama for the past two years. i think we will enter a phase where we see things calm down. i've been in the united states for almost five years. i'm not is plugged in his eye perhaps once was. colleagues i speak to, i think you would see if we had an australian audience here, would probably go for south china sea. mosthem, it's the geographically close but also in terms of australia's critical reliance on its trays flows -- trade flows. the unequivocal answer we saw having gone on, where does the treaty sit regarding the south china sea? , there's a lot of vague wording around that. his australia's obligations set? in 2005, a difference between the foreign minister and the prime minister on that one. for us trillion officials, b would be there largest concern at this stage. >> just like in a simulation, there's no fighting the scenario and there's no fighting the questions. there's go -- let's go to the next slide. we are going to dig into korea here. as you know, president trump just met with north korea. with the array of people opposite him. now, we appear to be moving towards a second summit. you will see in this one, in the east they say the second summit will take place. you can certainly choose that. the question, we will focus on. what could a summit produce? we all know what came out of singapore. really interesting to see that people here are so pessimistic that it's going to be nothing. no tangible progress, 80%. a very small percentage of people that think we are going to get something positive out of it. agreement to9%, an end the korean war. we have about the same percentage for the promise to withdraw u.s. troops, have north korea provide a list of its components of its nuclear program. i'm guessing, you don't disagree with this too much. first, the audience went down 26 point since seeing this as a security crisis. they think nothing is going to be accomplished in the summit. that's interesting. as my colleague said earlier, it's not out of the realm of possibility given the president's views on u.s. troops abroad. list of verifiable components. that would be a great outcome. that would be the best outcome of the summit. they would be what would be the first tangible step towards a real denuclearization process. an inventory of other capabilities such that you could locate and verify them and begin a negotiation process on disablement and dismantlement along a specified timeline. that would be the best outcome. for that reason, it is very unlikely. i don't know if i'd agree that there would be no tangible progress. as i said before, there's a lot of pressure on both leaders to come up with something tangible this time that goes beyond the statement of principles that came out in singapore. there's a lot of fan for around that statement of principles. and than seven months of nothing. level, in part because the north koreans don't want to negotiate at the working level because it's harder to negotiate with people who know about the issue than it is to negotiate with the guy at the top doesn't know anything about the issue. or maybe not anything, but is not as well entrenched in the negotiation. i think what's likely to come thats something tangible is a piecemeal step forward, probably involving a nuclear facility. the original nuclear facility. in return for what the north koreans really want most now, not a peace declaration. what they really want is release from sanctions pressure. whether that comes from the united states, from the u.n., or through the south koreans. forugh human exemptions south korean projects. something along those lines is going to be the outcome. it has to be something the president can defend as being a positive step forward. for the north koreans, it has to be enough so that they can claim they are getting some sanctions relief. a second summit will take place -- maybe it won't take place, it could be delayed. we've seen this happen before. there's a lot of pre-positioning that takes place. before thesix weeks approximate time of this meeting. but does lend to more negotiations, both over substance and logistics. both of these leaders are famously fickle. they could change their mind and decide to delay or postpone. i think it will happen. >> what's the best outcome from south korea's perspective >> -- perspective gecko -- perspective? >> all sides could point to it as achieving their objectives. that's the optimal. outcome, it's not a failure so that the process continues. the south koreans have a big stake in the continuation of the plum asleep -- the plum asleep. 2017 led them to believe that the alternative is something much worse. spiraling in the direction of potential miscalculation or even war. i think their best outcome would be some incremental progress where everybody could say, this process is alive, is producing results. short of that, anything that allows them to say that the process, maybe it's not thriving but it still has a pulse. perspective,'s incremental progress is good, too. they want that dialogue to continue. they don't want everything to fall apart. they don't want any major breakthrough, either. we have one more slide on north korea. if we could go to that. so. now we really going to doom and gloom. negotiations between the u.s. and north korea fail, was going to happen. pleased all forget to turn on your clippers again. please vote. we have resuming missile and nuclear tests, the agreement is for that will freeze. that would mean u.s.-south korea would resume exercises. the second choice is focused on rhetoric. not really so much actions, but that there would be tightened provocations through the rhetorical response c is inter-korean engagement. e is china and russia redouble efforts to prop up north korea. maybe not completely mutually exclusive. what you think is most likely to happen. keep registering your votes. people are pretty spread out here. that of optimism inter-korean engagement will continue. i agree that we would see a resumption of nuclear missile tests and military exercises. again, may not be mutually exclusive. if you take a, b, c together, 91% ofpresents almost the audience. that combination is right. it depends on how you define failure. if we define failure as, both sides walk away from the meeting saying, this really sucked. we don't see future progress as possible. if we use that definition of failure, if we combine what all of you have said about it, that looks like the likely outcome. the south korean government is committed to engagement. not just because ideologically they believe in it. they have now tied their own -- thec, economic solution to their difficulties, low growth, high unemployment, to inter-korean economic engagement. they don't want to go back to 2017, the year when they thought there could be war. for that reason, they will continue to focus on engagement. even if the u.s. diplomacy is failing. we use the definition of failure being both sides walk away and say there's nothing here anymore, we will go back to some of the missile testing. the u.s. will probably reengage. we will have a lot of name-calling back and forth. aboutteresting thing everything that president trump has done on north korea, he has gone out of his way not to criticize north korean leaders are you in a most every tweet, he has been very careful not to criticize. and only flatter the north korean leaders. mean allould probably that gets dropped. he becomesdden, rocket man again. and he's no longer the dear leader. remember, that's been true that president trump has always praised xi jinping, except that one time. but then he went back to being good friends. you never know. nick, what are the implications for japan if the talks fail? >> thank you. going back to the previous slide, people in japan would be comforted by the voting in this ofience about the prospect u.s. troop withdrawal from the korean peninsula. u.s. forward presence on the korean peninsula is critical to japan's national security, in terms of deterrence. certainly wouldn't want to see that. japan's primary concern is to encourage more progress on the denuclearization front. to themade reference potential for south korea to talk about sanctions relief. i think japan is fundamentally committed to china -- trying to maintain sanctions on north korea. evidence ofsent any change in its behavior. from the japanese perspective, support for this process, desire for concrete objectives and some results to denuclearization. on the backend in terms of , allowing them to have a new relationship with north korea. very -- the instinct is to maintain pressure. in this case, if north korea , japan isclear tests on the front lines of that threat. i think, perhaps, that could actually prompted change in dynamics. perhaps that would encourage the more trilateral coordination in response to that threat. i think japan's instinct will be to courtney more closely with washington. as a matter of strategic necessity, should be returned to more provocative environment. >> let me add to the comment nick made about trilateral relationships. agree that it's terribly strained. we are at the point that we are hoping a crisis with north korea -- that's a reflection of how bad the situation is. we don't focus on it as much as we should. we largely think of think of it in the context of coordinating on north korea. the u.s. administration is not only doing this bilaterally they're doing it leader to leader. we don't feel the cost of missing that trilateral coordination. anything we are you try to do in agreement will require cooperation between japan and south korea. i'm really worried about the state of this relationship and there is no sign -- the usual indicators, none of these are present. point. good on the china peace i would say china has tried to walk this very fine line keeping the north korean issue as a positive issue president trump put out that he was -- probably has evaporated from my point of view. there aren't that many positive issues in the bilateral relationship the two are working on together. north korea is still pretty much on the positive side of the ledger but at the same time pushing to get the sanctions. you will be interesting to see if the nuclear negotiations fail i think that puts more pressure on china as to how it's going to play this issue in its relationship with the u.s. and whether it works more closely with russia. that would be challenging. we're going to move to our next slide. there's a lot to dig into here. the biggest boom in indo pacific during 2019 will turn out to be we have five really good choices. all of which would be good. to question is what's going be the most important one that's going to strengthen security in the indo pacific so you have to pick the one that you is going to happen and is going to be the most important to strengthen security in the region. tiesr u.s. japan defense in the lead. people are not too optimistic about reaffirmation of the u.s. alliance commitments. we will talk more about the quad . nobody things china is pulling back activity. we will talk more about the code discussions going on. if everyone can register their vote. it looks like closer u.s. japan defense ties his first. nick, why don't you lead us off? is that the right choice? >> absolutely. a lot oft reflects developments in security cooperation between the u.s. and japan in recent months. ,ust getting to the question security in the indo pacific is a lot of discussion in washington and tokyo about what free and open indo pacific means and whether the u.s. and japan are aligned in terms of the .bjectives under that strategy we can debate that going forward but i think fundamentally that concept is a framework that will facilitate more defense cooperation between the u.s. and japan and other like-minded countries and partners in the region. as a mentioned earlier japan has a new defense strategy with three basic themes, strengthen its own capabilities, the u.s. japan alliance and partner with others and that is closely aligned with the national security strategy and national defense strategy unveiled by the trump administration. i think there's a good framework in place. in the coming year i think that a lot of dialogue on corporations with new domains names in cyber. , big team we are working on alliance interoperability. it sends a very compelling signal throughout the region. there's a lot of positive momentum there, potentially friction on trade bilaterally which may be addressed in the upcoming panel. cap's a mixed bag for u.s. japan this year. i think the sign of greatest momentum is on defense ties and we will see that. >> that is a great segue to you, pat. we talked about whether it would be focused on trade facilitation , infrastructure and a lot of people chose 03. probably very optimistic. what role is the quad going to play? .> i was surprised i thought it would be higher on side.ade on the military side of things push really hard on that. keen to see what the numbers were going to be and i believer.am now a believer. what areanels about the things in the -- between the japan -- we're seeing that in the air domain, things like f-35 common platform everyone is now using. it's no secret my colleague rick and i have a lot of discussions about where it is india at how does india come on board and most importantly what is in it for india to come on board. one of the problems you got -- we all know the legacy issues and what is really strategically in india's interest in going into something like this. got the interoperability peace. india traditionally has a mixed bag of where their weapon systems come from. russia has been a significant exporter of military armaments so that is naturally a problem. that.ratified with a lot of people when i tell them quad is the piece i work on ses is, good luck mate. this gives me some hard. i think it came at a practical level. if there are indian officials in the room or those of that fromxt let's try to push three nation activity to formation activity. concepts,s of alliances, whatever you want to call them, coalitions start at that service practical level rather than a top-down approach. >> so coming in third, close third, we have diplomatic progress between china southeast asian countries on the south china sea. there's a three-year timeframe for finishing the coc. 2019, not a lot of urgency. we've seen the single draft and that was written by carl sayer but widely circulated. a lot of interesting things that have been inserted in that draft by some of the players. maybe you can talk about what are the prospects for really significant progress being made and what are the main issues the countries disagree on. >> i am rarely called an optimist around town. this made me feel even more pessimistic than usual. were progress that would be a boon i just don't see much. china's timetable is three years at best. three years maybe. of theest meeting regular vietnam china meeting. afterwards he went to the press by thed he is frustrated slow pace of the diplomatic progress on the chinese side. lot of poison pills inserted in the text not just by china. clear nonstarters just to see what they could get away with. the indonesians put in things that are not going to fly with china. the vietnamese were so cynical about the process they basically stapled their own code of conduct to the back. about maybe 50% of the easiest issues. there have not been discussions about the hard core problem. operationalize? has not come up yet. how does it operate? has not come up yet. last 10% of any negotiation based about 40% to go before they get the last 10%. font to be a e distracted by the late election. getink they just want to out of this thing without being tarred and feathered. the philippines is the coordinator. relatively ineffective in reading china's willingness to negotiate. maybe weppines will get a deal last year, so far none of that has been true. the bilateral diplomatic process ex offer more optimisms but not much. , trip tol and gas side manila to continue negotiating oil and gas. philippines -- by november of this year they hope to have some kind of agreement on oil and gas. it is unclear if they are even talking about the same things. if the chinese are willing to accept the philippine principle, that chinese companies have to in get -- invest in oil and gas operations under philippine law, paying taxes to the philippines, awesome but i don't see any evidence beijing will be willing to make that concession. i suspect in november this will be delayed again. the oil and gas side you did have an agreement between china -- the pledge to follow that up with concrete negotiations. and asover a year later far as i know there have not been concrete negotiations and it runs into the same problem of geographic scale. i don't have a whole lot of faith. if there is going to be a crack i suspect it will be on environmental protections. tou.s. alliance commitments the philippines and south korea. greg has co-authored a terrific piece with eric sayers from this issue which i command here. what do you think of the prospects from your perspective? >> this was my choice. largely because of the negative consequences. if we don't do this on both sides the consequences are far worse and on the other retro. likelier thanis not that we see an affirmation n the details. i think the u.s. is not going to recognize european sovereignty wer the nine features -- will see with echoes but i think it is likely we reaffirm the position that william1998 -- ane armed forces public vessels or includes the south china sea. if that does not happen there are only does the possibilities. the philippines decides the treaty does them no good and i cannot reiterate this enough, i think they are dead serious. it will not cost as much as the u.s. thinks it's will. counterterror, etc., none of that requires -- we do that all of that with indonesia. the only thing philippines kids special is a guaranteed against attack. uterte to prompt d convince the chinese he's serious. -- that is also truly negative for security. >> victor, what about our >>mitments with south korea? the thing about this question i don't know where the audience is answering this because this is what they think will happen or if they think this is what will happen. i think korea was the outlier in terms of the most problematic. where thea situation key elements of the alliance under negotiation on things like the agreement which expired december last year. it is january 23 now and there's still no agreement. there are a variety of things that need to be negotiated between these countries and if to aare negotiated satisfactory resolution that would be a gone to the alliance. , then the alliance will be on rocky waters. >> we are going to move to our last question for we turn to q and a from you in the audience. our last question is which current or potential location for chinese dual use port is the most concerning. basehinese already have a base in djibouti. they could be logistic facilities. i think the chinese increasingly aboutmongst themselves the need to have these facilities. they do call them logistics facilities. 50% who say --t there is potential in cambodia. a lot of discussion in the south pacific. the potential is some people would say there's no need to be concerned. in the click is only about 7% of you who think there is no reason to be concerned. we don't have any of our south asia experts up here. does anyone want to talk about what's going on? >> this is really interesting is it reflects the audience in which we belong. i can promise you if you asked this question in new zealand or australia you are going to get rapidly different figures. don't think there is any secret that china and pakistan have long held relationship. i don't think there's anything particularly new in that. i'm not convinced given the current operations that that is going to give them any great extra ability to operate considering operations in that region anyway. this, that is the interesting one. you are pushing out potentially the new areas for operation. pushing out further away from the chinese mainland. since very strategically between australia and new zealand and the united states. the pakistan one does not surprise me. it is not one that i would be --rly shocked at in terms of there is nothing particularly new in that. >> what about cambodia? should we be worried? >> yes. .ot as worried as djibouti potential. this is a concern as part of this project in cambodia where the chinese have filled casinos and whatnot but also a deep water port and begun expansions on nearby airstrip, the cambodians have strenuously denied that there will be chinese basing in cambodia. vice president pence delivered a warning to cambodians when he was out in asia last year. the cambodians often deny a lot of things that actually happen and if there is any place in southeast asia where you can imagine chinese rotational , it isin the future cambodia. all the concern about the or indonesia i find those to be overblown and increasingly unlikely given domestic politics. toan imagine an agreement allow rotational chinese access for certain things especially considering the circle of rent .eekers is relatively small the chinese don't have to worry about public pressure. -- that have to buy off is not the case even in other authoritarian countries in southeast asia. >> we have about eight or nine minutes to go. we will take questions from the audience. wait for the microphone. make a very short question so we can try and collect a few of them. let's go over here. .he microphone is on its way >> i have a question. -- last weekend a meeting with pompeo and .resident trump >> will you repeat the question? >> what came out of it with president trump. let's collect three questions. next in front. wait for the microphone, thank you. >> how does all of this flow into the middle east? .> and then over here microphone is on its way. >> thanks for bringing up the coc. we have heard they plan to achieve the coc in three years. vietnam complaining about a slow process. secondly, the announcement by , does thisree years mean china is serious about risk management in the south china -- confrontation with other states. we can expect the south china sea will enter a period of sustainable peace. >> you want to make headlines here, victor? >> the result of the meeting was that they announced the summit sometime in the end of february, place to be determined. generally you think it becomes and meets with pompeo and his counterparts that could be part of a negotiation. the call on the president was probably to deliver some sort of response from the north korean leader directly to president trump. probably another beautifully written love letter the president fell in love with. nown, i think where we are we've sort of set a date toward the end of february and we have six weeks. there are logistics that have to be planned. if we are taking bets i think vietnam is likely the place to do it because logistically it works for the north koreans and the united states. work for thenot north koreans that well because they don't have much infrastructure there. we have these six weeks not just others logistics but for to try to negotiate what will hopefully be tangible outcomes from a summit meeting. if the summit does not resolve in actual steps toward denuclearization it will be declared a failure. it would not surprise me if there was postponement, not enough progress. to me the situation that is most said, the, like greg last 10% of negotiation is the hardest and if we get to that point and the president says i will just wing it from here, that is the most dangerous scenario. this literally is rocket science. this is difficult stuff and you >>.t just wing it we don't have middle east experts. if we go back to the pivot under the obama administration the whole idea was to pivot somewhat away from the middle east and those of us that work on indo pacific think this is a critical area of the world we should be paying more attention to we as a nation are able to successfully pivot away from the middle east. to me it is still a work in progress. if you look at where we put our resources for example that a lot of other places. many of us would like to see .ore resources in asia anybody want to add anything else on that? i would just say briefly in debate aboutf the u.s. strategy in asia and free and open end of pacific vision it really comes down to the strategy fromu.s. a focus on responding to terrorism which is overwhelmingly the post-9/11 focus and now overwhelmingly the notion of strategic competition with china and russia the importance of u.s. alliances in asia in that context where the current focus on asia leads to less attention to the middle on u.s.a renewed focus forward presence around the world to maintain a stable international order is probably an open question. i think this focus on asia is not missed fairly just regional. it has potential to open up larger questions about the u.s. role in the world and allies and partners in asia. talk as much about that as what's going on in the region. >> a couple of questions for you, greg. i on the code of conduct don't see any evidence that any side, china or vietnam, also other claimants to a degree are willing to concede on the point necessary to reach a code of conduct. after change but it would require change in strategy among a lot of the parties. the only way beijing is going to decide to clarify the scope to make the concessions that would ifrequired is going to be there is an awful lot of international pressure that convinces china the perception of it being an outlaw in a south china sea undermines equities globally. it undermines the idea that it is irresponsible rising power that deserves a seat and global rulemaking. that came off the table with the election of rodrigo duterte. this administration's decision to focus almost exclusively on north korea and trade issues for the first year and a half of the administration. we need a greater focus from the u.s. and partner nations on the south china sea to get to that point. is willingnot china to reach a deal now at all, i think beijing is serious about negotiation premised on the idea that they think the time is right to push to make concessions they were not made. i think beijing believes they can leverage and that china's victory in the south china sea is inevitable. they convinced them of that and think they can convince others. but that commitment to negotiate can only extend so far. if you look at last year, we had despite all the nice rhetoric about negotiations, very rapid deployment to the south china seas. anti-cruise ship missiles. we have now a basic 24/7 rotation of p.l.a., navy and coast guard ships throughout the south china seas. has ize of the militia increased. these are not the actions of a country that is only going to negotiate. these are the actions of a country that sf negotiations fail. >> we're going to take a 10-minute break. please have some coffee and come back. we have saved the best for last. please join me in thanking our panel. 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