For dealing with china. This is 45 minutes. Okay everyone. My name is glenn howard im the president of Jamestown Foundation we are deleted to have the ninth annual conference the assistant secretary. The position in january 28, 2018 if you dont know anything about john jamestown we are nonprofit that specializes in your eurasia with terrorism and we appreciate the people to miss will be broadcast on cspan. And the critical parts of this is that the comments are on the record he appeared last year at the jamestown ei sfoundation with a security conference that is off the record at the time so we keep progressing and to give more attention to these issues. So when the China Community a robust voice and 2008 and has been very active in this region for quite a long time in quite a distinguished career before the Armitage International different areas. And with those security trendlines. With the deputys secretary of state responsible of china mongolia and the pacific islands. One of the things he has done to be a robust thinker is that june 2019 he helped to develop the longterm the longterm strategic competitor to create a new position at department ofat defense and that is the Important Development and we are delighted they have taken the time to come talk tohe us. Thank you i appreciate the opportunity to be back i guess this is progression to be on the record but i welcome the opportunity because its a consequential time in the region for what we try to do to compete with china. And to be a part of this discussion so congratulations including the conference of the discussion earlier like an old friend like russell to get our hands around these various challenges or to learn from the discussion and how aggressive china so im pleased to be a part of this some of those recent developments and to embed that in the strategy i will talk about internally how we are organizing for the challenge with the creation of this new position last week in china and vietnam in japan and trust me thats the right Order Strategic competitor but certainly i have learned one of the trends we have been tracking and observing and unfolding but the chinese did receive me at the normal protocol level and they continue to say that relationship to be a stabilizing force in the overall relationship that faces a number of stresses and concerns what happens internally in china and hong kong but we continue to hear from them they want that to be a stabilizing factor to better understand but at a minimum with highlevel engagement with a good channel of communication but also advance our agenda with respect to Risk Reduction the operating environment safer to avoid incidents or accidents and still try to work on issues where our interests may align to include the challenges we are facing to the korean peninsula. We have to understand where the chinese are on this but also too observe them to places like vietnam and japan that although there is some rebranding underway and trying to put a face on that initiative highlighting the activity of the east or South China Sea that what we see in the region is a branding effort to be underway with the behavior in the activities b that are of concern to us and vietnam for example to put pressure not only the vietnamese but other International Private companies with legal exploration and extracting. They are focused on a possible visit next year but in fact the same level of activity is occurring around the East China Sea with those postcard activities into japanese imterritory so that rebranding in those activities but it is embedded but we understand with the Strategic Ambitions and aspirations. But talk about competition and why we believe we are on the leading edge of longterm competition is based on those different visions and aspirations like the free and no pacific and although that sounds like the slogan, its important to remember it is founded on those universal principles with the support for international law. And for peaceful resolution. Fair and open and reciprocal trade. So then we see the chinese in the ccp with a different o vision. Sometimes you talk about the chinese to be opaque and then to have a very sophisticated is intellectual property but we will share it. Watch they do and see what they sayil and then you will see very clearly and one that could be a threat to those underlying principles that we spoke of for sovereignty and international law. A we talk about competition of different visions but is also ourur belief and then to promote and sustain the concept of a free and open indo pacific with so many other the same one to share the same aspirations. Red asking you to choose between our countries and then to support international law. This is all we see was strong and independent and prosperous wpartners. So the competition on 2019 with the no pacific strategy report so preparedness increases the locality of the joint force. And then with that investment with the types of things with hypersonic cyberand space and then to maintain that at least spoke about with respect to china talk about the joint force we are very clear that chinass modernization is for us. And one thats a real element . And to spend time in those relationships but for us it is critical. The United States is the pacific nation. I know that but for some people he may need a little reminding. For the asiapacific nation and not silly philia resident in asia. And those capabilities to bring to bear. But we also very dependent on partners and allies. With those partners of allies so we work with very mature allies and japan and with those guidelines to implement and operationalize those strategies to promote free and open indo pacific. With malaysia and indonesia. So many of these jealously guard their online status which we partner with giving up the opportunities. And then to havein confidence and with that disperse all disparate one dash diversification so that was to create those opportunities. And the security challenges of the indo pacific are inherent multilateral and increasingly multilateral. If you think about protecting your 12 nautical miles its really about domain awareness. That doesnt start or stop at 200 nauticalal miles. So maritime domain awareness and think about how countries can move on that spectrum. To share and contribute what is the most fundamental element of knowing what is approaching in the territorial waters and knowing what type of element you are dealing with. Sharing means you have to be networked and have the ability to communicate information and contributing i to be in a position with this capability of the coast guard or aircraft or whatever it may be. Moving them along ther spectrum gets us to a point where the region is sufficiently networked with those security challenges. And Multi Lateral in nature from naval vessels and these are all challenges. And to maintain those ties with china as i have mentioned. And then to have a willing partner to see the dialogue but we want more from her chinese counterparts. And with those visions for the future. And with thoses realworld problems and rethink our interests do have alignment. I do mention the peninsula where we made an attempt to restart diplomacy from the team in sweden and then to maintain pressure with peon yang peon yang with that mindset to be productive and we think it is critical those have the capability will do so and what we have seen from china right now unfortunately is the slippage of the sanctions when it comes to ship to ship transfers so as we compete we dont say adversary or enemy because competition is benign but while we compete we want to be at a minimum and not what has been dangerous for all partiess concerned. And we are well into the Implementation Phase to do that more effectively as mentioned in with that alphabet soup of the pentagon and now we have four Deputy Assistant secretaries of defense so it is a bit of the misnomer of the china challenge it goes beyond the bilateral interactions with the pla it deals with different parts of the defense enterprise to seek alignment within our department for the china challenge. Its one thing to have a great strategy another to have great policy statements but another to bring the whole department of defense into alignment for the challenge so we will have somebody on the china w desk dealing with africa or western hemisphere or middle east and europe and russia to help our Department Work on those issues rather than integrate at a so on at that level so thats not the sole purview of those strategist in the planners but those who understand china and involved in china policy to inform that process in a better way with the Economic Technology issues so everything from the five g tout challenges protection of the energy basin those that acquire technology will be put in a better position to compete well in a safe way so with that i will see if thats enough questions or criticisms or whats on your mind. As i mentioned earlier in a previous discussion what is the pentagon thinking . We put out an annual report at the pentagon called the pla military accord every year we select a special topic or two to include. This year we did include an annex on china. At this point we are more in the observation phase and better understand phase certainly a lot of interest on the part of the chinese with the Arctic Council as the observer their own stated policy the silk road they put that behind everything now but they call themselves the near arctic state the investment of icebreakers and so there is ambition we try to understand that full spectrum may be resource interests or new routes that could very well be military avoids a driver but particular interest of what those dimensions might be may be taking a page out of the soviet model to position certain assets we are watching and learning as an Arctic Council member ourselves we are open to a discussionch with china but mostly with other Arctic States that are interested or concerned about chinas behavior. Please identify yourself. So you start off talking about meeting with the counterparts can you talk about the middle one. Five forum or those working levels between the United States or the pla . And what does the department doing to promote or curtail activity . Were not doing a lot to curtail we have made some decisions because a policy of behavior that we talked about last year because of the military station of the South China Sea with the general secretary comes to the white house and says they want to militarize her has to be a consequence. For the most part we are interested in levels of contact and types of engagement to protect our interest we dont engage for engagement sake were not looking at volume of number of visits but are we promoting our interest to promote openness and transparency. By the way to critique with the quality of that that was a good move to be transparent. We welcome that bed other objectives in terms of promoting a safe operating environment to develop better relationships with theel next generation come all of these are worked into a proposal for the military contact in and work through was acceptable anything that pushes usr to the objectives we are open to we dont say this level or that level is out of bounds but again we dont just want engagement for engagement sake and that era where it was a metric and frankly it has been a metric in other relationships were trying to tighten thingsgs up and do things that are meaningful. They want to bring back bad information. So the internet that you talk about . You may not be surprised. I did not have to bring up the taiwan issue. [laughter] it wasnt long after our decision to make available the f16s so that was on their minds. Ri simply reiterated our policy remains the same with the taiwan relationsey act they are not seeing new things but the implementation based on their own trajectory and modernization so of course we willll continue to monitor the law for taiwan selfdefense i dont want to comment on future agreements. This is an area where we share concerns and would benefit from understanding best practices this is an issue of concern with the upcoming Taiwan Election in hours shortly following. We need to engage and learn best practices but i dont want to talk about any possible future agreements. Are you expanding people from the outside are just moving themro around . A little bit of both. We have a 750 billiondollar budget but are still resource constrained so were doing our w best and thats a combination of all of that for go the good news from our perspective the secretary of defense the deputy in undersecretary are not only behind this initiative in the creation of this initiative but thehe notion that this is needed to drive that alignment they are 100 percent behind we are getting the support and all the ways that you talked about. So with that cybersecurity and National Security from china we all heard that they are secure in that they have been spoon feeding from the chinese systems. So in your review how to avoid . It requires a degree of vigilance to understand the understanding the relationship between these companies and the ccp with a full accounting where g the vulnerabilities may be the awareness piece is there, the effort to better understand to go through our networks and supply chains is well underway but whats more challengingg is with partners and allies for a variety of reasons with the education and awareness piece has come along maybe not everywhere but the countries are themselves ahead of us australia is aware of these challenges for quite some time but as others come healong we need to meet them where they are. Some are heavily invested and is part of their networks and infrastructure to understand how they can advance and get to where they want to be with the modernization goals to deal with the cost of ripping int th entire infrastructure versus adding on incrementally is a huge undertaking. Meeting countries where they are incu terms of themselves having secure networks. We dont want these commercial decisions to be inhibitors to share information with allies and partners. To make them anyway but then we have to respond how we deal with those countries so with all those with the awareness and understanding vulnerabilities with decisions based on where they are and adapting from thei their. Im with the South China Morning Post what are the options the us has with a more forceful approach . How do you see those human rights to be characterized to play into that scenario as support for the demonstrators and everything in between . And if you do take action than that could hurt the hong kong people more. Thank you. It turns out you dont have to do aase lot to be accused wih some of this so that cannot be our Guiding Principles to avoid that label because weec are stuck by virtue of who we are. So that makes us suspicious to the authorities. I think we as and administration have said all along we hope this is resolved in a way that avoids violence and chaos that they can deal with those who have a legitimate grievance and are asking for for those rights that areha guaranteed under the 1984 joint declaration in fact you may have noticed in the un speech uk china joint declarationoi as the International Community that cares about law those fundamental rights should be respected and guaranteed. So those that speak out and that the authorities should accommodate based on a previous promises made and then enshrined in the documents for go then to have those tactics that they may have been using those single instances to point that out but in general the heavier hand that beijing has taken with what we regard as activities on the people of hong kong but i will not speak directly to legislation other than those fundamentalci principles states . We have talked about this internally, and i think we regard what they say by historic standards we regard the Hong Kong Police and authorities as a very professional force and have historically acted in accordance with upholding the law. There is a very good judicial story to the ecosystem historically. We are concerned about is the heavy hand from beijing and how that can be distorted and turned into something more repressive. It would almost have to be sort of casebycase if there were to be an incident of some sort judging based on the merits of an individual case, but i think that the general trend concerning that we are seeing less autonomy, more influence from beijing, heavier hand from the authorities there and in general and the erosion of the things that were promised to the people of hong kong and the joint declaration and the basic law. Looks good to the site of the room anside of theroom and thenk over here. We have about ten minutes. Thank you assistant secretary. My question for you is earlier this year you talked about the concentration camps which i think some people would say maybe that isnt quite a defense issue and so i really appreciated you talking about that and just want you to comment on balancing and carrying out the interestbased policy in the nation which is arty arguablre arguably a valud nation. Me be clear i do think it is a defense issue and security issue. First of all, i think that its indicative of how this regime will be a bandwidth tolerance it has for the very aggressive and outrageous behavior. It tells you something about the ccp that could easily translate into external behavior as well, but i think that goes far beyond that. What we have is a potential of the radicalization of the population but historically is not actually particularly radical. I mean, we did to designate a group in 2002 which basically doesnt exist anymore. Other than in chinese propaganda and chinese accusations of everything, everybody that wants freedom. But what they are doing is potentially radicalizing a population that was by historic measure pretty peaceful and could create terrorist problems and could create networking that even spills outside of china. We know that there have been those that have been involved in organizations outside of the borders of china but his training and information to try to take back into china but part of it is actual contribution