Can China rise peacefully? John Mearsheimer | Tom Switzer

we all know that Australia is a middle power the benefits from the status quo in the region we want to keep enjoying the best of both worlds unconstrained trade with China under the US security umbrella that situation has served our nation well for more than 25 years this has been and remains the Canberra policy consensus that anything that disturbs that regional equilibrium is self-evidently not in our national interest however the question tonight is can China really rise peacefully and as our keynote speaker says will it convert its economic might into military might and seek a strategic sphere of influence across Asia on which China's future prosperity and stability depend John Mearsheimer will be making the argument that we are experiencing an increasingly intense strategic and ideological competition between China and the United States and indeed this week's currency and trade disputes as well as of course China's assertiveness in Hong Kong are just a sign of things to come the question here is what should Canberra do John Mearsheimer is one of America's most distinguished foreign policy intellectuals he's challenged the conventional wisdom in Washington on various major public policy issues in the post Cold War era from NATO expansion in the 1990s which he predicted would infuriate the Russians and create a security crisis in Ukraine to the Iraq invasion of 2003 which he predicted would be a strategic disaster Fanning strategic Sunni jihadists across the broader Middle East a joint mission is professor of political science at the University of Chicago is the author of the tragedy of great power politics and I think it's fair to say and this is a widely held view among many foreign policy intellectuals his book the tragedy of great power politics which I believe is on sale in the CIS lobby is along with Francis Fukuyama is the end of history which was later turned into a book and Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations these are widely regarded as the three most important intellectual theses of the post Cold War era and in recent times just in the last six months Jon has published a new book also available outside for purchase called the great delusion liberal dreams and international realities is a great pleasure to welcome professor John Mearsheimer thank you for the kind introduction Tom it's a great pleasure to be here and I deeply appreciate everybody coming out to hear me tonight it's always a very humbling experience to know that so many people are interested in what I have to say well the question on the table tonight is can China rise peacefully and before I make the argument that it cannot right peacefully I want to make two preliminary points first of all I'm simply assuming that China will continue to rise there are really two questions involved when you talk about the rise of China one is will it continue to rise in an impressive way and then number two can it rise peacefully so you just want to understand I'm assuming that it's going to continue to rise and then I'm going to address the second question my second preliminary point is it's actually a theoretical question and you have to have a theory to answer it and the reason it's a theoretical question is because it deals with the future and we have no facts about the future because obviously the future hasn't happened yet so you have to have a simple theory about great power politics so what I'm gonna do tonight is I'm very quickly gonna lay out my theory of international politics how the world works at the great power level number one then number two I'm going to explain American behavior since 1783 American foreign policy since 780 1783 and synoptic form just to give you a sense that the United States has behaved according to the dictates of my theory then the third thing I'm going to do is I'm going to talk about how China is likely to behave and not surprisingly I'm going to argue the China is going to try and imitate the United States and that's why we're going to have this intense security competition between the United States and China that leaves the real possibility on the table of a possible war okay so let me start with my basic theory of international politics I think that the ideal situation for any great power is to be a hegemon in its region of the world and to make sure that it has no peer competitor which is another way of saying to make sure that there is no hegemon in any other area of the world and this will become clear here as we go along my basic argument is that there has only been one regional hegemon in world history and that's the United States of America in the Western Hemisphere okay but the ideal again from an American point of view is to be a hegemon in the Western Hemisphere and make sure that no other country is a hegemon in Europe or Asia or the Persian Gulf but mainly Europe and Asia okay now why do I say that what's the theory here in international politics it's very important to understand that there's no higher authority that you can call on if you get into trouble in a society like Australia or the United States if somebody comes after you and tries to cheat you in a business deal or attack you physically you can call the police you can call your lawyer there's a state that sits over that society that you can turn to in international politics if you get into trouble there's no higher authority and the problem that you face is that you may end up living next to us a country that has a great deal of military power and it has bad intentions you might end up living next door to Nazi Germany just let's talk about China's intentions or even America's intentions or 10-15 years down the road there's no way you can know whether China will have good intentions or whether China will have bad intentions you don't even know who's going to be in charge in China and 10 or 15 years you don't even know who's going to be in charge in the United States in 10 or 15 years so you can't know what their intentions are so when you have big countries that have a lot of military money and you can't be certain about their intentions and there's no higher authority that you can call on if you get into trouble this very powerful incentive to be what we used to call when I was a little boy on New York City playgrounds the biggest and baddest dude on the block because if you're big and powerful countries don't fool around with you how many Americans do you think go to bed at night worrying about Canada or Mexico or Guatemala attacking the United States the answer is zero why because we are Godzilla in the Western Hemisphere you understand my point here you want to be really powerful for purposes of survival this is a defensive argument you want to be really powerful because you can never be certain that another state that's more powerful than you or as powerful as you won't come after you at some point and again you won't have that higher authority to turn to so what you want to do is you want to be the hegemon in the system and my argument is the globe is too big and there's too much water out there for any one country to be a global hegemon so the name of the game is to be a regional hegemon to dominate your region of the world be the most powerful state in your region by far okay and number two make sure that no other country in places like Europe or Asia dominates its region so you don't have a peer competitor that's my basic theory now I want to switch gears and want to talk about the United States of America and I want to tell you a story about the United States of America that most of you don't know certainly most Americans don't know this story because we have this idealistic story about noble America that bears little resemblance to reality the United States and what I'm gonna do here is try and convince you that the United States since 1783 in terms of foreign policy has acted according to my theory that's when we try and do 1783 the United States started out is 13 measly colonies strung out along the Atlantic seaboard what did we do we marched across the continent to the Pacific Ocean we murdered huge numbers of Native Americans we stole their land we went to war with Mexico in the middle of the 19th century and we stole from Mexico what is now the southwest of the United States we invaded Canada in 1812 for the express purpose of making Canada part of the United States for those of you who don't know the reason Toronto is not the capital of Canada and Ottawa is the capital of Canada as they expected us to pay a return visit furthermore with regard to the Caribbean we don't all the Caribbean now places like Cuba and Puerto Rico would be American States if it weren't for the fact that it was inextricably tied up with the issue of slavery and the northern states said were not going into the Caribbean because there are too many slaves down there those are slave holding States and we don't want any more slave holding States we had a voracious appetite for conquest Adolf Hitler when he went into the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941 sometimes talked about imitating the Americans and their ability to conquer and gain territory he had admired us greatly he was trying to emulate us he referred to the vulgar of the Volga River as my Mississippi that's how the United States was created an expansionist country like we've never seen on the planet before but that's just the first part of our attempt to create regional hegemony second thing we did was the Monroe Doctrine in 1823 old President James Monroe he told Europeans we're not powerful enough to throw you out now but there's going to come a day where we're going to run you out of the Western Hemisphere and once we run you out you're not welcome back this is our hemisphere we run it no distant great powers are allowed in our hemisphere it's the Monroe Doctrine first part of the story I told you is called manifest destiny marching across the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific creating this huge state importing huge numbers of people industrializing the country and then the second part of the story is the Monroe Doctrine getting the European great powers the British the French the Spanish all out of the Western Hemisphere and of course by 1898 we had done that we had created regional hegemony what was their second goal our second goal as I told you was make sure we didn't have a peer competitor we did not want any other country on the planet to dominate its region the way we dominate the Western Hemisphere we had four potential peer competitors in the 20th century Imperial Germany Imperial Japan Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union we helped contain and defeat all for them we helped put all four of them on the scrap heap of history we entered World War one when it looked like the Germans were gonna win in April 1917 and helped finish them off regard to the Japanese we beat them single-handedly in World War two and we helped the Soviet Union which played the key role in defeating Nazi Germany in World War two and then of course the United States played the principal role in containing the Soviet Union during the Cold War and then we gladly ushered them down the toilet ball when they fell apart the United States does not tolerate peer competitors that's my basic story now let's talk about the Chinese my argument as I told you is that the Chinese are going to imitate the United States they're gonna want to dominate Asia the way the United States dominates the Western Hemisphere and of course you understand my argument is that makes perfectly good sense from their point of view when I'm in Beijing I always tell the Chinese if I were playing your hand I try to dominate Asia I try and drive the Americans out right so I don't think they're foolish here what I'm telling you is they're gonna imitate the Americans and the Americans acted according to my theory and the Chinese are going to act according to my theory why because it's the best way to survive in a world where there's no higher authority you could turn to and you can never be certain about the intentions of other states okay so let's talk a little bit about the Chinese my first point is they're going to want to be by far the most powerful country in this region and they should be you know what happened when the Chinese were weak it's called the century of national humiliation Chinese still what happens when you're weak other great powers pick on you you don't want to be weak in the system you want to be really powerful if you're Chinese so you have two choices one you can be twenty times more powerful than Japan or number two Japan can be 20 times more powerful than you which one do you think they'll choose they won't even think twice the answers they want to be 20 times more powerful than Japan you want to be 20 times more then there they got a great power in your region and every other great power on the planet if you can why cause it's the best way to survive in a system with no higher authority so the Chinese are determined to be very powerful they're feeling really good about the fact that they're growing economically and translating that economic mind in the military might and I don't blame them one bed one thing I like about being an American we are Godzilla I don't have to worry about the survival of the United States of America if you're a small country and you live next door to one of those gorillas you better be really careful Cuba they got up but he was us you remember when Fidel Castro was running the place we still have not forgiven them you want to be big you want to be powerful so that's number one number two as I told you remember the Monroe Doctrine you want to get the Americans out of East Asia right you don't want the Americans route we have the Monroe Doctrine as my mother taught me when I was a little boy what's good for the goose is good for the gander don't you think they're going to have a Monro doctrine they'll tell you behind closed doors well we get powerful enough we're driving the Americans out beyond the first island chain and then we'll drive them out beyond the second island chain and again I don't blame them one bit if I'm Chinese that's exactly what I want I do not want American aircraft and American ships running up and down my coastline the Americans go ballistic when any foreign country drives military forces into the Western Hemisphere some of you are probably old enough to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis you remember how excited we got when we discovered that there were missiles in Cuba and then the Soviets talked about putting a naval base at cienfuegos we told them in no uncertain terms you ain't building a naval base at cienfuegos this is our hemisphere we've got this thing called the Monroe Doctrine stay out well you know again what's good for the goose is good for the gander so what I'm telling you here is the Chinese are gonna try to dominate Asia for good strategic reasons and that includes pushing the Americans out then the question you have to ask yourself is what the Americans going to do I just told you what the Americans are going to do we do not tolerate peer competitors we've got four good examples that shows you how in the past we have reacted and what you see happening now with the Trump administration is what you're going to see for many years to come the United States is going to get right in their face and it's gonna say you're not gonna dominate Asia you're not going to become a regional hegemon it is unacceptable to us and of course many of China's neighbors all you have to do is go to Japan South Korea I believe Australia Taiwan Singapore India right they do not want to see China become a regional hegemon so it's not going to just be the Americans it's gonna be the Americans along with a balancing coalition of other countries that are going to try to contain China and of course at the same time the Chinese are going to try to expand so what you're getting now and you're going to get much more of and it's a tragedy here as Tom told you the title of my book is the tragedy of great power politics this is a tragic situation I'm not happy about this fact I hope I'm proved wrong but what we have here is a situation where two guerrillas the Chinese and the Americans are gonna go head-to-head and in an intense security competition and there is going to be a serious chance that they end up shooting at each other and that you have a real war between them I'm not saying that's likely I'm just saying that is a serious possibility just want to make one more point about this there's this concept in the international politics called the security dilemma and the security dilemma is going to make this situation all that much worse what exactly is the security dilemma the security dilemma says that anything that one side does for defensive purposes to defend itself is invariably seen by the other side is offensive in nature you know there's all this talk in the wake of Secretary of State Pompeo being here about putting missiles in places like Australia Guam's South Korea and Japan is there these intermediate-range ballistic missiles and cruise missiles the Chinese say Chinese have lots of these missiles by the way the Chinese say our missiles are defensive missiles your missiles or offensive missiles we of course think exactly the opposite their missiles are offensive weapons and what we're doing is for defensive purposes so what happens in this situation is you get this arms race going and of course you can see the arms race happening already pivot to Asia right you get this arms race going and the end result is that everything the Chinese do to defend themselves we see is evidence that they're offensively oriented and vice versa and this just exacerbates the situation so there's big trouble ahead now let me just say a few words about Australia as you all know better than I do this really creates an extremely difficult situation for Australia because it depends so heavily on economic intercourse with China and of course at the same time it depends on the United States for its security so Australians have a sense that they're sort of caught in between the United States and China and by the way if you go to South Korea you go to Japan and you go to other countries Singapore the Philippines they all feel the same way so this is not unique to Australia so the question is what is likely to happen in the future my view on this is that the Australians have no choice but to side with the Americans this is not to say that Australia will stop all trade with China because I don't believe that will happen but I do believe that the Australians will have no choice but down the road to balance quite clearly with the Americans because my bottom line which should be clear from my argument here is that security concerns always or always Trump prosperity or economic concerns survival as the highest goal any state can have security matters the most so I think from Australia's point of view it makes eminently good sense to ally with the United States and I believe Australia will do that Japan will do that and so forth and so on well this is not to deny that this is not a happy story and again it's a tragic story anyway let me just conclude with one final comment and that is to say what you should all really hope for is that China does not continue to grow thank you so join me Shana just to summarize succinctly your argument is that if China continues to grow strongly economically then it will convert its economic power into military power and that it will try to keep the Americans out of Asia just as the Americans kicked out the Western powers the European powers from the Western Hemisphere in the 19th century yes and that America will go to great lengths to ensure that China does not dominate Asia that's your argument but are you exaggerating Traynor's strengths because there are many scientologists such as Professor David Shambo from George Washington University who was here a few months ago and they point out that China has some very serious weaknesses and limitations the corruption in the political level the environmental problems the air pollution the water pollution the ethnic tensions and that's not to mention demography that the expression that China will grow old before it grows rich are you exaggerating in China's strengths here there's two issues here one is the question of whether the problems that Tom described will manifest themselves in ways that greatly slow down the growth of the economy and therefore limit greatly its military capabilities over time I have no idea whether that will happen or not I've given the talk that I gave to you folks probably a hundred and twenty-five times there's probably about 120 sixth time I've given it it's hardly changed since I first gave it in 2001 and I've given it in China probably about 25 30 times this talk and one of the principal points that's made against me including by very smart people inside China is that the problem I'm describing is never going to happen or occur because China is not gonna continue to grow and as I said to you folks at the end of my talk let's hope that's the case okay but that's one issue the other issue and this is a very important issue to think about is how much military capability does China have today visa vie the United States is the United States sort of on the verge of being a paper tiger today visa vie the Chinese military I think today that the United States would clobber the Chinese in most conflicts one can imagine most plausible conflicts the United States military is a very formidable fighting force and the Chinese military has great limits it's over time as China continues to grow economically that the balance shifts against the United States this is why Tong Xiao Peng made a really smart plan which called for the Chinese just to grow and wait until they got powerful enough to change the balance of power in Europe in their favor for example if you're China and you're interested in taking Taiwan back you do not want to do it now with military force you won't wait 20 or 30 years okay but what this tells you is that it's an America's interest to pick fights with China now to establish the rules of the road I don't know how many of you remember this from the Cold War I'm talking mainly about the dogs in the room because the younger people wouldn't realize this but in the early that part of the Cold War right the United States and the Soviet Union had no rules of the road for dealing with each other we were kind of blind and trying to figure out and how to deal with each other and the same thing is true today with regard to the United States and the China and the question of how to deal with the South China Sea it's very hard to know exactly what to do and my point tom is it's in our interest to establish those rules now when we are more powerful than the Chinese whereas it's in China's interest away yeah but see your critics would say you're basing your thesis on great power politics the tragedy of great power politics on history you mentioned the 19th century obviously with the United States rise as a great power but haven't we since the end of World War two and especially since the end of the Cold War have a rules-based international order that should keep China in check how would you respond to those liberals you'd make that argument - you know we do have a rules-based order but the only countries that are required to always obey the rules are countries like Australia the United States first of all you understand the United States writes the rules and we obey them when it suits us and we disobey him when it doesn't suit us right there's some truth in that as well but listen I'm not against rules I want to be clear on that the reason that the United States created this rule-based order in the West during the Cold War and the Soviets created a rule-based order in the East or in the Cold War is that to run the modern world a great power needs institutions and it needs an order right but the point is that those rules are written to benefit the great powers so that they can wage security competition number one and number two if they don't like the rules they just disobey them when we did our event on Sunday with the Secretary of State we also had the Foreign Minister Maurice pine prison and she made a big deal about how a straw values that rules-based international order but when I asked her why doesn't Australia to follow up freedom of navigation patrols through that 12 nautical mile zone in the South China Sea she couldn't really answer it does that's a project no III think that her answer was basically the smart answer that at this point in time it does not make sense for Australia to try and enforce the rules that it would make much more sense for the Australians to pass the buck to the United States and look the United States pay the costs of enforcing those rules I think there's no question that Australia has an interest in seeing the Chinese obey those rules but do you want to enforce them no not in my opinion I say this from an Australian perspective not from an American perspective you have much more much more of an interest in you know letting the Americans do the heavy but John if we don't want to enforce those rules doesn't that show that a lot of Australians are right to say we can sit on the sidelines in this intensifying strategic competition between Beijing and Washington well you can sit on the sidelines with regard to this particular issue at this point in time the question you have to ask yourself is what happens is this security competition that I described intensifies right you've been able to get away with sitting on the sidelines up to now - playing both sides and it's been very smart from an Australian point of view I understand what your incentive structure is the question is what's going to happen as the security competition intensifies and you have to choose sides okay now if indeed that does intensify that strategic competition and we had a flavor of this during the course of the week in the aftermath of the osmond negotiations on Sunday if Washington really wanted say Darwin to station mid-range missiles should Australia do it you know it's it's a very difficult question to answer at this particular point in time I mean the we should stress their conventional not nuclear right it's but this is a very important point to understand the the INF treaty that was just thrown in the wastebasket prohibited the United States and Russia from deploying intermediate-range missiles that could be either nuclear or conventional so when the Americans talk about deploying those missiles now or at some point in the future in East Asia it really matters whether you're talking about nuclear missiles or conventional missiles and I'm assuming they're talking about conventional missiles and I think a good case could be made for deploying conventional missiles right where and how many from an American point of view is hard to say and what makes sense for more Australia's point of view is just hard to judge at this point in time because we don't know exactly what's going on my guess would be that the Americans will put great pressure on Australia to deploy a couple more questions before we open it up to the audience you're debating professor Hugh white and in Canberra is Hyatt Hotel tomorrow night it's another CIS event were expecting 550 people his argument as you know is that China and these are facts China buys double what our next largest customer Japan buys from us the Chinese economy will grow much bigger than America's in coming years he reckons that federal Treasury projections show that China's economy will be 80 percent larger than America's economy in the next 12 to 15 years he also says that our China ties and I think this is a fair assessment saved us from the global financial crisis more than a decade ago as a result and this is Hewitt's argument Canberra would be unwise to support Washington in a confrontation with China that America probably can't win John Mearsheimer well again I mean the the the question on the table here is whether or not Australia is going to side with the Americans or it's gonna side with the chai jeez I fully understand that from an economic point of view poisoning relations with China makes no sense and one could argue it'd be disastrous in certain respects or Australia over time but the question you have to ask yourself is does that make sense you know aligning yourselves with China from a security point of view can you really imagine Australia aligned with China against the United States is that gonna happen here you realize you would be an enemy of the United States that if the United States is involved in an intense security competition with China and you're with China against the United States the United States is gonna be awfully angry and it's gonna go to great lengths to put its gun sights on you you understand the United States is a ruthless great power that was the point that I tried to make in my discussion of how America turned itself into a regional hegemon so this is a tragic situation I would say however that I think you you white overstates the weakness of America visa vie China it may be in 40 or 50 years that China fits that description that you lays out but we're nowhere near that point and for the foreseeable future there's no way the Chinese are going to run us off the table or run us out of East Asia the United States is a very big and very wealthy country and it has the most formidable military on the plan and and of course this is why you will have such a powerful incentive to ally with the United States and of course you'll have a powerful incentive to do everything you can everything you can to ameliorate that competition that security competition between the United States and China will be very hard to do because they're both guerrillas but you have an incentive in doing that so that you can maximize the amount of economic intercourse you have with Australia sorry about the law I hope you can see me but we'll try to rectify that one final question what about I mean you might be right about China's witnesses for the sable future in America's strengths but what about Americans staying power because any puns believe that the Obama administration had pivoted away from the so-called pivot and during the Trump Bureau again Hugh white but he's not alone are saying that America is showing sides signs of not just being war weary from those wars in the Middle East but also retreating from Asia you've got the former defense secretary Bob gates who of course worked in both the Obama and the bush administrations and he says that Washington's polarization dysfunction gridlock partisanship that's the biggest threat that America faces he says quote this is Bob gates I think the greatest national security threat to this country at this point is the two square miles that encompasses the Capitol building and the White House what the two issues here first of all is the dysfunction in Washington it's true it's almost embarrassing to be an American these days and go abroad and have to defend our body politic so but in terms of staying power I think it's ridiculous to argue that the United States is showing signs they're recruiting East Asia if anything we're up in the ante on Taiwan we're just in the process of consummating a huge arms deal we've made it clear we're gonna defend Taiwan right Pompeyo was here and that's for a good reason the United States is not leaving in East Asia right and the only problem that we really have it's not so much what's happening inside the beltway was you know political dysfunction the main problem we have with the forever war is in the Middle East we got to do is get out of those crazy wars and stop starting new ones in places like Iran and concentrate on China that's the main problem but the fact is the United States is so rich that it can fight the forever Wars and still be deeply involved in Asia and be involved in Europe as well right and by the way if we get into trouble right financially we just pull all the forces out of Europe and swing them into East Asia mm-hm and pull forces out of the Middle East but it's not even clear we have to do that because were so rich and and the American economy is not an in terrible shape these days so I think the United States has tremendous staying power I think it's policymaking has not been wise for the most part Tom showed you my book the liberal the great delusion that talks about American foreign policy during the post Cold War period up Trump got elected and it's not a pretty story and that's why Trump got elected by the way so to paraphrase Mark Twain reports of America's decline or a trip from the region are greatly exaggerated now it's time for Q&A our first question comes from Mike Lyons right here and we'll go around mic microphone enemy of America which started very threatening and in your recent book of great delusions if I'm not mistaken you talk about America's successive failures one after the other in its attempts I agree that China's a different kettle of fish but in all of its attempts with other smaller nations to impose a little Germany on them it seems to have been a failure so I just quickly read a quote from late Malcolm phrases book dangerous allies he was referring I think Malcolm fries was Prime Minister of Australia from 1975 to 1983 that's only three or four lines but I'd like you to respond to what he had to say mark just put the mark up a bit yeah sure is that better yep is much better so he said our leaders the Australian leaders argue that we need to keep our alliance with the United States strong in order to ensure our defense in the event of an aggressive foe yet the most likely reason that Australia would need to confront an aggressive foe is our strong alliance with the United States we need America for defense from an attacker who is likely to attack us because we use America for defense John Mishima well let me just before I directly address that I just say I wasn't being threatening in trying to be threatening in the sense that I was you know saying the United States will come after Australia but I do think it's pretty obvious that of Australia were to side with China you would be by definition an enemy of the United States and you can figure out what will come from that that was don't believe what I was trying to say there the second point Shh you made reading from Malcolm Frazier's book I agree with Australia has no choice but to form an alliance with the United States but there are costs associated with that and it gets down to the whole issue the Tom raised about placing missiles on Australian soil one of the reasons their Australia will not want to do that is because it then becomes a target but it may be forced to do that because of Alliance dynamics right so I think that Fraser was right on the money okay next question professor bruce mcewen formerly of Stanford University in the u.s. Study Centre berth professor I just like to come back to the point you made earlier about America's enduring of military strength are we not already at war with China in the sense that there's a cyber war taking place there which has been useful to China to strengthen its country economically and militarily and is the u.s. doing enough to be able to strengthen its ability to handle cyber war I think whether you want to argue where war with China depends simply on how you define war I like to make the argument that we have effectively declared war on Iran and that we are trying to strangle Iran economically and a number of my friends have said you shouldn't refer to that as a war because the war involves guns and shooting but I think you can make a very good case that we've declared war on Iran and I think you can make a case I don't think it's a strong that we're at war with China in terms of cyber right but it's it's just a definitional issue but I think your point is well-taken right that the two sides are engaged in a competition at the cyber level I think based on what I know from talking to people in Washington that the United States is pouring an enormous amount of resources into waging this conflict and it's a conflict that's being waged not only with China but with Russia and with Iran and if you read the literature on the Iran us competition what we expect them to do is retaliate with cyber and we are using cyber against them so you could say you can add that to the economic dimension we're already at war with Iran not only on the economic front but on the cyber front as well next question Angelo yeah I put it to that it's not so much that Australia faces a choice as as a whole series of choices around different things and the reason I say that is that for for the 14 countries that have a land border with China it may well become a binary issue for the countries in the first island chain it probably becomes a binary issue for the countries maybe even the second country island chain it becomes their binary issue but for Australia which is almost as far away from China as it is from the west coast of the US isn't it more likely that we face a series of different choices and there may be areas around cyber and intelligence where it does become a binary choice because you can't sort of participate in certain things with the US and in China so you need to choose which boat you sit on but then there will be other things where it's perfectly legitimate for us to be neutral what would be an example the US may not like that what would be an example well the South China Sea might might might be an example we don't do funnel or yeah yeah yeah so you know that may be something where we say it's actually not in interest now you said the US may say we would strongly like you to do that and there may be a lot of pressure but if you're just looking from the Australian national interest you might take a view that that you don't have to be all in on every issue you can actually pick which issues you aligned strongly with the US on which ones you're neutral on and which ones you know and trade is is an obvious is an obvious example where we might actually sort of be in favor of the Chinese perspective on certain things well I think I mean I have not what about this in any detail I think that your point about Australia's geography is well-taken Australia has really terrific geography I mean a country like South Korea Korean general the two places on the planet that have the worst geography are Poland in Korea it's no accident that Norman Davies wrote a book about Poland called God's playground you know Korea is in a similar situation Vietnam these are all countries that are really close to China and they have real problems as a result and your point that they have less flexibility I think is true the question is how much flexibility how much choice does Australia have and my argument would be in the final analysis there not going to be many cases where it has the ability to opt out on some policy issue that the Americans care about but struck me about the Australians overtime is how loyal they have been to the Americans how they pretty much do anything the Americans ask them to do for example I'm quite surprised although I shouldn't be that the Australians have agreed to participate in the Persian Gulf to protect shipping in that area if I were playing Australia's hand I would not have agreed but they agreed and I remember when I was a boy they went to Vietnam with us they've been involved in a lot of our crazy venture I think I think you make a good point and it may be the times have changed and more maneuver remand my argument conveys but I don't think they'll have a lot of maneuver room and I don't think they'll ever be in a position on an important issue where they can side with China because the Americans I think and again I don't mean to sound threatening here but I think the American Rex just because that's what happens with great powers as East come next question Alison Bronowski Alison Bronowski professor Matt Mitcham pleasure to meet you in the in person rather than on the radio thank you interested to hear you say that we have agreed australia has agreed to take part in the Persian Gulf you must know something that we don't know I don't think this has been officially announced in Australia yet I'm not surprised but it would be nice to learn it from Australia first secondly I think that's right I don't think it actually has been announced but the speculation is that we will do it oh yeah I thought reading the newspapers this morning that Australia had agreed the wrong papers every white start on that one Allisyn question I hope you're right you say the planet and remains extremely powerful economically all of this is of course true my question to you is given the fact that the United States with or without Australia in some cases has not won a single war since 1945 what would give Australia confidence that you would win one against China and why would it be in Australia's interest to take part in that war given that this is our part of the world China is extremely important to us and that we have a physical relationship with this part of the world that the United States does not that actually affects our existential survival and I cannot understand and perhaps you can tell me what would quickly it what benefit would Australia get from aligning itself in a security sense with China with its player and with our neighbors yes security what security protection what protects you want to make the argument then our oscillation yeah we're way down under guarantees our security know why I think Allison Tolly reflects that argument would use out of that well before I get to that could I just yeah so the first part of her question which is very similar to your quit merica losing all these wars first of all there are four cases where the United States went up against peer competitor and in all four cases we prevailed and this is the fifth case right now if you talk about Wars like Vietnam wars like the Iraq war wars like Afghanistan those Wars you're gonna lose every time and we were out of our minds to get involved in all three of those wars right the United States Army is not good at nation-building and given the power of nationalism you want to stay out of those places but I would not extrapolate from what happened in those wars to what is likely to happen in a security competition involving China and the United States okay then different kettle of fish now the question is can you sit on the sidelines okay so you're gonna sit on the sidelines right and are you going to continue to trade with China and feed the beast yes and what is that gonna mean for the United States the United States is just going to sit there and a lot of Australia continue to trade with China and feed the beast you see how interested Donald Trump is in wrecking the Chinese economy you understand that that's what we're doing we're trying to wreck the Chinese economy we do not want them be able to implement China 2025 where they dominate high-tech in the year 2025 we don't want that we don't want them to continue growing over the next 30 years the way they've grown over the past thirty years so you're you're going to you're gonna help feed the beast you're gonna trade with China and basically ignore us I don't think that's gonna work out too well I don't think the United States we're going to be happy about questions more questions now next one tiny bug yep offensive meerschaum oh thank you thank you for your presentation and I want to I'm moving away from Australia back to the great power rival and I think you make a very incisive and persuasive case about the great power rivalry having said that it strikes me that both countries China and the United States have very smart people at the top maybe one of them doesn't but at the very top but you know that there are smart people there and presumably they read your articles and your books and they see the persuasiveness of your case why can't they get together and say this is not a good course to go on let's work out some rules whereby we don't have that inevitable conclusion that you're talking about yeah I mean this is actually the you white argument as to how we can solve this problem that we could have some sort of condominium or some sort of concert where the United States and the Chinese realize that if they do what I say they are likely to do it leads to potential disaster if not real disaster they can't do it because the system gives them very powerful incentives as they get more and more powerful this is the Chinese because the Chinese are driving this train the Americans are happy with the status quo gives the Chinese very powerful incentives to alter the status quo if you're in Beijing and you're getting wealthier and wealthier and your military is getting bigger and bigger and you know that the best situation on the planet is one where you dominate the region of the world that you live in right the incentives for you to try and push the Americans out of just enormous right because there is again no higher authority can never know the intentions of another state and you just want to dominate your region of the world so it's the Chinese who are driving this train and the Americans of course understand that if China dominates East Asia that will have huge negative repercussions for them and they therefore have powerful incentives to prevent it this is why we have never had a single case we're really smart people right sat down and figure it out how to get out of this dilemma right you know it's a trip again my argument is it's a tragic situation the Chinese have no choice the Americans have no choice and and and there's no way out of it now this is good at home as any is to say that John will be debating Kevin Rudd on the ABCs radio national tomorrow afternoon on my radio program he also did Philip Adams on Monday night it's you can get a podcast on the ABC and speaking about a Philip Adams these producers right here Sasha Fagan you talked a lot about the ruthlessness of the United States in terms of its foreign policy over the last 200 odd years and I just wanted to you know also about how Australia's always come to America's aid in all of its foreign adventures but the US hasn't always come to our aid in our foreign adventures I'm thinking for example of when the Howard government asked for the u.s. support to go into East Timor and the u.s. found that it was not in their strategic interest to get into a war with Australia against Indonesia I just wonder if at some point although you say Australia doesn't have a choice but to go with the United States if we might become expendable at some point to the United States and if at some point you know 40 50 years into the future and if so would you agree with you White's argument that our from our defense planning's point of view we should we need to become more self-reliant because our military capabilities at this stage are all you know built around interoperability with US forces so do we need to be spending more on our in defense and become more self-reliant as is clear from everything I said I do think that great powers are ruthless and I think the United States is no exception in that regard and if the United States found itself in a situation where it made sense from an American point of view to throw a country to the Wolves the United States would throw that country to this is the way international politics works I'm not saying this is a good thing it's just the way it works well not not that kinda just I mean there'll be people in this room he'll say are you downplaying america's benign intent i mean look at the noble role the United States played in rebuilding West Germany in Japan after World War two as an example my answer to her is an answer to you which is the United States does what's in its interest we had we didn't rebuild West Germany for noble reasons [Laughter] supposed to be really no the United States rebuilt West Germany and rebuilt Western Europe for purposes of containing a Soviet Union the great advantage that Australia has is that the United States needs Australia and it has no reason to throw Australia under the bus right so yes we're talking about in a competition with China right so I don't think that the United States is going to abandon Australia or the United States is going to do something to hurt Australia it may happen inadvertently for the reasons that Malcolm Fraser described I mean you get involved in an alliance and there's you know you can get entangled in ways that you otherwise wouldn't want to that happens but I think the problem that you describe is should not be a serious concern I actually think the Australians have more leverage over than the over the United States than they realize because the United States needs Australia right I think Pompeo is visit illustrates that mmm Pompeyo is here because he knows we need you right that's what he was saying that gives you leverage but I don't think in the past based on my understanding of us Australian relations that the Australians have realized that I think for example going back to the whole business of Australia going to the Gulf I think if the Australians tell the Americans we're not going to the Gulf right we're not getting involved in that mess over Iran I don't think it would damage us Australian relations in any way because we need you against China payda Hacha from the city morning herald John Peter Hara 120 countries in the world count China's its main as their main trading partner 68 countries so far count have signed up to China's belt and Road initiative how many countries forcibly are resisting Chinese expansionism well I'm not sure exactly what your point is all of these countries have good economic relations with China there's no question about it China is an expansive power China is not simply interested in East Asia it's going to build the blue water Navy the Chinese will tell you they plan to control their sea lines of communication that run from East Asia through the Straits of Malacca into the Indian Ocean to the Persian Gulf the belton road is designed not just for economic purposes but for security purposes this is good old-fashioned power projection and the Chinese are interested in being a superpower just like the United States there's no question about that your question is who's pushing back not many people or not many countries are pushing back at this point because it's early in the game as you surely know the Americans are now only beginning to push back right we are early in this game the question is why does it look like over the next 20 or 30 years but if you go to places like Vietnam you go to places like India Singapore Philippines Japan for short Taiwan South Korea there are lots of people in those countries who are really scared of the Chinese and would like to see the Americans contain the Chinese but the problem that they face and the reason is they're not pushing back very hard is the same reason that Australians are not interested in pushing back very hard which is there's all this economic intercourse between these countries and China the argument that I'm making to you is that this situation is in the process of changing and at some point down the road Australia and not only Australia but a lot of other countries are going to have to figure out which side they're on and by the way we could go to Europe and talk about this when it comes to balancing against China the Europeans are going to play hardly any role at all they're not going to be in the balancing coalition these are countries that are getting weaker and weaker every year and they had very little power projection capability to start with nevertheless the Chinese are going to want to trade extensively with the Europeans and they're going to want to trade and dual use technologies the kind of technologies we are not gonna want the Europeans to give to the Chinese the Europeans are going to have to decide whether they're with the United States or whether or not they're with the Chinese and this will have all sorts of consequences for the American commitment to Europe again you can see these problems that are beginning to manifest themselves if the Europeans are trading dual use technologies with the Chinese and basically telling the Americans to take a hike I don't think the Americans are going to be very happy about that and they're not going to want to leave forces military forces in Europe to protect the Europeans in that situation right but this is all coming again I told you that you know we need a theory to think about the future and we need a theory because the future hasn't happened yet and maybe I'll be proved wrong maybe someone like you white will be proved correct and apropos the question I was asked before by Tony maybe the Chinese leaders and the American leaders with the help of the Australians would be able to figure out a clever way I may be wrong let's hope of giants current professors and against me James Curran professor of modern history at the University of Sydney I wanted a question about the capacity of the United States to mobilize the capacity of American will to mobilize to contain China and indeed I think at the moment the message from the Australian government is the United States is it's not in the Australian national interests the United States to go down the path of containing China if you read Scott Morrison's speech the prime minister from late June I think it's into Asia link and if you compare that to Mike Pence's speech the Hudson Institute last October it almost be forgiven for thinking that these two leaders are talking about completely different regions where the Americans see darkness Australia still sees a pretty bright potential future but the question about domestic politics is Trump has tapped into something visceral in the American middle America that is here is a Middle America that has set the American foreign policy establishment we have withdrawn our consent for an ambitious American foreign policy abroad you told us it would be the end of history in 1989 you told us that as China would liberalize parts of an economy it would become just like us it would democratize you told us that Iraq would become a Jeffersonian beacon of democracy in the Middle East I'm being devil's advocate here it didn't happen what happens then to that question of American confidence and its exceptionalism when it loses some of its virtue and to what extent then can American will in the heartland be mobilized for what really is a a quite profound struggle against China to be number one well first of all American exceptionalism is largely irrelevant here what we're talking about is dealing with a pure competitor okay and there's no question that the Americans have fed up with the forever wars and Trump was elected on the platform that he was going to end these forever wars which are stupid wars that were going to lose I mean the Afghanistan now war is now the longest war in American history and it's perfectly clear we've lost but we can't get out right but that's not what we're talking about here we're talking about a potential peer competitor and it's very important to understand that in the United States the military industrial complex the Pentagon you know the Indust in the industries that support that military are fully fully prepared to deal with China and furthermore if you look at the high-tech industry in the United States the high-tech industry is marching arm and arm with the Pentagon against China the high tech industry the Silicon Valley people are scared stiff of China they think the Chinese are going to eat our lunch China 2025 scared the living bejesus out of them okay so it's not like it's just the Pentagon that's pushing to have a containment policy against China a huge chunk of the business establishment is fully in favor of containing China and is fully supportive of what Trump is trying to do to the Chinese economy you can divide the business community in the United States crudely into two parts the finance people and the hi-tech people the finance people is you folks here in Australia you know they'll do deals with the devil right the finance people are interested in making money and cutting deals with the Chinese but the high tech people view this is a completely different situation and they're marching arm and arm at the Pentagon so we're not going to have any trouble mobilizing the American people and as you know James the American government is it is brilliant when it comes to manipulating public opinion to support even cockamamie Wars right and this one will be an easy one you know to mobilize now I should stress that John will be here until I'd o'clock to take any individual questions so if you haven't had a chance to ask a question fear not you'll be able to ask one final question David Liebling as you said what you have is a theory it seems to me that the heart of your theory are two glaring omissions first you said that sorry going back to Canada and you emitted culture now can nobody in Canada does not sleep at night because the u.s. invaded and Canada was a British colony people are comfortable in Canada u.s. will not invade because culturally they do not mind who will be in power in 10 or 15 years because as you said we don't know who that is but we do know what the culture of the u.s. is we know what the culture of Canada is drawing that comparison to China we get to the position that China has never been a world expanse of power and it is against its culture its cultures to be dominant of its region but there is nothing in its culture that suggests that would want to invade or dominate us or Australia the second omission in your theory is an assumption it's an assumption that the world has to be unipolar not to be in conflict in fact the most successful period in world history in terms of liberalism in terms of free borders and in terms of trade was 1870 to 1914 when the world was multi Pollin I was wondering how you respond to those two relations yeah I think your point that you only get peace in unipolarity right what I'm saying there is that in a unipolar world you only have one great power so therefore you can't have great power war you can have great power Wars and bipolarity because there are two great powers or in multiplayer these who set because there's three or more great powers but also as you pointed out you don't have constant war as you pointed out from 1870 to 1914 no great power war in Europe right also from 1815 to 1853 that's the Crimean War 1815 to 1853 that's another big window where you didn't have war but you did have great power Wars and unipolarity you cannot have a great power war because there's only one great power so that was my point my point is you know polarities gone right and we now have three great powers the United States Russia and China and the two great powers that matter are China and the United States and the argument that I'm making is this is a fundamentally different world in the unipolar world that we knew from 1990 up until - said 2017 okay so that that's the argument no your more important point is the point about culture he's correct there's no culture in my story it's just very important to understand that there's no domestic politics in my story I don't care whether China is an authoritarian state or it's a democracy there are a number of my friends who believe that if China was a democracy Japan's a democracy India's a democracy the United States is a democracy we would live happily ever after this Tony is the sort of argument that in a democracy you have enlightened people who share the same values who get along and so forth and so on I disagree with that but of course we're never gonna run that test because China is not a democracy but with regard to culture I don't believe I may be wrong again I don't want to say I'm right you're wrong but I don't believe that culture matters I believe that if you look at Chinese history carefully they have been a remarkably expansive country over time right I have a former graduate student who wrote a book on this I can give you the citation for the book that lays this out in considerable detail there's some people who believe that China has a Confucian culture right whenever I go to China and people say oh we have a Confucian culture we never caused any problems you caused all the problems I always say you know I've heard that somewhere before I think it's called America other guys who cause all the problems but just quickly John how does your faces then apply to interwar Germany do you really think that Valmeyer Germany a democracy would have gone down the route of militarism and world war two just like Hitler and the Nazis did this I do believe that that buy more Germany was expansive it was bent on changing the status quo it was bent on changing the borders that the Versailles Treaty had created after World War one I think stress omen was interested in revisionism and I believe Germany would have pushed for world war two in the absence of Hitler but I would be a fool to argue that Hitler didn't matter but where Hitler really mattered was that he brought murder incorporated along with the army so it was not only an expansive power in the sense that it was interested in dominating Europe in a geopolitical sense it was also interested in murdering huge numbers of people by my count and I could run through the numbers if I had the time but I won't I believe that the Germans in World War two murdered 22 million people okay you know the numbers often Givens the Soviets lost 24 million people most of those were lost at the hands of the Germans most of them were civilians right and they murdered huge numbers of POWs as well this was murder incorporated this is what you've got with the Nazis right so you had this sort of geopolitical imperative that I described driving Nazi Germany and on top of that you had murder incorporated and I believe you would not have had that with buy more German okay so that's a witness in your thesis yes but let me just say one word I don't want to get into this a detail no theory can account for everything right it's very important to understand that a theory is a simplification of reality the fact that I leave culture out that I leave domestic politics out that I leave individuals like Hitler out right does show you that the theory has limits and this is why I may be proved wrong I'm gonna be humble here really but at the same but at the same time I would just say I do believe that there is a out of history that backs me up and again let's hope I'm wrong ladies and gentlemen can I please call on my colleague Anastasia Lin who is the 2019 scholar and residents at the Center for independent studies to do the boater thanks well thank you Tom as the great 19th century liberal John Stuart Mill's once said he only knows his own opinion knows little of that now I'm saying that because clearly in the audience today many of you disagree profoundly was young Meera's thesis this evening but in any intellectual discussion it's important to know the contrarian view and also growing up in a totalitarian regime I know too well when a prevailing idea is not challenged what the outcome can be of that and I think tonight John Mearsheimer stated clearly and thoroughly the importance of viewing China as what it is and how Australian should take China's threat more seriously it is an important counter-argument to the conventional wisdom in Canberra and in much of asia-pacific these days that too often they take a benign view of China now whatever you think of John Mearsheimer I think he is an intellectual heavyweight and on behalf of cis I thank you sincerely I'm coming to Australia this week and we're very much looking forward to your debate with you white tomorrow at Canberra now I want to thank you to the audience for being here tonight in this increasingly polarizing times it is very important that C is an organization like this provide a safe space for rigorous exchange of ideas well thank you very much ladies and gentlemen [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Centre for Independent Studies

Views: 27,178

Rating: 4.3886008 out of 5

Keywords: Centre for Independent Studies, CIS, US-China Relations, US-Australia Relations, Australia-China Relations, Trade War, International Relations, Diplomacy, International Politics, Auspol, Military Power, Hegemon, Regional Hegemony, Tariffs, Hong Kong, Donald Trump, Xi Jinping, Foreign Policy, Security, Great Power Politics, China 2025, One Belt One Road Initiative, china, Australia, China, Rise peacefully, trade disputes, Mearsheimer, John, relations

Id: YsFwKzYI5_4

Length: 76min 8sec (4568 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 19 2019