Good afternoon and welcome to the aspen institute. My name is nick burns, executive director of the Aspen Strategy Group and the aspen security forum. Its a great pleasure to see this crowd. You all again cspan so be on your best behavior. And we are here to launch a a y important book on the future of the u. S. China relationship called the struggle forth powe. I agree friend could not be here with us but hes very much part of this effort. I want to pay tribute to our former secretary of defense and good friend of mine, secretary bill and mister janet , secretary , janet, welcome. In i also want to pay tribute to i think one of the people for me and bodies bipartisanship. Hes involved in every effort to bring peopletogether across partisan lines and thats steve hadley, our former National Security advisor here as well. Our director is jan and 90 well, we you will be seeing anja as one of the people doing the interviews. The subject is china. I think all of us agree our relationship wi
Then kurt i dont know who that person is and someone whos a strong proponent of American Power and kurt has spent his life taking about this competition and hes on our side. We are down to the last of the last but not the least of our rapidfire conversations and we couldnt imagine anyone better to do it with than you, kurt campbell. He was assistant secretary of state for asia for obama, the author of the pit which was later renamed, we wont tackle you on that one and slightly less wellknown, kurt was the first person to get me involved in the Strategy Group when i was a mere kid so thank you very much for that and for being so inclusive. Let me start for you the same question i asked mike, i think i know what youre going to say but id like to ask you anyway. If we had a democratic administration, what would be the goal for our relationship with china . What would the perfect relationship with china look like . If you dont mind i want to say a word of thanks not only to nick who incred
Cochair of our Organization Former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice. [applause] and you will be hearing from secretary rice in about half an hour she will be one of our conversationalists our good friend could not be here to the former secretary of defense bill and janet cohen. Welcome. [applause] and those that are involved in every effort across partisan lines and that is former National Security advisor. And rahm emanuel we have worked together i think all of us agree the relationship with china will be the greatest challenge we face as a country in the next several decades. And in that relationship to establish full diplomatic relations, ed jimmy carter and Deng Xiaoping but most of that time to the democratic administrations, we all felt that we were seeking cooperation with china that was the basic strategy in recent years there is no question that both countries have swung from cooperation to a strategy of competition and that gets to the heart of our Vital National interest
Thank you very much for coming. We are very pleased to have paul with us here this evening and was reported from the Los Angeles Times and writing about Foreign Policy with the pentagon and the state department and other important assignment along assignments it with that paper four years ago. As one of those journalistic pros on National Security affairs. To have that knowledge of National Security. And then ryan crocker. Of how senior skills state Department Officers and those intelligence communities like iraq and syria and pakistan olivia one libya to combat terrorism. Have declineo testify. We will be in conversation here with someone else who knows the way around atheir way around thn and state department but as an insider. He spent 29 years in the navy specializing in Public Affairs and rose to become the navys top spokesman and chief spokesman for the department of defense. After retiring from the military in 2015 with the rank of rear admiral, he shifted to the state departmen
Its a great pleasure to see this crowd. You will all get cspan so be on your best behavior. We are here to launch a very important book on the future of the u. S. China relationship called the struggle for power u. S. China relations in the 21st century. I want to say word about that but first i want to recognize some very distinguished guests. I want to recognize the cochair of our Organization Former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice who was here with us. [applause] and youll be hearing from secretary rice in about half an hour. She will be one of our conversationalists. Our other cochair, harvard ever does professor, could not be here with his buddies very much part of this effort. I want to pay tribute to our former secretary of defense and a very good friend of mine, secretary bill cohen and mrs. Janet cohen. Welcome secretary. Janet, welcome. [applause] i want to pay tribute to one of i think one of the people who for me a bodies bipartisanship whos involved in every effort to