[China Lecture Series] 32강 중국의 부상과 한미관계의 미래 (대담)

[Music] [Applause] [Music] in the future of China and yes you know relationship your basic you know assumption is that China may incessantly increases economic powers but there's some counter-argument for example demographic changes as we discussed before you know one of the leading uh professors of the China he made a very impressive presentation in my foundation last year from Shanghai he argued that if the Chinese government to not succeed in some post control issues by the end of this century I mean 80 80 years later the the projection of the Chinese population will be called to town to the four or five hundred billion just one-third of as over now the best scenario is 900 million while the United States will consider incessantly increase because in your years is will is expected to allow the immigration from outside world so in that case by the end of this century it goes up to a 450 million so maybe even the UN statistic a little different but in that case the such in a drastic change of demography will have some different you know the shape of you know in bilateral relationship so I want to I want to ask your idea and my second question is on the five out of the 500 assumption you mentioned that states are rational actress so from your point of view what do you think of the Kim jong-un's you know the situation he she will judge you know Ponder's in rational in a rational way there is one you know that Christians and then my third question is you know you have the chances are ball higher for the US and China go to work then you know the war between US and Soviet Union so maybe but there is a medical argument in terms of because their interdependence in Economic Area what some people - people exchange E or and other many other areas which is quite different you know the figures in comparison with the Cold War you know area so you don't have to deploy right now so maybe you could melt down you know when you make some general questions now I'd really invite - you know distinguished panelists professor Jeong Jaeho from Seoul National University he is a work as the director of the program on us-china relations at Seoul National Universities here he is a very renowned you know professors who got the various best research award and also a best book award so let's welcome professor job with began or maybe I will give you around 10 minutes yeah thank you I really value this opportunity to talk with Professor Mishima I also have a lot of questions hope you have time to answer those questions I think there are basically two ways of looking at international politics one is that of looking from within in other words area studies perspectives you want to figure out intentions and so on and so forth the other one is that of looking from without that is basically I was presumed approach taken by you so that is why you you're arguing that it is impossible to know the intentions of the other state however many area studies scholars may disagree maybe probably that explains why there is such a strong decline of in area studies as well as foreign language education in the u.s. also in Korea but my first question concerns the prospect of a clash of titans using using the phrase that you have used in you basically argue the rise of China is going to concentrate the breathing room for the United States therefore the confrontation and possibly even a war is possible if not inevitable but you haven't really specified exactly what kind of form that confrontation will take place and if possible you could also give us some sort of timeline for that because if you look at the UK US strategic competition the GDP of the US already surpassed that of the UK in 1872 but at the time of 1872 United States was not really regarded as a strategic competitor from I mean from the point a point of 2018 China is not yet surpassed the GDP of the United States it has a long way to go but the world over is now preoccupied with a power transition and all that why is this happening the real power of China has not even reached at that stage yet but why is the world so you know in this fuss of power transition hopefully you can explain that as well third question is you say China is very likely to imitate what the United States has been doing and what in my States has been doing particularly in East Asia and also elsewhere is to form Alliance particularly the bilateral alliance in East Asia but China has that done that China's not done that at all in fact China I stuck with the principle of non alliance so if China continues to follow the principle of not forming alliances with other countries how that play out in your prediction for region and my last question is about Korea you said Korea has joined the balanced coalition for the United States against China and it is going to be on that path down the road however given what happened in the last three and half years actually it seems to be the other way around for instance TPP are say Korea has not joined TPP AIB despite America's reservation Korea joined it and will a commemoration in 2005 u.s. specifically as South Korea for South Korean president not to go but she did and that of course we eventually deploy the THAAD system but there were a lot of absent flaws in the process and regarding the South China Sea the issue our discourse is not exactly the same as what the US has to say so it's not that facts are not exactly what your theory tells us so how how you look at this remains to be explained I'll stop there thank you now I want to invite professor Egan Luke from Southern University especially yes especially in our relationship with the professor mere Sheamus when he got a PhD from Harvard University you know that he has focused on his idea and the topic which he wrote and also he's enjoying many awards by from many from Korea's National Academy of Sciences so I'd like to invite your comment on based on his presentation let's welcome his presentation [Applause] [Music] okay first I'd like to appreciate this opportunity because as a person and the in person this is my first time to see professor missioner actually my first a kind of publication from my graduate school graduate studies was it's a boom review I published a lot no article about here's a logical inconsistency as a kind of a young student he was quite daring and the challenging time task but actually I did that iron on publication so my first question to you is up about the thing that I raised that 15 years ago that actually I'm trained to be an iron theory science as an IO theorist are a little bit different our perspectives are different from that of a Jeong Jaeho who is a Chinese specialist and the regional area specialist we tended to think about some international relations something without the substance so in this perspective mache may use professor measurement argue that an archangel kind of dangerous Pricer not from the beginning not from the very nature of from the implication from the five assumptions and the three behaviors and the he's the first if you remember the first the behavior of a state under anarchy is a fear so when states affair with each other they tend to be very myopic short-sighted there are time horizons that cannot be long but short it's true ordinarily shirt on the other hand mutually you argued that states especially the great powers intended to prevent peer competitors from arising United States wanna be be regional hegemony because the best way to guarantee you a security is the most powerful country in the world Security maximization is not the best way the power maximization is the best a formula to guarantee the security if that is a correct States especially the great powers of behaved with long time horizon they tend to be long sighted naturalized excited so in this respect we have a contradiction sometimes we have should time horizon because an arc is a dangerous place in some time and other times we needed very long time horizon because that's the best way to guarantee our security in the future so we I feel something inconsistent the second out of this issue we have and then actually the I delight remind that the audience and the panel is that we have actually four states who gave up their nuclear weapons Ukraine a deep Kazakhstan did Belarus live in the South Africa they're all over the country all over the five of four countries built their weapons and gave choose not to continue keep the Arsenal alive yes we'll crania was invaded because it did not have nuclear weapons by Russia however still we have Belarus and the cattle stun kind of elapsed do clearly unprotected but kind of safe so that's the issue that I'd like to address and the second other oh I'm sorry the third issue that I don't know the race is the difference between his book the traded about treasure the upgrade power ports on the one hand and the power the his presentation of today in the book visionary argue further America's role as an actual balancer I mean the instead of trying to engage in the ongoing conflict in Europe as well as in East Asia you suggest that Washington should distance itself from East Asia waiting for local countries for example South Korea and Japan to take the burden of a containment and the conflict and entering the area at the last moment in order to dictate up his treaty that's what United did in the first world world there was a quite a smart strategy however I'm still I'm curious that you didn't explicitly suggested that kind of an issue in the presentation so my question is do you still in those thoughts suggestions in my opinion if United still a the role of offshore balancer then the regional state would lead to kind of China's a sphere of influence or nuclear proliferation in the area if under the circumstances United Stated to lose very precious rich hat from which it would exert influence in the area the fourth issue that I could address is this you advise a South Korea to build independent nuclear arsenal right then is it enough what I'm saying is with nukes do you still believe that South Korea can handle the China pressure despite the power gap between the Beijing on the one hand and the sour on the other we have a very serious power gap which I'm afraid unfortunately widening if that is the reality then we need more than nuclear weapons independent nuclear weapons the last issue that I'd like to raise interest I recently I read the book the two cylinders trap and that's in the full world by Graham Allison and every page turned I hear your voices not Rama Allison's voices so what is your opinion about the true students trap and the general concept over this issue if you are going to write the book and how would you have written over that issue let me stop you I think I'm wired up everybody can still hear me how much time do I have I mean I don't want it I could talk for four hours but I don't want to do that I mean I could just pick a couple questions 50 to 60 questions okay but 20 minutes to answer these questions well okay okay I'll do my best to answer all them and I'm gonna do it rather succinctly so I can cover as much territory as possible let me just start with president park's three questions first of all with regard to demography I told you before that when I have given this talk which I've probably given like a hundred and twenty five times now and and I've given it quite a few times in China the first argument that's used against me is the economic interdependence argument the second argument that's used against me is the argument that China cannot rise because it has all sorts of internal problems that are going to get in the way one of which is demographic which is what president Park pointed out there are other problems that people point to I have no way of knowing for sure what the likely trajectory of China's economy is I think it's intuitively plausible that demographics are going to get in the way is I made clear in the beginning of my talk I hope that's true and I'm in favor of encouraging Chinese immigration to the United States so as to the Chinese economy and helped the American economy with regard to his point about the rational actor assumption that was my fifth assumption I think that if my theory has a problem right if there's one weak spot in the theory it's the rational actor assumption and if you think about what I said about President Trump at the end of my presentation I was in effect challenging the rational actor assumption now president Park of course raised the question of Kim jong-un it's hard for me to say with any high degree of certainty whether he is a rational actor or not but I would say that based on everything I've seen I do think he is a rational actor and people I've talked to will in the intelligence community in the United States will say that the CIA has come to the same conclusion and I think if there is any actor in the present situation who was likely to act in a non rational way and cause a conflict it's President Trump not Kim Jong hyung just on the cold war versus China and the likelihood of war which I alluded to in my talk and which President Park raised here's the big difference between the Cold War and a possible conflict in East Asia today during the Cold War it was almost impossible for us to get a war started in Central Europe when we ran wargames and the reason was that you had two massive armies with thousands of nuclear weapons in each army facing each other and the thought of those two massive armies with thousands of nuclear weapons crashing into each other was an absolutely horrifying thought and people thought that it would lead to a general thermonuclear war so that meant that when we ran wargames it was almost impossible to get the players in the war game whether it be talking about the Soviet side or the American side to actually initiate a war the situation in East Asia is quite different because you're talking about possible conflicts over the South China Sea or the East China Sea you're talking about conflicts in places right where it's imaginable that you could have a war and even if nuclear weapons were used it would not escalate to an all-out nuclear war now I'm not making the argument that it is likely you're going to get a war between China and the United States in East Asia I'm just saying it is possible to tell plausible stories about how that happens in ways that was not the case during the Cold War when the focus was on Central Europe now with regard to professor Chung's excellent questions he said that he didn't understand why there's all this talk about security competition between the United States and China when China has not yet surpassed the United States in terms of economic might or a military might I would note that during the Cold War the Soviet Union probably never had more than one-third the wealth of the United States but it had a very formidable military and that alone is what caused the United States to balance against the Soviet Union and to cause this intense security competition so you really don't need a situation where China passes or surpasses the United States economically to get this kind of security competition and just to go to professor Lee's first point about long term versus short term I think that the United States is thinking very much in a long-term way in terms of dealing with China today remember the pivot to Asia under Hillary Clinton came in 2011 and China was economically weaker then relative to the United States than it is today but I think in 2011 the Obama administration was thinking about the long term prospects of dealing with a rising China so I think the fact that you already see security competition is not surprising you also said this was your second question that China doesn't seem to have many allies it doesn't seem to be in the business of forming alliances now my view on this is that China's not going to have many allies because China is a threat to its neighbors in ways that the United States is not and it's not because the United States is a benevolent hegemon or any of this nonsense it's because the United States is physically located 6,000 miles away from East Asia and the United States is not in a position to conquer any territory in East Asia and dominate Asia the way a local great power like China or Japan in the 1930s and early 1940s was thinking about dominating East Asia so what's going to happen here is China continues to rise is that it's going to scare its neighbors and drive them into the arms of the United States this brings me to Professor CHUM's Third Point he said if you look at what's happening today it doesn't look like there's really much of a balancing coalition forming around the United States now I would make two points in regard to that issue first of all I think that the United States under President but even under President Obama has done a poor job of putting together a balancing coalition as I said before this is what really makes me very nervous about President Trump so I think that what you're pointing to is correct right and I think it's due to the fact that American leaders have not done a very good job of assuring their East Asian allies that they will be there for them and that the United States will act responsibly if it is there and this has I think I think torn at the fabric of of these alliances but the point I would really make in response to you is it's early in the game and we'll see what happens over time my prediction is that the East Asian countries like South Korea and Japan Singapore the Philippines will all balance in a serious way with the United States but as you all know theories are sometimes proved wrong and my theory might be proved wrong but my argument is it's early in the game and eventually there will be balancing and we will see whether I'm right with regard to professor Lee's various points just on his point about long term versus short-term horizons I don't want to get into this in any detail because it's a big IR theory issue and we could be here all day but I would just say that his point that there is something of a tension between short-term considerations and long-term considerations is correct and sometimes states do things that benefit them in the short term and hurt them in the long term and vice versa right vice versa Britain for example when dealing with Nazi Germany in the 1930s was willing not to go very far in building up armed to deal with Germany in the short term because it was concerned about the long-term health of the German a cut of the British economy but that didn't work out very well and they should have spent more money in the short term but of course that would have hurt them in the long term so that there is a real tension here and my theory doesn't have a good explanation for how you resolve that trade-off he pointed out this is Professor least second point that there are a number of states that gave up their nuclear weapons there's Ukraine Kazakhstan and Belarus those are the former states of the Soviet Union and then there's South Africa let me say a few words on that first of all Ukraine Kazakhstan and Belarus never really had operational control over those nuclear weapons when the Soviet Union broke apart those three countries newly independent countries sort of ended up with the nuclear weapons on their territory but they didn't control those nuclear weapons furthermore the United States gave the Ukrainians but even the other two states compound fractures of all four limbs to force them to give up their nuclear weapons the United States was in an incredibly powerful position in the early 1990s and it put enormous pressure on those countries to give up their nuclear weapons which were really not their nuclear weapons the way North Korea's nuclear weapons are their nuclear weapons with regard to South Africa with the end of the Cold War South Africa no longer had a need for those nuclear weapons and they in my opinion never had much of a need from anyway I was never able to figure out why South Korea thought it needed nuclear weapons North Korea is a completely different case if I were the national security adviser in North Korea I would advise Kim jong-un to never give up nuclear weapons if I were the national security advisor in Iran Iran would now have nuclear weapons I just want to be very clear on that from an American point of view this is not a good thing and I understand that from a South Korean point of view it's not a good thing that North Korea has nuclear weapons but we're not talking about North Korea nuclear weapons from an American point of view or a South Korean point of view we're talking about North Korean nuclear weapons from Pyongyang's point of view and from their point of view they make eminently good sense and again as I said in my talk you do not see any evidence that the United States which has the most powerful conventional forces in the world is giving up its nuclear weapons so why would you expect North Korea to do so his point about offshore balancing I'm quite well known as being an offshore balancer which means I think that the United States should not physically stationed forces in important areas of the world unless it's absolutely necessary I think that in Europe today there's no need for us to maintain NATO I'm not in favor of maintaining NATO I'm not in favor of keeping large-scale American forces in Europe I'd pull them out in large part because there's no serious threat to dominate Europe on the horizon so I would get offshore however as an offshore balancer I do believe that if the local great powers cannot contain a great power that's becoming a potential regional hegemon the United States has to come onshore so I'm not talking about the United States pulling offshore in Asia the United States has to be onshore in Asia it has to be in South Korea it has to be in Japan and it has to be in a handful of other places that we could talk about later in East Asia to contain China because the local powers are not capable of containing China by themselves they need help from the United States so the offshore balancer has to be onshore and this brings me to the final question that professor Li raised which is a very interesting one he said that if North Korea built nuclear weapons Oh actually he asked me questions about the Thucydides trap as well yeah that was the last one his next to last question was if South Korea built nuclear weapons would that be enough to deter China to avoid being turned into a semi sovereign state I think it would not be enough I think that South Korea is small enough relative to China that even with nuclear weapons it would not be enough for for South Korea then finally he asked me about the Thucydides trap of course Graham Allison makes basically the same argument that I make in tragedy a great power of politics but there's a fundamental difference between my book and his book and that is that he has no theory and I have a theory and as you all know now I believe that theory is God and without a theory I don't trust anybody's arguments about the future and that's why I provided you with a theory but you do want to keep in mind that theories are sometimes wrong and I may be proved wrong but if I just you know some comment on your last point you mentioned that South Korea and you know going nuclear might have some and the capacity to deter China but you know our main interest is not to Detroit China you know that is how we could deter North Korean nuclear you know our capabilities so in that case you know South Korea's growing nuclear might be enough to maintain you know some balance and you know self-reliance visibie North Korea at that point but you have too much focus on against the China but well we never you know try to teach her you know China no III agree with that but professor Elise question had to do with China but I agree with what you said about some common actually we have almost 70 or 80 questions so it's not very how some hardworking process for me to make us um finally select the 12 questions which has some clustering you know it all right can I ask a question yes just you you got you to offer your balance and use that us the not to deploy soldiers in Europe because you don't see any significance the threat to European countries right so the maintaining NATO is not that a good idea so in that sense to coat the president NATO is obsolete but what do you think about the Russian threat I think the question was what do I think about the Russian threat I think in the West now were suffering from Wes Russian hysteria Russia is a declining great power the idea that Russia is a threat to become the second version of the Soviet Union or is a threat to overrun Eastern Europe much less all of Europe is is a pure fantasy I think that the United States should have good relations with the Russians I have written about this in the pages of foreign affairs I believe that the United States or the West more generally has created the crisis with Russia through NATO expansion EU expansion and threatening regime change in the countries on Russia's borders and in Russia itself and I don't worry about the Russian threat the Chinese threat is the only one that I worry about let's make a quick point on this if you look at America's three principal competitors from the twentieth century America's three principal competitors were Germany Japan and the Soviet Union all three of those countries are depopulating Japan is depopulating Germany is depopulating and Russia is depopulating the power gap between the United States and those three countries is going to be significantly greater in the year 2050 than it is today there's only one country on the planet that can give the United States a run for its money between now and 2050 and that is China and that's why the United States should be focused laser-like on China instead of fighting stupid losing wars in the Middle East and worrying about a Russian threat that is virtually non-existent China is the real potential threat to the United States out to the year 2050 and let's hope that after 2050 president parks views on demography kick in and we don't have to worry about the problem okay the first question was is that in any possibility of the transformation of the korea-us Alliance int Korea China Alliance because you mentioned that at your last point there might be Korea might be semi sovereign countries you know if such in a situation developed in a serious way is any possibility of coalition volley in force coalition between China and Korea a second that trumps Ally Union not Lee Union I mean Trump's first meeting with Kim jong-un slow the rise of China is it possible if they helps a big success and if they fail it might be trigger of the third world war and the other one is your general assessment on president moons you know our current policy vis-a-vis North Korea and is it is it literally feasible or possible the balance and stability between nuclear nuclear North Korea and you know South Korea which has a beta based on you know us alliance and next one is the current Pelton load project by China might be perceived Chinese versions of the Marshall Plan so in that case it might have some good gateway to get much more alliance or affiliation from the neighboring countries you know from China and the other one is the role of Lucia you have some mentioned on there but you know if I just add one point in occurrence with your you know article Lucia could be help could be helpful for us to make some the balancing against the China in a sense but in in actual international you know a relationship is there are very few evidence for Russia you know aside with you know the United States visa be China but that we have any clear-cut evidence you know for Lucia to be more cooperative with you know the United States especially given the current Putin's you know the domestic situation and do you think China it's already succeeded in encroaching into u.s. backyard especially in the area of the Middle East and what do you think of the the current Xi Jinping's you know the Chinese scrapping the terms of the terms limitation of the president you know based on your theory and China was isolated you know in the wake of the Kim jong-un's you know new suggestions and the echoing positive echoing from President Trump but in that case China is any possibility China will initiate China North Korean a summit to counter such you know commercials and you mentioned some unpredictability and uncertainties the maximum seven years from now on you know in case of president transiently election so still he argued that there's you know many possibility of pre-emptive you know surgical strike by United States so what do you think of the possibility of the preemptive strike by United States in the wake up in North Korean United States summit okay so I should refrain myself from so okay thank you very much can you just give me a sense of how much time I have to answer these just join a meeting at six ten sixteen okay you have a twenty thirty minutes minutes okay okay so the first question had to do with the transformation of the present alliance between the United States and Korea into a new alliance that involves China and Korea this is basically the South Koreans giving up on the United States and joining forces with North Korea excuse me South Korea the South Koreans given up on the United States and joining forces with China I don't think this is going to happen in the foreseeable future as I said before I think an argument can be made that China will eventually become so powerful that the South Koreans will have no choice but to bandwagon with the Chinese in which case South Korea will end up as a semi sovereign state but that is in the really distant future I think in the foreseeable future South Korea has a deep-seated interest in aligning with the United States for security purposes you want the American security umbrella over your head it just makes eminently good sense because the United States is not a serious threat to South Korea the way China is because China is your next-door neighbor and it is a huge country so I don't see any transformation this is not to deny that the United States might behave in irresponsible ways and push the north the South Koreans towards the Chinese and that makes me nervous and that was the point I tried to drive home about president Trump second question was whether or not I thought that the meeting between Kim jong-un and president Trump should that take place would slow the rise of China and if it fails could that lead to a major crisis just first of all it's not clear that they will meet this is not a meeting that was well prepared as you know diplomacy is not president Trump's strong suit and in fact he doesn't like diplomacy and there are hardly any preparations for this meeting and it is a good chance they won't meet if they do meet I don't think it's going to have any effect whatsoever on the rise of China I think China is going to continue to grow economically at least for the next couple years and I think any there's nothing that North Korea and the United States are going to do to affect China's rise in my opinion I think the great danger here is that if the summit happens between Kim jong-un and President Trump and it fails that you could end up with a situation where relations between North Korea and the United States and in particular between President Trump and Kim jong-un are worse after the failed summit than they have been over the past year or so and that would not be a good thing third question had to do with what do I think of president moons foreign policy visa V North Korea the truth is I think it's a very smart policy I think we're at a point now where there is a real danger that you could have a conflict or shooting war between North Korea and the United States and I think it's very important that we do everything possible to tamp down the tensions and get the United States and the North Koreans both walk away from the cliff and I think that president moon did the right thing in pushing us in that direction how this plays out over the long term is very hard to say because as I said in response to the previous question it's not clear that if there's a summit that we will have a happy ending to that summit and I think it's more likely that there will be an unhappy ending so president moons policy may ultimately fail but for the time being I think it's good that we're walking away from the precipice now the next question is the fourth question is how much stability can you get in a world where North Korea has nuclear weapons but South Korea does not but nevertheless South Korea is operating under the nuclear umbrella of the United States I think that I think you get a lot of stability I think that it is going to be important moving forward for the United States to think more deeply about how to provide South Korea with extended deterrence and I think the United States and the South Koreans will think about the possible reintroduction of American nuclear weapons on to South Korean soil and they'll think about different ways to make the American nuclear deterrent to South Korea and to Japan more credible as Chinese power continues to grow but I think that for the time being it's quite clear to the North Koreans that the American nuclear deterrent is firmly in place as a deterrent for South Korea so I think you have a substantial amount of stability but I'll say more about that in response to one of the later questions now the fifth question had to do with the belt in road and is this just another version of the Marshall Plan a Chinese version of the Marshall Plan and will that therefore lead to good relations between China and its neighbors and maybe ultimately China in the United States I interpret this question to be saying that the belton road may be a cause for optimism about the future prospects of conflict or security competition involving China I disagree with that first of all you want to remember that the Marshall Plan was inextricably bound up with the Cold War the Marshall Plan was not an example of benevolence on the part of the United States the Marshall Plan was all about containing the Soviet Union the United States wanted to do everything it could to bring France and Italy and West Germany to put them back on their feet economically so that they were capable of helping the United States contain the Soviet Union so the Marshall Plan is not really a good example to say a bit more about belton Road the belt nirodh initiative is not purely an economic policy it's a strategic policy as well the Chinese are interested in increasing their influence around the world and they're not just spreading out economically they're spreading out strategically as well and I actually believe that the belt and road is good end up causing them all sorts of problems because I think many countries are going to be suspicious of the Chinese as the belt in the road policy grows because other countries are gonna worry that China is gaining strategic advantages as a result of the belt and road and that the Chinese are going to try to interfere in the domestic politics countries that benefit from the belt growed we've watched the Chinese in Africa we watched the Chinese all around the world the Chinese give aid and when they give aid they expect to have a say in the domestic politics of the countries in which they give a much like the United States by the way and the end result of that is it runs into nationalism countries don't like that so I don't think the belt and road is good to be anywhere near as successful as some people do and I think nevertheless the key point to keep in mind is it has a strategic dimension to it as well as an economic dimension now the next question and this was actually president park's question that Russia could be helpful in balancing against China he says there's really no evidence of Russia and the United States working together to balance against China now that's absolutely true but that's in large part because China has never been a great power since 1783 when the United States got its independence and more accurately since 1898 when we became a great power on the world stage right the United States wasn't worried about China as a great power threat I would point out to you though that the United States and the Soviet Union came together during World War two to fight against Nazi Germany so there's evidence out there that the United States can ally with Russia slash the Soviet Union it may be difficult to do as long as President Putin is in power because we have so thoroughly demonized President Putin but he'll be gone by the time this is a relevant issue and I think that the United States will form a balancing coalition with with Russia against China I would also note to just talk a little bit more about the Russian case the United States has a vested interest in having close relations with Russia for all sorts of reasons first of all Syria we should be working with the Russians to shut down the Syrian civil war why not we're not working with the Russians is baffling to me it surely has to do with the fact that anything the Russians do we have to do the opposite because we've decided the Russians are the devil incarnate this is remarkably foolish we have similar interests in Syria which is to shut down that war with regard to Iran we talked about the Iran nuclear deal you all understand that that Iran nuclear deal is going to run out in about 15 years it's going to expire so to speak and we're gonna have a vested interest in working with the Russians to extend the deal we got the initial deal because we worked with the Russians the Chinese the Germans the French the British right we worked with them to get this deal we need Russian help we need Russian help on Afghanistan the United States has to get out of Afghanistan at some point it needs help from the Russians to deal with that problem so the United States has all sorts of reasons for wanting to work with the Russians in addition to dealing with a China threat 7th question was that China has already encroached in America's backyard and where you see it happening is in the Middle East I don't consider the Middle East to be China's backyard to be America's backyard America's backyard is the Western Hemisphere and there's no evidence yet that the Chinese have formed an a military alliance with any of our neighbors or have put military forces in the Western Hemisphere so that hasn't happened yet and my argument is I tried to make clear in my talk is that the United States does not want China to be a hegemon any stage or in Asia more generally because then it will be free to roam into the Western Hemisphere but that hasn't happened yet but nevertheless the questioner was correct when he talked about where she talked about the Middle East and you can already see Chinese influence in the Middle East and let me say a little bit about that you realize that China now gets 25% of its oil from the Persian Gulf 25% and that number is expected to go up significantly in the next two decades so China cares greatly about the Middle East for strategic reasons and the Chinese will tell you that they intend to build a Bluewater Navy so that they can protect their sea lines of communication between the Persian Gulf and East Asia the Chinese coast right they want to make sure just the way the Americans make sure they protect their sea lines that the Chinese can protect their sea lines of communications so they're going to build the Bluewater Navy that projects power into the Persian Gulf furthermore if you go home and you google Chinese Iranian relations you will see that the Chinese are forming closer and closer relations with the Iranians the Americans are foolishly driving the Iranians into the arms of the Chinese from an American point of view what we want to do let me put that differently what we should want to do is we should want to make sure that the Chinese can't find allies in the Middle East because they're going to try to find allies in the Middle East just as the Soviet Union did during the Cold War because the Middle East or the Persian Gulf to be more specific is of great strategic importance to China that's why they're building a Bluewater Navy and that's why they're forming close relations with Iran and we of course are foolishly driving the Iranians into the arms of the Chinese just go home and Google Iranian Chinese relations furthermore as you know relations between the United States and Turkey have seriously deteriorated in recent years and the Chinese not surprisingly are now forming closer and closer relations with the Turks so I believe that over time you're gonna see a serious security competition between the United States and China in the Persian Gulf not just in East Asia now the next question is Xi Jinping has decided that he's going to be the president for life and the question is what are the implications of that now you remember that when the Cold War ended and the United States was first thinking about how to deal with China there was a big battle between realists and liberals and realists like me said that the United States should think about containing China it's exactly what you would expect from John right containment realpolitik 101 liberals on the other hand who dominated American foreign policy in the post-cold war period said that what we should do is emphasize engagement and the argument went like this if we get China involved in all these economic and political institutions that we created we mean in the United States we get them into the World Trade Organization we increase their influence in the IMF and the World Bank we get them hooked on capitalism right inside of these institutions that that will eventually turn China into a democracy and as the vast majority of Americans believe once China's a democracy Japan's a democracy America's of democracy they'll never fight with each other and they'll actually love each other because that's what Democratic peace theory is all about right so the name of the game is to get China to be a democracy and the way to do that is through economic intercourse well we tried that experiment and you know what it felt and President Xi Jinping's decision to be President for life is a stunning death blow to the argument that engagement was the proper way to deal with China the ninth question will China initiate a summit with North Korea in the wake of the u.s. North Korean summit and I guess this question assumes that the u.s. North Korean summit is successful and the Chinese feel that they have to do something to show that they love the North Koreans and that they have good relations with the North Koreans as I said to you before I don't think it's clear there will be a summit and - if there is a summit I don't think it's gonna have a happy ending but let's assume that I'm wrong and I've been wrong before so let's assume that I'm wrong there is a summit and it's a successful summit I actually think the Chinese will be happy about that because I think the Chinese have been very upset with the North Koreans my sense from speaking to Chinese leaps over time is that they are not bothered by the fact that North Korea has nuclear weapons I don't think that has been a major concern for the Chinese what the Chinese don't like about the North Koreans is the provocative rhetoric and the provocative behavior against Japan and the United States they really worry that this provocative behavior will cause Japan to acquire nuclear weapons and this they absolutely do not want furthermore the Chinese are fully aware that the United States sometimes behaves in wildin crazy ways and that provoking the United States is not a good idea so the Chinese are very interested in getting Kim jong-un to tone down his rhetoric because of the consequences for dealing with both Japan and the United States they don't want him to necessarily get rid of his nuclear weapons and in fact I think when push comes to shove the Chinese would prefer the North Koreans keep their nuclear weapons right but they want him to tone down the rhetoric well a successful summit will end up with Kim jong-un and Donald Trump or put it in slightly different terms the North Koreans and the United States establishing reasonably good relations and tamping down the provocative behavior from Pyongyang and from Washington and I think from China's point of view that's a good thing I think the Chinese basically understand and here I'm disagreeing a bit with professiona with president Park I think the Chinese understand the time is on their side this goes back to short-term versus long-term thinking the Chinese understand that now is not the time to provoke a crisis because they're going to grow more and more powerful it's if it's Mount time for the United States and China's neighbors to establish the rules of the road to establish red lines now because our relative power visa vie China is only going to decrease over time China's China's best strategy is not to pick a fight now with the United States or Japan it's just a sort of sit back and just continue to grow economically as I like to joke just wait until you turn into Godzilla and then you can basically dictate the rules of the road because you're so powerful you don't want to do anything now and I think with regard to China they think about North Korea in those terms now is not the time for North Korea to provoke a crisis it's just counterproductive so I think is successful I think is successful Kim jong-un Donald Trump meeting will not cause China to have its own summit but in fact will make them happy but the final question has to do with the possibility of a pre-emptive surgical strike by the United States against North Korea I think this is referred to at least in the American media as the bloody nose scenario this is the argument that there's no way the United States can launch a massive conventional war against North Korea because the consequences would be devastating for South Korea and for the Americans Alliance structure so that of course pushes American policymakers to think in terms of a limited strike and the scenario that a number of people have pointed out to me in conversations is one where let's say North Korea tests an ICBM in the western Pacific and the lands near Guam and the United States is enraged and the North Koreans then move to test another ICBM and we see them preparing the launch pad to test that ICBM and the United States concludes that it can use limited military force to take out that ICBM before it's launched and we can send a powerful signal to the North Koreans that they have to stop these tests especially because these are ballistic missiles that can hit the United States and we tell ourselves we Americans tell ourselves a story that we can strike that one missile do remarkably little damage to the population of North Korea and the North Koreans will throw up their hands and say no more missile tests that's the story that I worry that American policymakers might tell themselves I believe that if the United States were to strike even in a very limited way a target in North Korea even one where there's remarkably little collateral damage that the North Koreans would still retaliate and I think if the North Koreans retaliated it would probably be against South Korea and I think if that were to happen the United States would have to retaliate and then North Korea would retaliate again and I think this would be a disastrous situation one thing that you learn studying international politics in the age of nationalism is that it's very difficult to launch limited strikes against the sovereign country and convince that country that it doesn't have to retaliate someone like Kim jong-un would lose face with his people right it would be a stunning blow to him if he were to allow the United States to strike militarily at the North Korean homeland and not retaliate so I think the idea that we can hit North Korea and they throw their hands up is a foolish idea but at the same time I do see how American policymakers might might tell themselves a story that they come to believe that they can get away with that limited strike and if they did tell themselves that story I think it would backfire in a big way not only for the United States but also for South Korea and even for Japan so I'm hoping that the United States is smart enough not to launch a bloody nose type strike against North Korea and then I would just finally say linking it back to my comments about president moons foreign policy towards North Korea this is one of the reasons that I think his foreign policy has been a smart foreign policy so far because he is interested in making sure that there is no bloody no strike against North Korea which is obvious from my comments I think is a smart policy again I appreciate all of you for your great you know attending this meeting let's give the final of big hand to our distinguished timer and the panelists thanks so much you

Channel: 한국고등교육재단(Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies)

Views: 7,710

Rating: 4.7606835 out of 5

Keywords: KFAS, 한국고등교육재단, 존 미어샤이머, 미어샤이머, Mearsheimer, 중국이해, 중국, 미국, 한미관계, Understanding China, China Lecture Series, 북한, 핵무기, 국제정치, 한반도, 정재호, 이근욱, John Mearsheimer, offensive realism, korea, Why Leaders Lie, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics

Id: HpoRln7erO4

Length: 72min 35sec (4355 seconds)

Published: Mon May 14 2018