Next, look at the current relations between the United States and china with security and defense experts. U. S. China economic and Security Review Commission hosted this event. Thank you. We will catch up sometime here. We are not too far behind. I would like to introduce our second panel, which will explore major developments in the u. S. China security relations in 2019. We will start with doctor orianas carl mastro who is assistant professor of Security Studies at the admin a Wilson School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. And a resident scholar at the american enterprises. Shes the author of the cost of conversation, obstacles to peace talks and more time. And currently working on a book about chinas challenge to u. S. Privacy. Next we hear from doctor andrew kirby voinovich senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and adjunct senior fellow at the center for new American Security and president and ceo of solarium llc, defense consulting firm. His previously served as president of the center for strategic and budgetary assessments and the Department Defense of office in the assessment and on the personal staff of three secretaries of defense. He is the author of several books and monographs most recently publishing the decline of deterrence. Earlier this year. Our third panelist is doctor Michael GreenSenior Vice President for asia and japan chair at the center for strategic and International Studies asis. As well as director of Asian Studies at admin a school of Foreign Service and Georgetown University. We are overrepresented by Georgetown University today. Doctor green has authored numerous books and articles on east asia security including most recently by more than providence, grand strategy and American Power in the asia pacific since 1783. I ask all of our witnesses to keep your remarks to seven minutes. Doctor menstrual we will start with you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you chairman bartholomew and vice chairman cleveland and the commissioners for having me today. Im going to highlight a few aspects of my testimony in the last year and focus specifically on the sino russian relationship as well as the new defense what it means for competition moving forward. In terms of regional activity two big things i want to highlight the first is that taiwan is still the driving scenario for the pla and this means that training procurement reforms and reorganization all have implications for taiwan. In the testimony i list a number of platforms coming online in the next year, for example, china has begun two years ago the destruction of Nuclear Attacks marine they also have a new type of destroyer that are expected to come online soon. These platforms along with the platforms they already have such as aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, bigots, corvettes, the emphasis ab these can be used in scenarios to coerce blockade invade taiwan. The Chinese Air Force is also made Significant Developments i would have implications for taiwan. Currently developing a new strategic self bomber and they have a whole series of bombers fighters, airlifts and helicopters for the Ground Forces that are all scheduled to be online and ready to go by 2020. The Chinese Military developments in an area particularly concerning because of she john paying increasingly strident rhetoric on taiwan. In his new years day speech he outlined unifications the ultimate goal of any talks in the future and in my analysis it seems that she johnabwhat specifically this means i think is there is great uncertainty but at the very least china probably wants to restart bilateral talks and to do this they hope that the Political Party thats most amenable to this awinning the presidency in 2020. In the meantime china is conducting very sophisticated exercises in order to intimidate taiwan and most recent happened in july after United States and arms and arm crackers. Taiwan has been the focus of the pla, the South China Sea has been significant concern largely because of the relative improvements in Chinese Military posture. In the past year we havent seen as much militarization happening because a lot of that land regulation militarization had occurred before. We do consistently see the rotation of certain platforms on the islands, the j 10 fighters coming in and out of woody island and extending radar capabilities. China is also increasingly operational tempo in these waters which suggests they are practicing to have a more persistent presence there. Of note in july 2019 china conducted a series of antiship Ballistic Missile tests in the South China Sea. This is the first time they conducted a test over waterways versus overland. Beyond east asia China Military activities have increased significantly during xis tenure. The chinese 2019 white paper china participated in 11 International Humanitarian aid Disaster Relief operations 100 International Joint exercises with 17 Different Countries. And active in five peacekeeping operations overseas. In 2019 alone theyve already conducted there are 13 joint exercises and humanitarian aid Disaster Relief oppositions which suggest the pace is increasing. Of six significant concern is chinas military increase presence in africa. They also sell a lot of military equipment drones and other surveillance equipment africa. I think this is an area to be watched Chinese Military experts abroad. Future developments in china and the Pacific Island in the arctic deserve to be watched but right now especially in the arctic the focus seems mainly on energy and chinese increasing their military cooperation with the european nations. But most of this is more for the image of improved relationships. The area i think most concerning two people when you look at security developments is the china russian relationship. Theres been a number of notable trends in the space which have been greatly covered in my testimony and other venues. Its true that china has increased exercises arms sales and diplomatic platitudes when it comes to their relationship with russia. I think this is not sufficient to just just there moving away from relationship of convenience and there are a number of obstacles to closer ties. Specifically china sees russia as liability. Its interested in being seen as a legitimate great power. Russia has relationships with countries that china has poor relationships with us, such as india or vietnam. While i think we are being too alarmist about the relationship becoming closer i think we are not concerned enough about what even the smallest degree of improvement of this relationship would mean for the United States military. I think the first thing is that it seems that russia has accepted junior partnership and this will change how we think about the cooperation moving forward. Id always assumed it would have to be symmetric because china is not really willing to put its neck out for russia, for russian goals in europe and assumed russia would be willing to help china achieve its goals in asia. It seems especially with the joint patrol that the two did over the takashi in the islands that may be russia is willing to help china even if china is not willing to reciprocate. This sparked a new trend of the relationship that might greater Russian Military involvement in asia which will achina they like to posit themselves as being the fourth of peace in the world some of the Chinese Defense white paper is not a National Security strategy and the way the United States has National Security strategy. Its written by foreign audiences and it had a few main themes they wanted donors to know the first is the Chinese Military has become a much more comfortable as a global role and china is becoming more comfortable with the pla becoming more involved in implementing this role. China also promotes itself as a force for peace while the United States is an instigator of strategic competition. And regional conflicts arms racing, power politics etc. Also the white paper is interesting because while it tries to persuade concerns about military modernization it has very harsh rhetoric for the first time about taiwan in the maritime disputes. The last point i will make is about the peer near peer competitor. I was asked whether china has reached a level of United States. I will just say that china does not need to be as sophisticated or as big as the United States prevailed against the United States. We are fighting different wars even if its the same where we have different challenges. Im happy to go into that in the question and answers. Because deterrence required both capabilities and resolve if we have a balance of abilities, that means we dont have a deterrent. China is much more resolved. They are willing to accept higher costs in the United States and most contingencies and therefore maintain deterrence the United States actually has to have better capabilities so we would suffer less than china would. There is a difference in how to assess trends in the future. China has surpassed the United States, given certain trends in the region china will soon be able to out match the United States. As we know on the global stage china is nowhere near being a peer competitor to the United States. I have a number of recommendations in my testimony, most focus on the South China Sea issue which is i think the key area of strategic competition on the military side between the two sides. The United States needs to prioritize diplomatic solution with or without china. Get all the claimants to agree on the sovereignty of the islands and what rights islands give them and then have International Enforcement of them. I think the United States should consider protecting exclusive even harvick aband improve the posture in Southeast Asia. Right now we are optimized for conflicts in northeast asia and Southeast Asia and will take a great deal of political will to be able to have assets in Southeast Asia. I think thats whats really needed at this time. Understandably states dont really leaders are worried about doing this because they want to avoid a war with european competitor but in my view the only way to prevent a war is to deter chinese aggression if china doubts the United States for ability to prevail then they are more likely to rely on coercion and aggression and this is what will drag our two countries into work. Because of this i think United States think needs to put all military resources behind maintaining regional order even if this means taking a few risks to ensure success. Given my background and expertise i will focus my remarks on the military aspects of the relationship. In particular, look at three issues, first the military balance of the indo pacific. The openended longterm military competition between the United States and china. And third, aspects of deterrence. Its my opinion in present the indo pacific military balance appears favorable to the United States. That said, i havent seen anything in the Public Domain or in terms of military literature that comes close to the kind of analysis and assessment of the military balance that you saw during the latter stages of the cold war between the United States and the soviet union. I think for us to really get a handle on the true military balance is there needs to be a rigorous set of regional and functional net assessments done looking at various key aspects of the competition between the United States and china. As the competition with china is openended, we also need to take a long view its not just a snapshot of the balance is trends that will shape the balance over time and how can we improve our position. Using sir Michael Howards four dimensions of strategy the logistical operational technical its my preliminary assessment that the trends dont favor the United States. The trends are generally unfavorable. If you look at the social dimension the ability to mobilize and orient your population in doctor wurtzels term to eat bitterness if necessary, it seems as though the chinese have a distinct advantage over the United States both in terms of our elites and u. S. Public in general. Logistical or the leaks to the scale of the challenge if you look at lets just look at gdp i know its just one element of National Power we can get into others but if you look at the gdp alone, chinas gdp according to Current Exchange rates and the world bank is roughly 2 3 that of the United States. If you add russia its about 80 . If you look at some of the historical data, which i admit is imperfect, you see that imperial germany in world war i the axis powers in world war ii and the soviet russia in the cold war never really exceeded roughly 40 of the us gdp. Be looking at the scale of the challenge its roughly doubled, gdp terms and relative sense to what we saw in the great power challenges that we confronted during the course of the 20th century. When you add to that looking at the cold war for example, our advantage and analyze our advantage in manpower relative to soviet russia is also our advantage to technology those advantages have either weathered considerably well relative to china or perhaps have gone away entirely. What also interests me is in the scale of the challenge if you look at some of the recent reports on u. S. Fiscal standing you will find according to the Congressional Budget Office interest on the u. S. Debt which was 263 billion in fy 17 unless things change will rise to about 915 billion or roughly 650 billion more over the course of the next decade. Thats tax money coming in that has to go out to service the debt. The Social Security and Medicare Trust funds late 2020s or early 2030s will be exhausted. State and local governments have roughly 5 trillion in ab cbo is in my estimation rosie estimate is about 2. 5 percent of us gdp will be available for defense during the cold war against the 40 soviet russia we average over six percent so we will average less than half that against the set of rivals that is roughly 80 of our gdp. In terms of scale, it seems as though the trends are negative. In terms of technical and operational dimensions one of the things Senior Leaders in the pentagon worry about his circumstances to which there could be a disruptive shift in the military balance, all of a sudden things look very different. We find that with the diffusion of technology to china, also advances in technology where theyve set themselves some ambitious priorities, there are potentially two destructive shifts in the balance of the u. S. Military has to worry about. One is what the pentagon calls the maturing precision strike regime. We had a near monopoly of precision strike warfare since the persian gulf war. The chinese are clearly catching up. We havent seen them putting into practice but certainly a number of their capabilities and what theyve accomplished are impressive. So far military looking at Group Precision strike regime we are losing a major source of military advantage. A couple of important questions are, is this the new normal . Are we going to be shut out of certain parts of the endo pacific is the chinese capabilities mature . Or is there a different way to project power . The second disruptive shift could occur with in the emerging military revolution. Everything from Artificial In