That was your major, wasnt it . It was a long time ago. Yes. A long time a, so there you have it. Bu you can also come to georgiag tech and not study engineering, but study internatial relations. And even though some pele associat normally georgia techh with a very,ery good, one of the best engineering schools in the world, were proud of th, we do lot more than just gineering. And since i have your attention, im going to put in a little plug for all thoseonderful thgs that we do. And by the way, we have today with us the dean of the Ivan Allen College of liberal arts, kaye husbas fealing. Shes wing over there. An i dont know if the chair of the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, adam stulberg, isere or not, but so, yes, there is very strong and very exciting school of International Affairs at georgia tech. We believe strgly that in a ace that is as rich in science and technology as georgia tech that can provi a very interesting context for diplomacy and for policy setting. We are committed as an institution to eduting leaders who advance technology and improve the hum condition. That is our msion. D of course that brings up the question of what are the aspects of the human condition that need to be improved. And that requires not only strong science and technology, but it requis a lot of policy and liberal arts and history a unrstanding of what are the issues that theorld faces. We understand that my of the biggest problems that w face as a species or even the proems that affect us in the United States and here in georgia are global in nature. And understanng the dynamics of how decisions are made on a global scale is fundamental for the work that we do. And thats why were so proud of the work that the nunn school carrs out at georgia tech. By the way, we he some incredibly distinguished faculty in the School Including admiral sandy winnefeldnd general Phil Breedlove and dtor elizabeth sherwoodrandall who have played les either in the u. S. Defense or in the federal level. And we have manother incredibly important fulty. Anyway, so re delighted once again and alway be remissed to highlight how important it is for us again that georgia tech be a place of debate, of discussion, not just georgia tech, but all of our universities are to be ples where we bring people together to discuss the big iues of our time in a absolutely open, in an open way. And i couldnt think of anybody better to bri a discussion abou our nations policies in relation to china than our chief diplomat, sectary pompeo. And it is my distinct honor to introduce him to you. You know that secretary pompeo is the 70th person to have this job. The first one, iuess, must have been thomas jefferson. What a distinguished line of indiduals that you follow. Secretary pompeo has had a whole number of jobs. I dot know if you know how to keep a job, but n there is a very pitive side to that, of course, wch is that you have acculated a host of experience that i think very few people can. Secretary pompeo has bn a soldier. He has been aattorney. He has been a Business Leader. He has been an elected official. He has run our intelligence. And now hes our chief diplomat. He is also slightly competitive, ive found, reading about him. Everything he does, he wants to do it well. He wants to be best in class. When he went to west point, he graduated very first in his ass. Ss an then when he went to harvard r law school, he was editor of the law review which is one of the biggest honors for a law scol student at harvard. When he served our military, i ink it caught you at a very interesting time patroing up and down the iron curtain between west germany and east germany, and right before the fall of the berlin wall. And as we were trying to figure out earlier, he m be, we dont know this, but he may be the first person who has been the head of the state department having been director of the cia, which what an interesting perspecte that would give you. So with that background, his absolutely really has a fascinating background, and im incredibly honor, incredibly honored on behalf of allf us at georgia tech toelcome and please join me for a warm welcome to the secretary of state of the United States, secretary pompeo. Please. [applaus thanks. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thk you. Thanks for that kind introduction. Welcome. Good morning, everyone. I love having the liberal arts dean back there. It was always aig challenge when ias in school making sure i got t periods and the paragraphs, everything just right. I like the math, zeros and ones. President crera, thanks for theery warm introduction that you gave me toy. I want to personally thank you and lynn for hosting our entire team here. When i come, its not always sile. And especially in tse times, its en trickier with all the requirements. I thank you for getting that ght. And thank you too to all the leaders here at georgia tech ans students. Those of you watching virtually, i appreciate you joining me for what i hope will be a good conversationoday. I have some openg remarks, and then president cabrerand ivi will have a chanceo have a lively conversation. I kw we have a special guests, some good friends former congressman phil ggrey is here. C phil, good to see you. Senator chaliss, thank you too. When i was nominated to be the cia director, senator chambliss was so gracious. He had snt so much time in the intelligence community. You were so gracious to me to help me figure out what was up and what was down, and i deeply appreciate that. Its good to s you again. As presint cabrera said, i graduated from the unitestates military academy atest point studying engineering, althoh i joke, dont drive across a bridge that i had anything to do with. Its been an awfully long time. Some of my classmates ended up in the army corps oengineers. I happened to command a cavalry unit. But i can tell you math matters an awful lot when youre boresighting the cannon of an m1a1 tank. And ill say, too, even the state department, you talked c about people leavi this institution going on to careers in diplomacy. One of the first things that came across my desk as cretary of state was there was an imrtant dam across a bridge in iraq and it was in trouble, and we were trying to figurout could weigure out how to save it, could we figure out how to deploy resources in a difficult place. And we had the best engineers in the u. S. Governnt, some of whom worked for me a the United States department of state, trying to figure out the best solution, the best contractor to bring in, how we would do this to protect baghdad and the downstream places in this historic Euphrates River valley and the tigris river valley fr potentia flooding should the dam coapse. So all you engineers out there, state. Gov go to the website, take a good look at it. Co we would welcome your career in the united stes department of state. Now, you know im not lost. I know this is georg the state not georgia the country. But its important that i come here to talk about the topic that i have in front of us today because this is the place whe americaNational Security intersects deeply with the things that happen at Important Research institutions like this one. E. I thought id start with a quick story, by way of explanation. Professor feiling wang is wi us here today. W professor, where i didnsee you sitting . Welcome. Nice to see you. Several years ago, profesr wang took a trip to china where he was scooped up by security ents inside of china. He was held in a secret location for two weeks. Professor wang was interrogated d threatened. They wanted information about hisesearch about china and his time teaching at my alma mater, westoint. He could tell you the stories better than i could. But they thought they could intimidate him or perhaps recruit him because hes ethnicallyhinese. Its a blessing hes here with usoday. And thankfully, he was released after pressure from the leadership of lots of plas, including this very university and the carter cent. E lesson i think that we can take away from this is clear. E its that the chineseommunist party wants what we have, and they will dohatever they must do to take it and get it. Theyill steal our stuff. They will pssure critics of the Chinese Communist par to keep quiet. Theyill do whatever it takes. And its important to come and talk with the American People abou this because americans must know h the Chinese Communist party isoisoning the well of our higher educatio institutions for its o ends,s, and how those actions degrade our freedoms andmerican nation security. If we dont educate ourlves, if were not honest about whats taking place, well get schooled by beijing. Now, its taken this country and indeed, the entire free world, a long time to understand the trajectory that china is on day. In fact, were not quite there yet everywhere in the world. Thes no one to hold accountable for this. Thats not the important part. Because for a long me, republicans, democrats, leaders all across academia, institutions, commercial spe thought that by trading and engaging with china that e chese communist party would reform itself, it would loosen up, it would embrace economic and political freedom, and it would present less risk to freedom around the world. But itead, thats not what we got. Instead, the chise communists used the wealth that was created by this to tighten their grip on power, their grip on power overt the Chinese People, and to build hightech repressive state like the world has nev seen. General secretary xi jinping has made clear his intentions. You only have to lisn to what he says. He says he wants total control at home, and to make china the numberone per abroad. And hes well on his way to working on that project. Hes building up the Peoples Liberation army. Hes mipulating International Organizations for beijins benefit. And hes engaging, a we have seen in tv only just these last two days, hesngaging in a vast influence campaign all across the world. And that may for some of you sitting at home today seem like a long ways away and very ambitious touch for xjinping to make, but i mus say he has his eye on each andvery one of us. Over the past year ive talked to americas governors in washington about ts, state legislators in wisconsin, tech leaders in silicon valley, and many other groups. Ive gone out to talk to them about this challenge. And today, i want to talk about whats happening in schools across america, especially Research Institutions and places like whe im standing today. Y. Just think about i Chinese Communist party scientists arent pioneering cancer ces. We are. And its not north korean bihemists that are producing safe covid vaccines. We are. And iranians arent ahead in supercomputing. No. G in fact, we are. It is the free world and free people that produce these superior results. Ac and we shod be very proud of that fact. But we he an obligation to protec it, to preserve it, to make sure that thats the case 10 and 50 and 100 years from now. Because on places like this campus,cientists have pioneered quant computing, artificial intelligence, pediatric technology, even autonomous robots tt can funcon without human control, and i must say tha frightens me just a bit. Look, the Chinese Communist party knows it can never match our innovation. It has stateowned enterprises; its an authoritarian regime; it is a governmentcentric focus. Thats w it sends 400,000 students a yea to the United States of america to study, 400,000 studes a year studying in our universities come from one country. It is no accident. Much of the highend Industrial Base inside of china is based on stolen technology, or technology puhased from other nations. Its not homegrown. Beijing doesnt want chinese t researchers to stay here in the United States. Indeed, after theyre trained, they want them to come back. They want to induce their rurn for the singular purpose of serving the socialist moerland. Look, the partys propaganda apparatus cannot terate pesky americans or chinese nationals exposi its bankrupt system, or the ft that the Chinese People can actuay flourish when they ar in free societies. It dsnt want you to know what im about to tell you. Now, let be clear. Want to be sure that my language is precise today. When i say china, im talking about the chinese comnist party. I love and value, as we all do,a our chinese american cmunity, and the Chinese People that live here in the United States and those that le in china as well. We want good things for them. And i say genuine because of cases like xin wang, a research at the university of california a san francisco, whoe allegedly lied about being a Peoples Liberation army officer, all the while collecting information on ucsf labs. The good news is t fbi nabbedr him. And ji chaoqun studied Electrical Engineering at the Illinois Institute of technology in chicago. He tried to enlist inhe United States army. He allegedly omitted his ties to chinese intelligence, whichth tasked him with recruiting engineers and scientists where he was working. These are just two emples, but what more the Chinese Communist party deploys dollars just as much as it does cloaks and daggers to get its hands on valuable knowledge. Ere are Many American scholars, often doing resrch funded bymerican taxpayers, that hav been lured into the Chinese Communist partys talent cruitment programs. The ccp pays them what is for them a fortune to do Research Related to their crent fields for, or in, china, and then often uses the fruitsf their brainpower to build its military streth. A researcher fromy home state of kansas was caught u in this trap, as was the Harvard Chemistry Department head. Think about that. The director of nationalal intelligence, john ratcliffe, recently describ the ccps strategy as rob, replicate and replace. But i want to add another r to the dnis list i want to add repress. Yang shuping, a student from china, delivered a comncement address at the university of maryland back in 2017, just a couple years back now. She praised the fsh air of free speech. She was soon demonized and harassed by ccp propagand propagda outlets. I promise you, while iannot tell you everything, that was n coincidence. One university of Georgia Student said of the ccp secret police in 2018, quote, they have harassed me repeatedly and asked me to give them information about the activities of overseas democracy activists and dissiden, they are particularly interested inhe activiti of uyghurs and tibetans, end of quote. Some of t ccps biggest victims on campuses are innocent chinese nationals themselve an this is a tragedy. We have responsibility to police this. Another example at princeton, just this yea students in a chinese politics class were forced to use ce names on their work, lest the ccp discover their identitie and prosecute them for Free Expression of views on hong kong and the ccp under its draconian new National Security law. Thats right here. This happened right he in the United States o america. American students. American students talk about safe spaces as shelter fromm ideas they dislike. Chinese students need safe spaces to learn o the ideas that they love what a stark contrast. Students from china at american universities alsoive in fear that their families back home will berrested, will be interrogated, tortured or worse because of things they say in an amican classroom. But look, t ccp doesnt just target chinese nationals. They want to infence American Students a well, professors andd administrators too. Look, they know that ftleaning College Campuses are re with antiamericanism, and presentasy targets for their antiamerican messaging. Thats why they planted confucius institutes on our campes. And under President Trump, our state department has made very clear these confucius institus e literally up to no good. Many have gone away. Many campuses have seen that and theyve chon to close downhe these institutes. But right here in georgia, Wesleyan College still has one in macon. Look, its why there are gups on campuses called Chinese Students and scholars associations here too. Theyre directed and almost alys funded by the Chinese Embassy or a local chinese consulate. Its purpose to keep tabs on students and to press probeijing caes. Os now, you would think at freedomloving pces like georgia tech and institutions and scholars all across the world, administrators,chool faculty would be more up in arms about the Chinese Communist partys outright theft and flagrant violation of freedo that ive described, but we seea it t seldom. Well, why . Why do schoo censor themselv . They often do it out of fear of offending china. Indeed i must tell you that mit wasnt interested in having me to their campu to give this exact set of marks. President raphael reif implied that my arguments mig insult their ethnic chinesetudents and professors. But ofourse nothing could further from theruth. Thesere the very people that this set of remarks is intended to protect, to protect their freedoms. And i must say, the yielding to the objection of hurt feelings plays right into the chine communistartys hands. They watch america closely. Its what the party says constantly in response to legitimate criticismround the world. You can see it. And how would the party know how the Chinese People feel anyway, as no onever gets to vote . Look, we cant let the ccp weaponize Political Correctness agait american liberties. We have to protect a preserve them. Fraudulent cries of racism or sinophobia should never drown out a candid exposure of the activities of the Chinese Communist party. But we see too oft on american campuses that tre is silence and censorship. Its being driven by the Chinese Communist party. It usually boils down to something far less idealistic. So many of our colleges are boht by beijing. Let me tell you about vera zhou. Ss a permanent of the resident of the unitedtates of america. Shes originally from china and a senior at the university of washinon. In octoberf 2017, so just onat three years ago, sheeturned to china to visit her fatr. Local authorities put her in a reeducation camp, a education cam for five months and under house arrest for 18 months after using a viual private Network Connection to connecto her schools website, something many of you are doing even as speak. Back here, we saw this. Our state department team; veras mother; bob fu, a great friend of the Chinese People, desperately petitioned the univsity of washington to advocate forer return. But the univeity of washgton, a woman named sarah castro, head of the federal lations office, she said that the university wouldnt help because of a multimillion dollar deal with china. Now, thank god, vera was eventually released and retned to the unid states, but no than to the university of washington and no thanks to the deal that it had made with e Chinese Communist party. The u. S. Department of education over the last years has found that schools have taken an estimated 1. 3 billion from china sce 2013. Thats just what we know about. Like soany like columbia so many schools that have failed to report therue amounts. What more bad decisions will schools make because they are hooked on Chinese Communist party cash . What pfessors will they be able tooopt or to silence . What theft and espionage will they simply overlook . What business deals will ge done as a result of at . Look, theres lot of work to do. And i have laid out pattern and practice thatvery american needs to know about. And we need to bin to respond to this sooner rather than later. And our administration has begun to do that, but there is an awful lot more work to do. We cannot allow this tyrannical regime to steal our stuff, to build their military might and brainwash our people, or buy off our institutions to help them cover up these activities. We cannot, we cannot let t ccp crus the Academic Freedom that has blessed our country and blessed us with great institutions le the place that i am standing today. But we need your help. We need help of students. We need help of faculty. We need help of administrations all across america. We need trustees to police their endowments and theeals their universities are striking with the ccp and ccpbacked groups. We need admintrators to close confucius institutes and investigate what socalled student groups bked by the ccp ney are actually up to on their campuses. The govnment will help, but we need peoe to assist us. Re we need researchers to be vigilant against fraud and theft, and the academicpl community to reject the ccps financial siren songs. And we need students to truly stand for free speech, the free speech for themselves, those who grew up here in america, and especiallyhe free speech of Chinese Students who are on our campuses, who are here to study and learn and to improve their rights, their lives, and to enjoy the fruits of the freedom that we provide them here in the United States of amica. Look we need you all to speak to truth to per in solidarity o when administrations exert pressures on censorship as has so often happened to protect deals with beijing. Lets do this. Lets Carry Forward a banner of freedom to defend our schools, what these institutions were built upon. It will aid our natiol security. And from the central threat of our time,he Chinese Communist party. President cabrera, im looking forward to our vigorous conversation. I thank you all for your attention this morning. May g bless the state of georgia and the United States. Thank you for having me here this morning. [applause] thank you so much, secretary. And i appreciate you coming here and you bring so many important and incredibly difficult questions for us. You know that georgia tech, were a proud partner of the United States government. We are one of the most researchintense universities in the country. O the head of our Georgia Tech Research institute is in attendance. That organization alone does about 750 million in research grants, a lot of that classified work with different agencies in the government. The Overall Institute does over a billion dollars of grants every year. Were very proud. Not all of that, of course, is funded, but most, the bulk of that, is. So we take issues of protection of our ideas and intellectual property very, very, very seriously. At the same time, we attract amazing Chinese Students,s, undergraduate and graduate students, some of whom join faculty ranks and contribute to making American Science and technology the way you described it, the most competitive in the world. So help us figure out a way, how can we even frame these seemingly incompatible objectives of continuing to leverage that advantage to bring all that talent in without putting our National Interest at risk . Yeah. So its the exact right question and it is not a simple thing to answer. What i can say with certainty is that weve had the balance completely wrong for decades. That is, we had an open spigot for these risks to be present in our system without the balance and checks that are required. And so you see, if you watch what the Trump Administration has done with respect to this, we still, this year its different because of the virus, but in 2021, 2022 therell be 350, 360,000 Chinese Students that come to america. We want these students here, but there has to be a process, there has to be a rigorous evaluation. And some of that is the responsibility of the United States government to undertake and we have to do a better job of doing that, but we need institutions too that are transparent, that are clear, that are following the requirements, both u. S. Department of education requirements, the requirements to make sure that u. S. Property rights are protected in the way that you just described. If you have someone invent something, we want the fruits of that effort to benefit the United States of america and not end up being used to surveil american citizens in cities all across the world. Weve had the balance fundamentally wrong because there was this notion that there was no cost connected to permitting the risk that the Chinese Communist party identified, the opportunity that they saw, and the efforts they have undertaken. You all would have seen, its been a few months back now, we want chinese diplomats to be here engaged in diplomacy, but the Chinese Communist party was using their consulate in houston as a den of spies. Ts and for an awfully long time, the United States just said were not going to do anything about that. Thats unacceptable. Thats unacceptable to the American People from a National Security perspective, its unacceptable to the people of houston and the businesses that are there that these socalled diplomats are out stealing their stuff, and so we did the work. We collectively, the United States government did the work, identified the problem set, and solved the problem. This is the model that we have to use. The model has been for an awfully long time theyre, its a big country, theres Enormous Economic opportunity by engaginh with them, lets just do that and hope things turn out well. Its too dangerous. The Chinese Communist party has a mission set. We only need to listen to general secretary xi jinpings vision for global hegemony and the capacity that he has developed to actually execute. On he has capability and intent. Those are the things that present risk to americans, and we have a responsibility to take on these hard problems, to protect american freedom, to welcome citizens who want to come study at our universities from all across the world, but do so with an eye towards making sure that we do all the things that we are dutybound to ensure that we protect. So thank you. It turns out i am, i myself came to this country as an international student, so i grew up in spain. I was lucky enough to get a fulbright scholarship, one of the wonderful programs of the United States state department, and i have experienced it personally, how thousands and thousands of smart young people around the world, they dream ofa coming to a Great American university. They dont dream to go to somewhere else. They want to be here, so always sensitive to, again, being smart about the way you described it,y about protecting our interest and at the same time not send the message that would somehow weaken that huge advantage that we have, right, that we haveim first pick. Its almost like we have firstt draft picks every year. Smart people around the world, we get to choose first. Yeah, absolutely. So how do we continue to send that message that wait, wait a second, we want smart people to come here . Yeah. So given that youre our first, our number one salesman also, thats i guess part of your job description. Yeah. I think i just sent exactly that message. This is why im here. We want these students, but when theyre here, it cant be the case that they live in fear, right, these institutions, you all have an obligation to protect these students as well. These students are returning home to suffer. A fulbright student coming in from some country ought not be returned to their home country and to suffer from the jackbooted thugs that now want to take the information that they got, send them back into the United States only to have them just take a little bit more information that theyre going to hand off to the chinese mss, their security apparatus, or the Peoples Liberation army, their formal military team, or to the chinese intelligence services. This is not the best of america. We have a responsibility to those Chinese Students, too, in addition to the duty that i described to protect american National Security. We have an imperative to get this right. And when we do, i am convinced, president cabrera, i am convinced that this will still be a beacon. The number of American Students studying in china in 2021 i didnt refer to. Its very small. Why . I i have it here. Yes. Why . Why is that . Its because if you want to be a technologist, if you want to be an innovator, if you want access to capital, if you want to be around a network, an ecosystem of innovators to create the next great whatever it is you want to go create, where do you do it . You do it in the United States of america. We cannot forfeit that capacity by allowing the Chinese Communist party to infiltrate our Research Institutions and take that away from us. After all, it is the American Private sector, the american taxpayers, taxpayers in the state of georgia have invested in preserving, promoting, and building out this enormous capacity. Weve lived in a bit of a fantasy world for the last 40 years. It is time for the balance to be struck to both maintain ourth competitive advantage and protect the american advantage from the threats that thee Chinese Communist party has clearly stated they intend to, the costs they intend to impose upon us. Yeah. So i have the data. In fact, this is your data. This is the open door. I know it well. Yes. I love it, by the way, keep this, this is the best source of information we get every year. And speaking of imbalances, thats another imbalance i wanted to discuss with you. Right. So we get about, i mean, give or take, we get about a Million International students in the u. S. Every year. About half of that comes from china and india alone. A third, more than a third, like 35 is from china. Yo then, when you turn the page, youre absolutely right. The number of American Students that go to china, china is not even the numberone destination, is 11,000. Yeah. So heres what im thinking. Okay, youve been a businessman. So you land in shanghai. You go to a boardroom to make a deal, and it turns out that the guys on the other side of theth table, they speak english, they know our culture, they watch our movies, they laugh at our jokes, they know all about us. In most cases, we know very little about their culture. A shouldnt we be sending a vastly larger number of American Students to china to learn their culture . And not to stay there and set up their companies; we want them back here in atlanta, midtown, by the way, tech square. But to learn about china. Yeah. Dont you think that would be a good idea. It is an enormous knowledge gap, enormous knowledge imbalance. I would agree with that. I would tell you that we work very hard at the state department. We are nowhere near where we need to be to have enough mandarin speakers so that we can understand, even at the most senior diplomatic levels in the United States, that we have the capability to watch and read whats coming out in the mandarinlanguage press from china. So it is an enormous undertaking. You talked about this as an imbalance. One of the central theses of ouo policy with respect to china these past four years has in fact been about that, about reciprocity. Is so imagine now you are a company here at georgia tech and you want to go build out a business in china because you want to sell to the 1. 4 billion people there, and you need to make an investment. The rules for you to invest there are radically different than some young person in china whod like to come invest here in atlanta. Thats not right. We need fair and reciprocal rules when it comes to foreign direct investment. We need fair and reciprocal rules when it comes to press reporting. So one of the reasons we know so much less about the Chinese Culture has less to do with the number of students and the fact that a person who is atu credentialed western reporter inside of china cant move around freely. This is an enormous imbalance. Weve tried to take that on. We had chinese propaganda outlets here in the United States that were running free and clear while valid u. S. Media companies that wanted to report on what was taking place, by the way, at an incredibly important time when the Chinese Communist party was permitting the export of a virus around the world, and they couldnt get to the places that they needed to get to find the information that would have been very valuable for the United States to have had in a timely fashion. So theres an enormous information imbalance attached to that. I talked about one reason theres only 11,000 American Students traveling to china. Its that they dont want them there. They dont want americans. Why . Because when americans go to a college campus, youve seen it. I traveled the campus a bit this morning. G. Students jogging, running, talking, having fun, inquiring, doing the things that we do in a place, a democracy, a republic like our country. This is not the chinese campus. And so there is an imbalance there, and we have to work tois convince and impose cost on the Chinese Communist party until such time as there is reciprocity in every space. The president talked about it in trade. Weve talked about it in terms of freedom of navigation in the south china sea. Pa i could go through the list of places where we have for decades permitted the Chinese Communist party to have an exception to every international rule. So whats a good other example . The world trade organization, an Important Institution to make lives better, for jobs for people right here in the state of georgia. Nearly every country participates the chinesehe communist party says, no, were special. We should be a developing country with a set of trade preferences that benefit china enormously. And the americans just for decades, this isnt partisan, both Political Parties just said were going to let that, were going to let that pass. It cant be. It cant be any longer. And this is what President Trump has said were not going to do that anymore. Were going to demand that china comply with the same set of rules that every other nation is asked to comply with. And when we do, america will be safer and more secure. America will be more prosperous. Our allies and partners in Southeast Asia and in south korea and in australia and in europe, theyll be safer and more prosperous. And we will build out a coalition that simply demands that sovereign nations compete on a fair and level playing field. It should happen in academia. It should happen in the commercial space. If we get that right, america will be just fine. So let me bring the topic to something that i know would be of particular interest to many of our students, which is the role of science and technology in american diplomacy. I mean, given that we are in a century of this is a knowledge economy where we win or lose by our innovation, i our science, even our military strength relies more and more on. Of course. What is the role of scientists and engineers in technologists in driving or influencing and shaping American Foreign policy . You have folks like us around in the state department . I mean, what is the role . We do. We have been in a handful of places. The two most prominent, we have Technology Group and the we also have a huge group of folks that we call our Economic Team led by a fellow named keith, ended at a Company Called doc you sign out in silicon valley, came to join the state department to make sure that the United States and china had a set of common understands them and technology. We spent a lot of time on this. With the state sponsorship and the entrepreneur here from georgia tech to raise her own capital theyve got to make money theyve got to atheir work force. Not so in china. Not so. Many of the companies that well come to compete against will have government funding, direct government funding. Not ail grant that we might provide to a research institute, but truly a stateowned enterprise. Deeply unfair to the American People and presents enormous risk to american National Security as well. And so we set about in one space, ill call it the Communications Tech space, to challenge the presumptive global winner, a Company Called huawei, that was dominating the next general e generation of technology, 5g technology. Theya didnt win it because thy were thegy fastest and the best, they won it because, ultimately, they delivered a solution to countries that was e cheaper because they had the backing of the Chinese Communist party and a technology that was good enough. It had an enormous National Security risk, but it had an enormous commercial risk that we wouldnt be, that the west, that the rulesbased system wouldnt be with the victor in 5g technology. Its incredibly important. So we setbout traveling the world telling the story that says if you have software or hardware that comes from huawei, you are handing the data of your citizens to the Chinese Communist party and the Peoples Liberation army. So your child, who is on a chinesee piece of software, a chew news app, chinese app, will be in the hands of the chinese the security apparatus. Its not whether their law requires the company to turn this information over to them. And so whats going to happen . So parents think twice before you do this. But we have a responsibility, the government, to protect our citizens, and so we set about doing that and helping citizens ecaround the world do it too. And first we met on deaf ears because there was a product that was cheap, and so it was efficient for governments to put these systems, routers and servers into their systems. Weer today have over 60 countris that have said were not going to permit that to happen. 27 out of 29e. U. Countries, i think the number now is 60 of the globes gdp has forsworn technology that is not trusted. Mandating trust defenders. And end when you limit yourself to trusted i. T. Communications infrastructure vendors, you are by just simple math excluding vendors connected to the Chinese Communist party. And so weve prevailed. Weve created space for entrepreneurs, for erickson, for nokia, for companies that the will abide by simple rules of protectinges data, protecting da privacy for citizens all across the world, who will operate in a true, straightup commercial transaction, who will not provide access to this information to their host countries militaries on a continuous and are peated and repeated and a nonvoluntary basis. The state Department Led that effort. Were proud of what we have achieved. We still have more when i say 60 countries, i think we have 130 Telephone Companies. In many countries the access to this communications is driven not so much by the government, but by the Telephone Company inside of that country. Weve got 100 plus Telephone Companies that have forsworn any all but trusted vendors. This is where technology, innovation and diplomacy come together to help america be more secure and more prosperous. Its a good story. There is an awful lot more work to do in lots more spaces. So in these and it creates also one of those incredibly difficult questions to solve, i guess thats why you get paid the big bucks, as they say, to try and figure out these balances. But so there are lawyers of Technological Research areas of Technological Research, we want whatever system to be better than everybody elses. We want our companies to have products before anybody else. But there are global dimensions, right . Yeah, of course. The coronavirus is a perfect example, right . At this point, honestly, who cares, you know, who comes up with the cure first or the vaccine. What we want is, you know, whatever 3 billion, 4 billion people to got a vaccine. Yes. In fact, the sooner the chinese is she sequence the virus and make that available, the sooner we all can start working on the new rna vaccine or dna vaccine and so forth. So, again, how do you balance the competitive nature of some Research Areas with the fact that in many of the Big Questions that with we deal with as a species, were in this together,s right . These are Global Threats that we all face. We want smart people everywhere, even in china, to help us figure out. Sure. No, policy isnt restrictive, but this advancement of civilization, that takes place in the context of the rule of law,vi the liberal international order, sovereign nations, protection off property rights, all the things that our founders knew so well. This is not the model that shi e jinping wants for you xi jinping wants for you and your children. It is a very different model. It ultimately collapses upon itself. But in the meantime, we have an obligation to protect and secure american prosper few. And when we do, i can saw this with certain few, when we do, citizens d all across the globe will benefit from that. Ive seen it with my own eyes. Ive seen American Technology linked up with technology that was manufactured and developed inside of india, linked together tod serve people in destitute places in difficult parts of africa, ive watched it improve their lives. And each step along the way it benefited from the fact that there was someone out there operating in an ecosystem that respected the rule of law, respected property rights, permitted commerce to take place, contracts were honored, if something went amiss, there was a court system that one could resolve the conflict. This is, this is the west. [laughter] the west isnt a place, its a concept. Its an this is the west. And the challenge, the challenge thats here on campus that i spoke about is, in fact, the challenge between freedom and you are theny. Its the challenge tyranny. Its the challenge between the ideas that we have in the west andd an authoritarian model that has been adopted by the Chinese Communist party with the sole intention of spreading it as the predominant model around the world. Or i, withy all my heart i can tell you that is a not in the best interests of people anywhere. Including inside of china. So let me, if you dont mind, switch gearsrs a little bit and get somewhat personal. I know many of our students are thinking about careers and career choices, and earlier i joked that you dont [laughter] keep a job. I hope you were referring to this one. No, no, no. [laughter] i feel like i can make the joke because i feel somewhat in a safe place. Ive changed and ive done as you look back and try to make sense of your career, again, having been a soldier and an attorney and a Business Leader and so on, how have these experiences informed how you carry out your job now . Yeah. This is a one of a kind job you have now, but if you look back, how do those experiences inform, make you prepare you for this . [laughter] ifr you stare at it in hindsight, one could argue that there has been a progression that each task that ive been, had put in front of me has prepared me, put me in a better place to be the, to at least have the capacity to be morefect i have in the next job that i took on. True. K thats i didnt set out on that path. No one could dream that id be the 70 secretary of state for theto United States, although President Trump is the 45 president , theres a lot more turnover in my job than there is in his. I just, i always think back to what my father taught me. Wherever you are, wherever you find yourself, work your tail off. I tell young with people, i get asked by young people, tell me what i should do to be successful, and the answer is i have seen successful people who are lazy but not very many. [laughter] most people who find success however they define it achieve that because they were prepared to make sacrifices, to make tradeoffs in their life and to work really, really hard. The second thing a is to grow where youre potted. Dont be chasing that that next dream, dont spend your time looking over the horizon about the job you want someday. I have not found that to work. Not just for myself, but in all the others who ive helped try to mentor. In the end, if you work hard and do well, opportunities will present themselves. Not every day and not always, but with enough frequency that the right solution is to stay very, very focused on the task that you have in front of you and do it, do it really, really well. The second thing is there is nothing like ones e reputation, the capacity for people to understand the character of who you are. And you only get to build that over time and every day. And so wherever you find yourself, youve got to speak the truth even when sometimes it is not welcome and its difficult. If you do those couple of things, then for me keeping my faith, if you do those three the things, thats what i said tell the truth, work hard, keep your faith theyll, the world will come present you with things that will be fulfilling for you and for your family. Thank you. Thats incredibly valuable for our students. And yet you still made turns in your career, right . Yeah. Weve made you like a soldier, want to go to law school. Not an obvious choice. I want to go piece together a number of businesses in wichita i was, i was really lucky in that sense in that i was in a i always had these chances. And i was prepared to take risk, all right . So literally i had a job practicing law, myself and my two other best friends in the whole world said lets go start a business. We didnt really know what it was going to be, and we decided wed talk that risk, wed jump off on that. When you have a passion to go pursue something and you believe you have a skill set where you can generate value not always financial value, but value youve got to be with prepared to make the change and take the risk. T so and then maybe back to your current, current job. Obviously, its interesting i think in one of your earlier speeches you described that you were taking a pretty significant shift back to the china policy. Uhhuh. S now you have this job. How, how likely are we to see some of these policies stay or are we going to see another 180degree shift . Some of your message is not necessarily parting then, right in. Yeah. I dont think a single thing i said today reflected a partisan viewpoint;i but, rather, relied on a data set. And so i dont think, frankly, what i said today was particularly controversial about those who are paying attention to the challenges that the Chinese Communist party presents. And, indeed, ive seen this on capitol hilltt in washington and even in others in think tanks around the world. I think theres an increasing awareness of this challenge. So ill give you an example. I was in a nato meeting with my foreign minister counterparts earlier last week. Nato grew out of the challenge of the soviet union and was very focused on confronting the soviet union and then russia. Today nato is challenged by cyberrer threats, space threats, disinformation threats from the communist chinese party. And so we, the United States, had workedd to convince nato it needed to focus on this. We spent an hour and a half of our roughly four hours of nato talking about the threat from the Chinese Communist party. And i say that as an exemplar of the fact that i think this challenge is now widely remembering niced. And so i think recognized. And so i think whoever has the burden and the opportunity of of being president of the United States notot just in february of 2021, but of 2025 and 29 and 33, i think ever one of those leaders will feel the challenge and recognize they have a duty and responsibility to confront this in a very real way. I w new our administration, President Trump, should be given credit for having faced this, to be the First Administration to truly, to truly identify this. We did it in 2017 in whats called, its an obscure document called the National Security strategy, but we identified this challenge very clearly, and then we have begun to do what every institution does when theres a challenge or an opportunity to move our resources and our focus to confront that primary challenge. I think, i think this will be policy for the United States and, indeed, for western democracies forol an awfully log time. Well, i think were pushing our luck with your time. Youve been awfully generous, and i can until you i really appreciate tell you with i really appreciate you and your service. I know how intense your job is, because i know some of the people who work with you and have run around the world [laughter] chasing you. And regardless of how people feel about policy, i think we all need to agree that we appreciate public service, we appreciate what youve done for our country, and and we thank you very much for spending some time with us today. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, sir. Thank you all. [applause] with the pfizer covid19 vaccine being approve over the weekend, government officials will give an update on the distribution of the vaccine. Thats set for 3 1 30 11 30 stern this morning. Well take you there live here on cspan2. Tonight on the communicators, journalist and author james ball discusses his book, the tangle web we weave, about the history of the internet and privacy, ownership and monopoly power weve gotten some look at this technology that keeps creating monopolies, that keeps creati the biggest businesses in the world, all five of the worlds biggest publiclyinvest End Companies now a tech companies. But we dont sort of go how come the internet, this thing that we were all told w going to equalize us and connect us, how come it keeps creating these really powerful compani and really powerful individls . Watch the communicors tonight at ought eastern on cspan at eight eastern on cspan2. The food and Drug Administration meets in op session to approve modernas vaccine for covid19. Live coverage thursday at 9 a. M. Eastern on cspan3. Stream louvre and on demand at cspan. Org or listen on the free span rio a. Ht alabama republican congressman moue brooks joins us now. Hes made headlines in recent days wit his plan to challenge the 2020 election results. Congressman, explain first how you planned to do that. Guest well, under the United States constitution, article i and article ii along with the 12th amendnt, the United States congress is the ultimate judge and jury, the final arbiter of all election contests involving federal officials whether it be congressmen, senators or president of the United States. Ando theres a process in place but which we do that, and that process is initiated on january the 6th beginning at 1 p. M. When we have a roll call of the states to a combined session of congress presided over by the Vice President of thenited states, mike pence. D at theppropriate time when a states name is listed and