problems president obama has trying to increase his leeway domestically, internationally, the problems that xi jinping faces are larger than that and include some cute ones too, dealing with north korea, japan and the east china sea. i think the one thing closest to a critical issue between the u.s. and china is the whole cyberquestions. i think the chin ease are beginning to realize that they run the risk of alienating the part of the american structure that has been most supportive of them over the past decade. essentially the tech establishment, the intellectual establishment. if you have google thinking china is an enemy of intellectual freedom and intellectual property, that is a problem for china and the world. i think it's an important meeting even though nothing much is going to be dichb after it happens. >> china isn't yet in a position where it can assert it is alongside the united states as the other global major superpower and doesn't want to provoke us by going there. on the other hand there's a president worst slogan is chinese dream. there is growing nationalism in the country which the leadership is in part responsible for creating. there is a sense that as china's economy moves relatively quickly towards being the world's largest measured by gdp, that that means that china should not be pushed around. and most importantly should not beco >> we conclude this evening with author mackenzie bezos. her new book is called "traps" >> you believe you were hard wired to be a writer. >> i do. >> what does that mean? >> i think it's true of everybody. that there are things that we enjoy, preferences of a lot of time alone, was one of mine. i tend to look at things, i tend to be interested in complex problems more than simple ones. i like to work on long projects. i like to endlessly analyze conversations and think about words an tinker with words, all of those things could be a hindrance in some professions but they lead me perfectly to writing novels. i think everybody is like that. i think you get lead through your passions and through your idiosyncracies too. >> you have to listen yourself. you really do. >> what dow enjoy. >> exactly. and any job you find the right job and it uses all of you. >> rose: u.s. china relationships on the eve of a big conference in california. and a conversation about novels with mackenzie bezos when we continue. funding for charlie rose was provided by the following: captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. it is an important time in the relationship between china and the united states. president obama and president xi jinping are meeting friday and saturday at sunnilands in california. it will be the first ever summit between the two leaders. the format of the lengthy and unscripted meeting has been called unprecedented. cybersecurity, trade issues, north korea and stability in the pacific will be high on the agenda. but few are expecting to see so-called deliverables from the summit. rather it is an opportunity, most say, for the two leaders to develop a personal rapport-- rapport it may be the beginning of what president xi jinping has called a new type of great power relationship. joining me from washington richard mcgregor of "the financial times", the author of "the party, the secret world of chinese of china's communist rulers" and james fall owes of the atlantic magazine, author of china airborne, the test of china's future. here in new york noah feldman of harvard law school author of cool war, the future of global competition. i'm pleased to have each of them on this program. richard mcgregor let me begin with you. tell me where you think the relationship between china and the united states is as they go to this meeting. >> well, a colleague of mine was kicking this around earlier. we weren't quite sure whether to describe this as kind of a diplomatic first date or couples counselling. in some ways it's kind of both. the u.s. and china have-- china have a much broader relationship than people realize. multiple bilateral dialogues, multiple top-level meetings. but none of them go out much further than, you know, six months to a year. it is a great strategic relationship with great distrust underlying it. and i think this is a risky but necessary meeting, risky for both xi jinping and also mr. obama to try and get some sort of at least bedrock level of understanding into the bilateral dialogue. >> is it obvious that both parties, both countries, both leaders want to improve the relationship? >> well, yes, i think so. i mean china, certainly china still wants as they used to say, a stable international environment. china does not want conflict. china needs to continue to have its economy grow. it has to get on with the u.s. i think that's been the case, you know, for 10, 20 years now. and i think it will continue to be the case for somewhat longer. but i think the one danger on the u.s. side is that certainly xi jinping has grabbed the reigns of power in china ostensibly faster than his predecessor xi jinping. let's not forget is he still part of a collective relationship, no magic wand in the communist party. he has to bring people along with him. he doesn't have the kind of room to move that even mr. obama with all his constraints in washington has. and i think we shouldn't forget that. >> rose: all right, know's-- you are smiling. >> i do because i agree with my colleague. it is impressive where we don't expect much to be different in the world 3 or 4 days from now after the meeting, i think it is important that they meet just for the fact of establishing communications. and because as richard was saying, we all know the problems president obama has trying to increase his leeway domestically, internationally. the problems that xi jinping faces are larger than that and include acute ones, dealing with north korea, japan and the east china sea. i think the one thing that is closest to a critical issue between the u.s. and china now is the whole cyberquestion. where i think the chinese are beginning to realize that they run the risk of alienating the part of the american structure that's been most supportive of them over the past decade, essentially the tech establish am, the intellectual establishment. if you have google thinking that china is an actual enemy of intellectual freedom and property, that is a problem for china and the world. i think it's an important meeting even though nothing much is going to be different after it happens. >> rose: this idea of personal diplomacy, i mean jintao did not have a personal relationship with the president. -- is it about xi jinping, noah, that makes him be such a different chinese leader? that he believes in this kind of communication so that there will not be a thousand notetakers, there will be a small number of people in the room and they don't have to be operating from a script. they can really engage each other? >> well, what we know now is he likes the optics of this. and i think that so far is the which xi looks different from his pred des-- predecessor. we don't know that will behave differently, and as richard says he is constrained in many, many ways but he wants to create the perception of the face-to-face meeting, of the contact, of the depth. and that is, i think, an important difference and we should be aware of that. it suggests a very sophisticated sense of how the world will be treating this as a consumer. you know, is he somebody who can be perceived in a fundamental way as a leader like other international leaders. >> rose: people on the show have said, this is for all of, have said to me a chinese experts and scholars an even chinese from china haveaid i'm not sure china is really ready for or interested in something they call g2. they're not prepared to say we want to join with you, the united states, you know, and play a pivotal role in shaping the world. jim? >> yes. and there's a very important linguistic aspect, i fwhas beijing about two weeks ago talking with a bunch of military leaders there. and carelessly used the same phrase, i think, that you may have used in the intro saying the chinese were looking for a new type of great power relationship. they said oh, no, no, no, our official translation is a new type of major power relationship. we don't consider ourselves a great power. and sometimes to a fault and sort of in excessive way but also accurately, i think the chinese realize they have a lot more problems than the united states does. and a lot more limits on their powers. they still have a poor population. they have, their international relations are more or less purely mercantile, their military reach is slight. so i think it was-- its he's easy to assume from the u.s. point of view there is this ceaseless juggernaut on the chinese side. but the limit of the sort of the full range of either great or major powerhood are quite profound. they like to be thought of as g2 when it is convenient but not when there are burdens that go with it. >> rose: so your new book is called cool war, to the cole war. but cool war, the future of global competition. what do you think the chinese want in terms of how they're seen around the world, as being invested in issues beyond their tone economic prosperity? >> i think the chinese would like to have it both ways. i think that jim is of course completely right that china isn't yet in a position where it can assert that it is alongside the united states as the other major global superpower. and it doesn't want to provoke us by going there. on the other hand there's a president whose slogan is chinese dream. there's growing nationalism in the country which the leadership is in part responsible for creating. there is a sense that as china's economy moves relatively quickly towards being the world's largest measured by gdp, of course not by per capita but by gdp that means china nud shot-- should not be pushed around or contained. i think increasingly where our policy in the region looks like containment within china, it will be a reasonable interest of any chinese leader to be able to say no, we're pushing back against containment. we're not going to accept being contained. >> rose: richard, tell me what you have read. i mean what you read into the statements by xi jinping in terms of how he sees china's place in the world. >> well, xi jinping ten years, ten years after you had jintao has taken over. china i think certainly as many people have said has a great deal of insecurity, internal tensions but i also think it is a much more powerful count than it was ten years ago. it has a much greater sense of its interests and how to project them. it's also building a military to back that up. and i think xi jinping really is, whether he nunc yates it personally or individually, is captive of that larger story about china. what i think he's been very good at xi jinping is both in the, you know, the public diplomacy, you had jintao was largely a charisma free zone. xi jinping is not like that. he projects personally, he has a glamorous wife and the like. and i also think he has been smart domestically in getting the military on side very quickly. they might get their pound of flesh on that. so i think he's a more assertive leader, albeit i diplomatic of a more assertive nation. >> rose: the power is still a seven man standing committee? >> that's right, way. but it's not just there, it's in provincial leadership, the politte boro, various ministries and the like. power is both centralized and dispersed in china in a funny sort of way. >> rose: jim? >> i think it's worth emphasizing why from the outside world's point of view including america's we should probably root for xi jinping to become a relatively influential leader within china. because to the extent that china, the chinese system is more powerful than any of its individual members, it becomes very difficult for the party to change in any significant way their economic liberallization that the u.s. and the world would like. political liberallization of various sorts so if mr. xi is able to use this, the combination of personal power, military roots, family lynniaj and whatever to have greater influence than you had jintao appeared to, that probably would be good even though paradoxically we think agree, there's a more a zufert chinese leader that probably is better from the western world's point of view. >> i mentioned deliverables in my introduction suggesting that they may not be. what could come out beyond this relationship between the two leaders. and what is the that could come out of this conference that could go wrong? >> well, i think for president obama, to make it clear domestically and also within china to leadership, that the cyberattack issue is not a small matter. that it has the capacity in our technological era of really closing the gap between our military much faster than such gaps in the past have been able to includes. >> the question is what is the risk associated with that. >> that is exactly the chinese motivation. >> precisely. and that is what creates the stage for a potential direction of great power conflict. that's the reason i think we are in something very much like a cool war despite the deep cooperation between the countries and the very strong economic bonds. there is still the fact of arising power and a great power that does not want to share the stage. so i think, you know, the risk for both sides is that if you respond too aggressively, if president obama responds too aggressively that can fuel greater tension between the countries. i think the best deliverable for him is to find some way for the chinese to show that they take this seriously. >> but they gx ahead, anybody jump in. >> so i say in terms of deliverables, also cyber, one, an important thing chinese could do i think they're not likely but it would be significant if it occurred would be to recognize this is an important issue. the standard chinese line has been what are you talking about, we're merely the victims and they point out accurately that the nsa and other u.s. institutions are very, very active on military penetration. the difference is china does seem now to be u neebling in having state sponsored commercial es meanage that seems to be the real problem. if there was some statement that they recognize that this was an issue that had to be dealt with like other potential weapons of mass destruction on the positive side, a deliverable would be, i think, cooperation in clean energy climate type works where there is very extensive u.s. chinese cooperation. and they could do something more in that field. i think that would be significant too. >> i think clean energy is one area. but i think also it's a bit less sexy that cyberwarfare. the chinese would like a very strong statement from mr. obama about the openness of the u.s. to chinese investment. we've got one of the biggest fields on the table now which is about pork, heaven help us if that can't get through, then the two countries have got a real problem. >> rose: explain that. because the chinese have bought smithfield. >> they have put in an offer for smithfield pork in virginia which i think is the largest pork producer in the u.s. the big sensitive problem in u.s.-china investment has been the factor, which is why telcoes for example, and-- are so sensitive but in this ca the supply chain is clean food going from the u.s. to china. and if that is going through a national security process now, voluntarily by the companies, and i think china wants to see, you know, a very clear statement that the u.s. will not discriminate against china on investm >> rose: so it will be in the interest of the relationship that this deal does not run into the kind of roadblock it did when the on swrekt was an oil company. >> oh, yeah. i mean if this deal doesn't get through then i think it's we're in a really bad state. >> it would be goods for president obama to say that an make that clear. this is good for america, good for chinese people, good for cooperation and really it's hard to think of a plausible objection. >> and frankly the white house has been timid on this. so it would be good to hear something. >> rose: are they making more and more investments in the united states, the chinese? >> absolutely. and there's a wave of money waiting to come if the opportunity is there. i think the u.s. is an excellent investment destination particularly in terms of energy. >> interestingly there is hesitation among both the chinese government officials and chinese corporate officials about possibly getting burned. it's not some of in a financial sense but in a pr and political backlash sense. i think that is another reason why the smithfield deal matters to sort of pave the way saying yes, the united states is open for this kind of business where it's beneficial all around. >> there's also the issue of state capitalism and you hear from even private businesses in china, the competition from companies and industries owned by the government. that according to the press reports i've read is changing. they're much more lax about that than they have been. and jim you're smiling so i'm going read that. >> it's a lot like, yeah, as we've discussed before, the great thing about china is everything one says about it is true someplace. there are areas where state enterprises are being sort of cleaned up. but in some ways they're expanding. and i think there is a lot of controversy inside china now as between chinese entrepreneurs and these big state enterprises. so here the u.s. government and businesses share an interest with a lot of chinese entrepreneurs in wanting to get the state-owned businesses under control. >> rose: but is there any indication they're listening to that. and understand the frustration? >> well, if in theory we're about to have a big fight on that in china. and the big test will be-- has spoken out about reducing the state-- the we'll see if it happens. >> rose: there is also this, noah, the notion that many people in the trips that i have made to china, will you hear this frustration. the united states wants to contain us. >> uh-huh. >> rose: whether it's the military or other people, there is within the chinese power structure some people who hold that position. >> uh-huh. >> rose: that's an issue. >> uh-huh. >> we assiduously deny that that is the case. but i think an objective observer would say that our strategy in asia is essentially a containment strategy. we have close bilateral security treaties with all of china's near neighbors. and although their economic ties to china are deepening and in some ways much deeper now than the united states. >> rose: and the fear of china now is growing. >> nevertheless, at the same time their security relationship is largely with us. and short of japan, for example, substantially enhancing its own military capacities which is a direction we may see it going and there have been some signals from washington that we would welcome that sort of thing, we're going to continue to be a crucial player in the region in terms of the provision of security. and that's pretty close to a textbook definition of containment. what's striking is that it is happening at exactly the same time simultaneously with these deepening economic ties and growing economic relationships. what is really deep and i think still unanswered question is can you have in historical terms a situation where a country is surrounded by very close economic cooperators as china is. and where those countries are applied with a somewhat far away power in a security relationship that surrounds more or less or contains that power. and that's a very tough one. >> rose: rich, we have recognized for a while the chinese are investing around the world. they now are the largest importer of oil from