The Future of U.S.-China Relations: A Debate

please welcome to the stage jackin Miller president and CEO of the world Fair's Council of Seattle [Applause] well thank you very much for joining us tonight I'd really like one of those voices from beyond to help me out at home getting the kids up for dinner and stuff but thank you all for joining us tonight on this lovely evening it's a great opportunity to hear from some of the leading China experts in the country bonny glazier Eugene Goltz David pang and Ryan Haas who it must be said is a husky and brought many members of his family tonight including his grandmother so be very nice to Ryan so when Bruce Jones of Brookings reached out to me to see if we would be interested in partnering with them on this event it was a very quick yes for us creating opportunities for debate and discussion on global issues is what the World Affairs Council has been doing here for 67 years we work to raise global IQ in greater Seattle and it's my hope that all of you leave here tonight with your global IQ raised at least a few points and I don't think that's gonna be hard to do when we hear from our debaters who are gonna expose us to different ways of thinking about this crucial us-china relationship and possibly hopefully challenge our thinking we were chatting a bit during the reception and the debate had already started so I think we're gonna be in for a real treat tonight I want to commend and thank the Brookings Institution and the Charles Koch Institute for thinking outside of the Beltway and bringing debates on America's changing role in the world to cities around the country and I also want to thank them for focusing on fostering vigorous constructive and importantly civil discussions we can disagree without being disagreeable and it's always good to get outside of our own echo chambers to be exposed to different ideas and different approaches and so far Brookings has hosted debates in st. Louis Las Vegas Atlanta just last week in Dallas and saving the best for last here in Seattle although technically it's the best for second-last because next month they're in Detroit but all of these debates have been civil and constructive and engaging and I know that's that's gonna happen here again tonight and far too often the the other Washington doesn't think enough about the many constituencies outside of the Beltway that have insights into some of the major foreign policy issues of the day or strongly affected by those decisions that are made inside the beltway I was inside the beltway for a dozen years and it's now being out here on the the other coast outside of the Beltway being outside of the East Coast that it's so clear that scholars academics and policy makers have to get out more they have to get the pulse of the rest of the country and to listen to the insights and impacts from outside of DC and from outside of New York and when it comes to China policy in the course of the us-china relationship Washington State is disproportionately affected by the policy decisions made and Washington State has unique insights and relationships China is Washington's number-one export market 20% of our state's total goods exports go to China everything from Dreamliner's to cherries to running shoes we probably have the highest level of engagement with China of any of the 50 states and it's these close ties that have prompted visits from China's last two presidents President Xi Jingping in 2015 and who's in tau in 2011 and it's those close ties that prompted Brookings to bring this particular debate to Seattle they haven't all been about the us-china relationship but to have a debate about the us-china relationship you need to have that in Seattle and when won't be surprising for you to know that we're ending up our program here with a strong focus on Asia there is a lot going on there tonight's event of course is a highlight but on June 14th we have former US ambassador to mark Lippert coming he was ambassador to Korea until January of last year and if the Trump Kim summit goes off as planned big if but if that goes off as planned on June 12th he'll be here two days after that summit to to help us figure out what happened our members know how to register for events on our website and I know I'll be seeing a lot of your faces at our Wednesday discussion on Russia with former US ambassador to Russia Mike McFaul but if you're not a member of the council and you'd be interested in joining the conversations that we host or joining the council please just visit our website I need to quickly thank the Washington State China Relations Council who was a terrific partner in promoting this event to their members and I'm pleased to see some of the board here tonight from the China Relations Council and with that I'm delighted to get off the stage and let the real fun start I'd like to welcome our moderator Jacqueline clymas great first name a national security reporter at Politico and ask the panelists to join us on the stage and let's get this discussion going thank you all great thank you so much for everyone here for joining us I want to welcome you all to the fifth debate on America's changing role in the world convened by the Brookings Institution the Charles Koch Institute and in partnership with Politico I'm Jacqueline climas I'm a national security reporter at Politico we're very happy to be here in Seattle for tonight's debate co-hosted by the world of Jerez Council of Seattle thanks to jacqueline miller who stole my joke about the great first name for opening tonight's event and thank you to our audience for joining us here I'm also delighted to be joined by Monali Locke who will be moderating the question and answer portion of tonight's debate this debate continues a series of visiting cities across America to foster a vigorous and civil discussion about the future of u.s. foreign policy and tonight's debate will focus on the future of America's relationship with China probably the day passes by without a significant development in us-china relations from President Trunks tough stance on trade issues to a new national security strategy that labels China a strategic competitor the relationship between Washington and Beijing is changing and this evening we're gonna dig into what that means and why it's important just to give you kind of a run of show for tonight the debate is gonna happen in four different segments the first round will be moderate by me the question-and-answer session with questions from our audience will be moderated by Mona there will be a second round of debate moderated by myself and then brief closing statements from our participants to keep the conversation moving we've asked our debaters to limit their answers in 90 seconds each our audience is encouraged to submit questions on twitter using the hashtag america in the world or in writing on notepad no cards that will be collected by debate organizers about 15 minutes into the first debate segment and without further ado let me introduce our participants for the night for the night Ryan Haas is a David M Rubinstein fellow with Brookings John L Thornton China Center and Center for East Asia policy studies from 2013 to 2017 he served as director for China Taiwan and Mongolia on the National Security Council previously Ryan was a foreign service officer stationed in China South Korea and Mongolia next time we have David Cong was a professor of international relations in business at the University of Southern California where he also directs both the Korean Studies Institute and the Center for International Studies Dave's latest book American grand strategy in East Asian security in the 21st century was published in autumn 2017 Vonnie pleasure is the senior adviser for Asia and the director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies where her research on asia-pacific Security focuses on Chinese foreign and security policy she's worked for more than three decades the intersection of asia-pacific geopolitics and US policy at CSIS and is a consultant for the Department of Defense and at least Eugene goltz is an associate professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame his work centers on the intersection of national security and economic policy Eugene has served in Pentagon as a senior adviser on manufacturing and industrial based policy he holds a PhD in security studies from so with those introductions done let's dive right in Ryan I want to start with you since you helped shape the US strategy towards China in the Obama administration so I'm hoping you can talk a little bit about what America's interests in China are if those are different from America's interests in the broader region and why the average American should care about that well thank you for such a softball question to start out tonight Jacqueline but first of all I also wanted to thank Jacqueline for hosting us tonight and also as a son of the northwest a graduate of the University of Washington to explain how proud I am to be back here with you all before I answer your question I do also want to acknowledge my family and clean my grandmother who's here with me tonight why should the United States care about Asia and why should care about China I think it's a central question I think that it's a central question of our time it is a open question whether the United States and China will be able to co-exist rising power and established power there's a past pattern of conflict between rising powers and established powers but to get to your question I think it's important to bear in mind what Asia represents the United States Asia is the growth engine of the global economy 60 percent of global economic development occurs in Asia Asia is the largest source for US exports it is the home to five of our treaty allies it is the place where the most proximate threat it is a place where the greatest strategic challenge to United States over the next generation exists in terms of China's rise and so what happens in Asia matters intercalates or what happens in the United States that's the baseline that I think that we approach this question from so David I'd like to ask you to respond to that um do you agree with Ryan's descriptions of what the US interests are in the Asia Pacific and I'm hoping you can also give us a little bit of a of China's perspective here why what does China want both for its relationships within the region and for its relationship with America yeah sure I mean I think in some ways I totally agree with Ryan that this is in both of these countries are very important and we haven't come up with a status quo stable equilibrium between the two I think one of the things that I would emphasize when I when I look at it from the other perspective is that I think that in the United States this isn't a fact of the Trump administration there is a long-term trend that other countries are becoming more important and I'm not sure the United States has really grappled with what it means to have appear in some in some manner that we actually have to live with I also tend to be a little more sanguine about our ability to do so because I don't think any country China or the United States are necessarily threatening each other's interests the way that Soviet Union did so in some ways when I look at how the United States and China interacting and as China looks out at the region of course it's trying to find its own place I think the United States is now trying to find is the post-war architecture that we've had for 60 years 70 years do we need to keep it the same do we need to adjust it and I'm not sure we've really asked that question as carefully or is blatantly as we probably should have I would I'd like to comment on some of the things that I think China seeks in the region the Chinese have never made it a any question that they oppose American alliances they have said since the 90s that alliances are Cold War relics they want to reduce American influence in the region and the Chinese essentially want deference from all of their neighbors the United States does not have any territorial ambitions in the region we don't want to take away other people's territory China's disputes it's not it's disputes with territorial disputes with many of its neighbors and when some of China's neighbors do things that are seen to be against China's inch the Chinese are actually using economic punishment coercion against these countries like South Korea which concerned obviously about the threat from the north deployed missile defense the third defense system and the Chinese have been punishing them by not sending tourists and this is just one example there are many of the Chinese wanting to change the organization if you will of the region to create their own security mechanisms si Jinping himself said in 2014 that it should be organized by Asians not obviously by the United States not seen as an Asian country and I think that these post challenges to the United States expand on that just a little bit given China's size and economy and power does that necessitate that China will be the center of any US policy looking at the region my own view is that the United States should not organize a policy towards Asia that is centered exclusively on China we should be supporting our own vision of Asia with the Asians we should be working with like-minded countries to preserve international law and norms we should be creating an environment in which business thrives commerce thrives in which military ships can move through all waters the Chinese for example won't say Oh military ships can't go and exclusive economic zones that's one third of the world's waters do you want to bar all military ships from moving in those waters so you know I I guess I think that there are the United States needs to have our own strategy supporting our own principles with our partners in the region we have to deal with the challenges to our interests as they arise right now they are primarily coming from China but they could come from elsewhere and I don't think that our policy should be centered on particularly on China I think it should be more what I would say is outside in rather than inside out so some administration have said let's get it right with China let's have more cooperation then let's fit everybody else into that strategy and I think it should be the other way around we deal with our allies and partners those with who share values and principles with and we use those relationships to try and balance China and promote better Chinese behavior hasn't worked very well respond as well do you this makes the United States too responsible for security and stability in that part of the world and is there a way to to look out for these interests that others other debaters have described without getting significantly involved in the region it's a really good question and sets up very nicely so the first thing I would say is that the three other debaters answered very clearly a number of issues in in us-china relations and the importance of China we trade a lot with them they're important dynamically economically but they never talked about US interests what the US interests are they said China might challenge our interests and I think actually that was your very first question and is an important thing for us to consider right so what is the United States doesn't have interests in China we have interested in the world as Bonnie said and our interests I think first are in security prosperity and liberty for Americans right the reason we formed the US government and have a foreign policy of that government what the government is responsible for is protecting security liberty and prosperity now we wish good things in other countries as well we wish them to be secure and prosperous and to have freedom and so we we look you know it's nice that there's more there people have come out of poverty in China that's a good thing for the world it's sad that there's more surveillance and threats to civil liberties in China right we can have opinions about those ideas but the core of our interests those are nice to have things things that we might want to push for but what we would start with is what is happening in Asia that affects our security our prosperity and our liberty and we're not really in a position today China is an important country that someday might threaten our security in various ways or might pose a challenge but they're not there yet and so we don't have to react we don't have to manage the security of Asia for our own security interests we have 70 years of history to draw from and learn from in terms of American leadership in Asia and I think that we've learned a few lessons and I don't dispute that our goal is security prosperity and liberty who would dispute that of course everyone supports the question is how do we achieve it and I think that the lessons of the last 70 years teach us a few lessons the first is that when the United States is active in Asia when we play a leading role in the shaping role we spur collective responses to share challenges whether it's natural disasters whether it's climate change whether it's rules on trade that govern 40 percent of the global economy the United States is the first actor that incentivizes action by others that's important if we don't want to inherit and take on the burden of every problem that exists in Asia the second is that the United States presents continuous presence in Asia has helped to cool historic rivalries serve as a buffer between states that have very fraught histories with each other and provide a restraint third is that the United States has played a leading role in super spurring and incentivizing movement towards made it easier for companies like Boeing and Microsoft and Amazon and the fourth practical reality is the United States retreats from its leading position China will fill the vacuum doesn't necessarily sobani I'm hoping you can talk a little bit about some writing you did in 2007 you wrote an analysis of China's peaceful development and I'm wondering if you can talk a little about what has changed since then and what has stayed the same we should repeat that last part sorry what what has changed what has changed we're to say the same say the same yep well Chinese interests not surprisingly have grown if you go back to the I mean these 70s 80 80s China was very must really a domestically focused country their interest started expanding the Chinese used to talk about their immediate periphery and then they expanded really to the whole world is trying to started importing in 1993 it became a net importer of oil and of course other resources for a long time that the Chinese were intent I think on avoiding friction particularly with the United States and we saw as China became more powerful militarily but still lagging of course far behind the United States primarily economically the Chinese have been more determined to stand up for their interests there were times where the Chinese would just say something and it was a phrase and then now they're increasingly operationalizing it like seeking to weaken u.s. alliances and exert pressure on countries to accommodate to China's interests so what we've seen is a more assertive China more willing to defend its interest nobody should be surprised by that when China was a weak country it was unable to do that and so I think the question is how does China pursue its interests in a way that it doesn't undermine stability in the region the read their interests of smaller countries the interests of the United States and this is a challenge for all China does have a right certainly to have some of its interests addressed as well so for several decades the United States has made assumptions about a rising China that it would liberalize and that it would come into alignment with international norms Ryan you've written recently about this so I'd like to start with you do you think those assumptions were valid any analysts out there was a case with our engagement free-market democracy just like us must admit I haven't met a practitioner octave mic is not working so we wanted to get China to be a contributor in addressing problems like the spread of Ebola in Africa to deal with development challenges to help us shoulder the burden on Iran or North Korea and at the same time to discourage China from taking actions that challenge our interest or undermines rules and norms that was the nature of the exercise and it was intended to strike a balance between cooperation and competition to maximize cooperation where we have shared interests and to manage competition in areas where we don't in a very clear-eyed direct candid way and the goal was never to suppress China's rise it was to try to encourage China to rise in a direction that was favorable in that undermining of our interest to the game with these assumptions has China already risen yeah in many ways I think we're asking the wrong questions but I also want to say nice shout out to the home crowd there go Sounders okay I'll try not like that I can't quite do the same no I you know I think in some ways you know we have a couple contradictory images of China and I think both are on the first one is which was also a straw man as Ryan said the more they rise the more they'll be like us I mean come on right the second one is history teaches us that rising powers fight declining powers so therefor war is inevitable you've probably all heard this both of these I think are missing what's going on in Asia right now which is in many ways China has already risen in East Asia it you know in 1990 Japan was about 70% of regional GDP of this size of you took all the economies in Asia Japan was 70% and China was like 10% those numbers have shifted now China's already by far the biggest country in East Asia yes it hasn't caught the United States but in Asia it passed everybody else without us even noticing it and without any fighting and yes there are some residual disputes that are going on residual disputes over maritime claims that don't challenge the security of or the survival of any country so in a way I'm not surprised that in some ways the region is more stable than we tend to think the task is that we haven't got this equilibrium yet but to put it in these stark terms I think is to miss what's going on in the region which is a country that has already reclaimed a place where everybody else is focused on it and we are now figuring out how to live with each other to prevent a war among regional players but in 2009 you argue that the global economy is a complex web that can survive if a true if a few strands are severed is that still true today in the more interconnected world um yes I think that's still true I want to be clear I don't think that if the United States changed its policy it would necessarily lead to worse I don't think wars are a good idea I would hope they don't happen I would most especially like the United States not to be involved in wars especially with other quite large powerful countries right so I'm you know my priority is first to keep the United States out of fighting then to have there not be fighting in general and then the question is as we're getting to the follow-on effects of wars do they wreck the global economy inherently well the answer there is clearly no we've had lots of Wars historically where wars are lousy for the economy of countries that are fighting but for countries who are not fighting the wars neutral countries often do quite well economically during war times there's a lot of historical evidence about the changing patterns of global trade global trade doesn't stop trade tends to stop between belligerents who are fighting each other but they both are interested in trading with other countries so and and the web international trade the options available in international trade is incredibly diverse today is more diverse than it has been in the past right those alternative options the ability of the global economy to adapt to disruptions in one place by trading somewhere else is even greater now than it was during World War one or World War two or times during the Cold War when there was open conflict so you know I don't think that you know the key reason you might be concerned about conflict in Asia is that somehow it would hurt economic sort of the night which is gonna look at alliances instability in the Pacific a heavy US security present presence through alliances and military deployments too often justified to maintain the stability between China and its smaller neighbors so deep I'd like to start with you you've argued that regional neighbor neighbors are less frightened of China than Washington might think you've hit on this a little already tonight you you write that while the region has numerous issues still to be resolved countries thing most of these issues are not worth fighting over so broadly is East Asia less unstable and less less anxious than we often believe and if so what's wrong with that what are the traps that DC can fall into if they're thinking that way sure no I mean this is this is probably one reason that I'm not mainstream per se because I think East Asia is more stable today than it's been in a hundred years if you look back actually maybe 150 years right without coming the opium war and then the rise of Japan and imperialism in world war two and Vietnam and DnB on food which was you know we just had that thing right the last 50 years or so are so much more peaceful than the hundred years that preceded it and it's important for us to recognize that that the trend is going in one direction and there are still some spots there are some residual spots but then in reality most countries aren't preparing for war because they don't see that these issues are actually worth fighting over and so in some ways the way that the United States has a set of alliances so I was just in DC we had if we had a nice argument but bonnie has the different view on this right because I was talking to someone who you know in DC who said but our American troops are incredibly important and I said well we used to have a hundred thousand troops in Korea you know 50 years ago and nuclear weapons and now we don't now we about 28,000 it's not the number clearly we can reduce those numbers drastically and the countries are not respond in the same way there's a lot that there and the point of this is that yes military alliances are an important thing but as Ryan as pointed us we've all pointed out here America's relations with Asia are economic their cultural their diaspora they are much broader than just military and so countries with us and country that china are dealing with both as if they were broader than just military until look at as only one misses that because China's only gonna be more important not less and so countries are acting that way as well because you've previously argued that countries in the region don't want to rely on China or the u.s. they they want to rely on both so given that I mean are there any differences or any anything you'd like to say to respond to to David well I'll offer a few thoughts but Bonnie I know you wanted to jump in do you want to so my sense is this is that countries in Asia like the rest of us would like to have it all they'd like to have the economic benefits of a close relationship with China the security benefits of a close relationship with us and I don't think it's necessarily in our interest to force any country to choose but the the question I think David is getting at is what has our security presence in Asia got us and my argument is it has created a security of umbrella in Asia that has allowed countries to focus not on fighting each other but developing the engine of the global economy in ways that have benefited the United States and particularly countries companies in this state and if we take away that security umbrella the question is what happens and my view is that countries would face a choice countries in Asia would either have to choose to accommodate China to accept a certain Finland ization of Asia where countries are deferential to China on issues that China cares about or work collectively to defend themselves or arm themselves and what that means in practical terms is that countries like Japan would face a choice about whether or not to go nuclear to defend themselves if Japan goes nuclear South Korea goes nuclear if South Korea goes nuclear then there's a risk that Taiwan will go nuclear and you can see where this Domino leads and does that put us in a safer place does that better protect America's long-term strategic interest my view is that what it does is it increases the risk of catastrophic conflict in Asia which is an outcome that our strategy is designed to prevent I agree with Ryan we'll just add a few points and and that is that I think you know when I travel around the region every country wants the US military presence they may not all have want it in their country they all want it in the region they want the United States to be militarily present they don't want to have to accommodate to a larger China they want balancing and of course not just from the United States you look at a country like Vietnam now reaching out to Japan India they want to have relations with other countries that they can use to preserve their interests so again if you take one example from Vietnam they want to develop oil in their exclusive economic zone by the way so to the Philippines and so Dave said earlier you know that the challenge isn't China's and challenging the survival of any country in the region well according to President to territory of the Philippines actually see drooping us threatened war if they go ahead and unilaterally develop that that gas field that Reed Bank and the feed the Vietnamese have also been intimidated they have had to shut down the drilling and by the way Exxon is involved in one of the blocks so this is the Chinese claim jurisdiction jurisdictional rights they claim historic rights so yes we can quibble over what the word survival means here but these countries want the United States to help them to push back and what you have is the Chinese using all sorts of tools that are very difficult for I think us to push back against yeah I would because I'm glad I'm glad we talked about the Philippines right so in 1992 Subic Bay at the at the height of its existence Subic Bay employed 36,000 Filipinos and was the largest naval base in the world outside of the United States largely in the Soviet Union had in 1992 as some of you probably know Philippines voted not to renew the basin lease since that time not a single per this is not a doTERRA Tate phenomenon not a single Filipino president has said let's bring back a permanent US military presence so in 1992 there were 13,000 US troops deployed permanently in the Philippines large enough again to drive down Caracara Coast this year there's 36 all involved in mindanao counterinsurgency so yeah I mean it's easy to say in general in specific in general terms yes people like US military presence and of course in some generic fashion it might be nice but the Philippines itself has not been saying wow we have this problem with the with I'm running out of time uh with with Spratly Islands therefore let's get the US military back what the Philippines did was not a military solution that's the point when they took China to the Hogg that is an economic that is a diplomatic that is a multilateral solution and I think for us to focus purely on the US military side is to miss what these countries are doing themselves and what do we do about the fact that China rejected that finding by the arbitral tribunal I want to go to Eugene to weigh in here sure so I mean I disagree I think pretty dramatically with most of the other people up here on these kinds of questions I mean I think I agree with Bonnie they most of these countries in Asia aren't interested in giving up they want a balance they don't want to become you know they don't all want to learn to speak Mandarin and study Mao's red book that actually gives me confidence that these are countries that will seek to protect themselves and take care of themselves and preserve their own liberties and preserve their own freedom and security without the United States they can play a bigger role in their own security that the the challenges that we're actually facing in the region or that military technology is moving in a direction that makes it easier to defend land across water right you can sense oncoming ships you can hit these ships with precision weapons it's harder to cross moats right what people call the stopping power of water and that's actually a problem for the United States today because when we try to protect other countries we have to cross a giant moat and enter into the the region of the world where China is sensing us on our ships with our limited military capability and can attack us and keep us out however for China to be on the offense itself and threaten Japan threaten Taiwan threaten the Philippines take any because they have to cross a moat and that same technology that's increasing the cost for the United States to provide defenses to these other countries makes it easier for them to defend themselves without us and I'm out of time but in other conversation that we might have it actually the we rd stable we threatened to destabilize the region by trying to force our way in by threatening to force our way in for purposes of defending these countries that could defend themselves Eugene is talking about the anti-access area-denial weapons and and Ryan I'm hoping you can talk about whether or not you're welcome to respond to that but also whether or not the United States can decrease its troop presence if they sell it advanced defensive weaponry like that to nations like the Philippines or to Vietnam well I guess the the one thing I would say about Eugene's comments are very provocative they're thoughtful and they sound great in theory they just don't reflect reality the Philippines most advanced platform naval platform is a decommissioned coast guard vessel that we stopped using decades ago Philippines doesn't have advanced sensors and anti-ship cruise missiles that it can use to defend against a oncoming attack my view is that the best way to see an outcome that we want to avoid is to make these countries defenseless so that there is a low threshold for China or others to seek to use military tools to achieve political ends that's what we're trying to avoid and if the Philippines at some point in the future develops the capacity to defend itself to become a porcupine that can resist all outside attack then I mean all for the view that Eugene laid out the problem is we just aren't there yet and so the same the same problem occurs with Taiwan with Japan with many other countries in Asia and the solution isn't to just pull back and see what happens the solution is to make these countries harder and tougher and better to defend so that China or others don't have the impulse or the instincts to try to act on any ambition that they have by using their military means to achieve their political objectives thank you no one would say that we should leave these countries tomorrow defenseless right you're right the Philippines and all these other countries want the United States there because we protect them and they don't have to take care of themselves it's pretty nice to be you know taken care of by a powerful rich uncle right but it would if the Philippines don't have these systems today we could buy them for them if we really had to and it would be cheaper and less risky than what we're doing today with fighting right with with promising to fight with American troops they don't it's not that they have the capability today it's that they could have it in a phase transition to be able to defend themselves and that would be a more stable and more secure world than the world were in today conversations that will continue long after tonight I'm gonna hand off to Monali lock for the she's a former First Lady of Washington who lived at the Embassy in embassy in Beijing from 2011 to 2013 so she's gonna be handling the questions that have been submitted by our audience and on Twitter Thank You Jacqueline and small world of things we were ambassador Locke and our family were in the US Embassy in Beijing at the same time Ryan was there Ryan his life and they did a great job as are all of you we're gonna take a couple questions from Twitter first and this is directed to any of you in general who want to answer is it in the u.s. interest for China's economy to grow or is China's growth more of a threat than an opportunity for Americans so we'll see how much disagreement there is here you know as I think Ryan said earlier China provides I think it's thirty five sixty percent according to the age of Development Bank's re of total economic growth so it's it's almost two-thirds of economic growth absolutely an opportunity we should never pursue a strategy that is trying to slow down China's growth China has brought more people out of poverty than any country in the world they like to say we should not wish that these countries would not do well but the question is is China growing at the expense of others and I think what President Trump has been pushing for has been more of an even economic playing field so there's a lot of things that the Chinese do that are essentially unfair requiring for example some companies to transfer technology as a condition working with joint ventures in China they certainly have in the past used cyber-enabled theft to steal IPR they don't protect IPR very effectively so there's a lot of ways that China is used even the dub World Trade Organization interests since it became a member in 2001 to its advantage and so the question is certainly not do we want China to grow if we've had enormous economic opportunities and all of Americans buy cheap goods at Walmart and Target and target because of that but I still think we have to answer the question of economic growth at whose expense and if it's at ours or other countries that's that's a it's both right so we've this it's a it's a good question and it's not the first time these questions come up this is a question of rallying around for decades and many of the people in this room have actually been working on this issue for for that period of time I spoke with someone during the reception who first traveled to China in 1935 so we have a lot of longitudinal depth in this room but here's what I would offer the idea that we could isolate China and seek to impede China's growth falls on three faulty assumptions the first it's impractical the United States has struggled to slow the growth in isolate North Korea Iran Cuba and other countries how are we going to do that with the world's second largest economy the most integrated economy in the global trading system I don't think it's possible secondly it's counterproductive if we went down this path we would invite a very hostile response from the Chinese and we would separate ourselves from the very partners that we would seek to isolate China no other country in the in the region let alone the world wants to put themselves in an economically for serial relationship with China and as in addition it's dangerous this would lead us down a very dangerous path in our relationship with China that could be destabilizing now I understand the criticism a lot of people have frustration about China China's unfair trade practices and it's true there there is reason for frustration but what many people cite is the basis for their frustration may not be entirely accurate they many people cite the loss of manufacturing jobs in the United States is the proof that China is acting unfairly in reality that trend began before China entered the World Trade Organization if you look at the line of the loss of manufacturing jobs it's actually it's a very clean linear line before and after trying to enter the World Trade Organization and secondly 80% of job losses in manufacturing the United States are due to automation not China and so I think it is important I applaud the spirit of what President Trump is trying to do in trying to create a more fair and equal trading relationship if not necessarily the tactics that he's using to pursue it I think it's more opportunity than threatening if I may just say a quick thing I mean I agree with the vast majority of what Brian said we're on the same page about that trade and economic opportunity with China but I would go back to the interests the United States has that I talked about the police people put a fine point on this we clearly I think have a prosperity interest in China's economic success all of our theories about trade say in the long run it's mutually beneficial it improves efficiency on both sides of the trading relationship due to a comparative advantage or economies of scale or a whole bunch of other reasons why trade makes sense so to support American prosperity a lot of the prosperity we've had in recent years has been due to on the consumption side importing things that we want from China that they're making more cheaply and that helps our economy control inflation a whole bunch of things and also on the financial side we borrow a lot of money because they have a very high savings rate in China and that helps the United States to invest in this country right so we benefit economically well people would worry about this often would say yeah but there's a trade-off in that other interest the United States has in security that is China gets wealthier they can afford to invest more in in building their military and that should threaten that threatens us and we should be nervous about that so we should be willing to sacrifice our prosperity interest and I think it's crucially important to understand that they're a mile off from the ability to threaten us on the security side the kind of economic growth Steve's been having is benefiting us on the prosperity side but isn't excuse me is not putting them in a position where it's dramatically changing at least yet the kinds of security threats they posed in United States so it's a false trade-off for the United States yes actually I do of course I do I never know I will um yeah I mean in somebody so this thing right we've been having this question for at least 20 years is a big China threatening to the United States if you believe in the balance of power and that big countries are powerful and inevitably threatened oh the big then absolutely China's rise as a threat but none of our policies actually reflect that right we have people some of my academic colleagues have been making that same argument since the early 90s bigger China more threatening but in many ways do you want a big rich tryna or do you want us poor weak China often we don't have a choice - that's not our choice I think in some ways we overstate our ability to affect either one of those China's gonna do what China's gonna do and we only have to react to it in some ways and I think in some ways thinking about it that way is a very different type of way of viewing China right it it gets away from who lost China in the 1950s - are we gonna keep them big or small there's very little we can do about it much of what's happened and the way I would put it is this would you rather have a China today despite what's going on in China and the Great Wall the firewall or the kind of stuff or a China from the Nate late 1960s or 1970s before de2 opened up to world trade and capitalism I think we're unbelievably better off and the Chinese people are better off today than they were 50 years ago and so on balance I would say absolutely it's managing that rise it's always about managing here's a question from the audience talked about the role of China in Africa and the relevance of that to us-china relations any takers um so that Chinese invest quite a bit in Africa and the usual view in the United States is that these are countries that could use investment and it has the potential to contribute to economic growth and poverty alleviation now the challenge has been the United States actually has preferences in how that investment gets made in Africa we like strings of various kinds we want it to come with political and economic reform in these countries and when the Chinese invest in these countries they often don't demand the same kind of political and economic reforms and sometimes the Chinese bring their own labor force and and don't lead to a lot of development in the local economy and there are there are frictions with how that investment is made but the idea that people are interested in investing in Africa is not threatening to the United States goals or anathema to the United States goals this is something they were open to the problem is I'm pretty nosy people or a little meddlesome in international affairs we like to tell people what to do how to spend their money and not surprisingly the Chinese and many other people don't like it so much when you know that some people like it when Uncle Sam takes care of them but people don't like it when Uncle Sam tries to tell them rules and tell them how to live their lives and how to spend their money and that creates friction and so if we were a little less meddlesome and yeah okay we're gonna invest the Chinese are gonna invest hopefully it's gonna cause some economic growth Bonnie I just add to that briefly I agree with everything Eugene's said but you know it's a very mixed picture some of China's investments are they're bad investments they're building a large amount of debt in some of these countries is very high interest loans that they could never pay back the fact now that the Chinese are actually looking for more I think strategic gains they now have their first military base in Djibouti it's just one example but it's it's a complex picture some of China's investments I think have been good they have produced good returns companies made have made money some of them have even hired local laborers they are learning over time so if you look at this over the last ten years you will see certainly say learning curve and you will see some positive examples but there are also huge problems that they have created in some of these countries and Chinese have built you know palaces for dictators but you can't just simplify that story it's a very complex one okay thank you next question from the audience can China maintain its economic position with an aging population and no social safety net any takers so this is an excellent an excellent question about China's future and I guess I would say the right I think the only honest answer is I don't know right like my crystal ball is not that good Tea Leaf reading has never worked out for me tarot cards you know I don't have the forecasting whatever the insight but but it is true that a lot of our assumptions about China are based on straight line projections about the threat that China might pose to the United States are based on straight line projections of they've been growing at ten percent seven percent whatever people decide the current number is and it's going to go on forever and they're gonna overtake us overtake the world and flatten us and that's clearly it could happen but there are many other paths where things they have internal difficulties they face the so-called middle income trap they have a decade of stagnation like Japan did there are many ways they face the aging population where we should we are in the enviable position as the United States of being pretty safe pretty powerful pretty rich and having opportunity to wait and see right so I don't know if China will continue growing like this or will flatten our or we'll run into a financial crisis because of their aging population but I don't have to pick right now from that array of of options okay thank you [Music] we've traditionally practiced diplomacy with China a certain way how has President Trump changed that landscape well I think that we're seeing the conduct of diplomacy in the us-china relationship take on new dimensions that exceeded my imagination 18 months ago the the idea that we would conduct diplomacy via Twitter is a new concept it's a concept that we were talking beforehand that I'm not sure the Chinese fully appreciate or know how to interpret and it's as much confusion as it is clarification in Beijing whenever president Trump decides he has a thought on China but I don't want to be glib about this because this is a serious issue when the Obama administration left office there were about a hundred dialogues on everything from what are you doing in Africa and why are you doing that to how are you guys going to change your economy to make it green to how are you dealing with aging really every issue the United States and China were knitted up and even though we didn't agree we were talking to each other we were learning from each other and we were trying to gain a better understanding of what China was trying to accomplish when President Trump entered office he decided that that's too much to diffuse we need to just focus on for dialogue mechanisms and use those those lasted one year and now there are zero existing dialogue massive mechanisms we don't have an existing channel of communication we have ad hoc channels that deal with issues as they arise and to me this is a imperfect and dangerous way to deal with the most consequential relationship in the United it's faces Barney I would add one additional point that president Trump has introduced which I think Ryan would confirm that this was not something we did in the Obama administration was to mix a set of security issues with economic issues so we have a situation where President Trump has said repeatedly if China helps us with North Korea to bring about the goal of denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula that will give China a good deal on trade and so this idea that we use one as a lever to get something else in another area I think is new and that the Chinese are on in the Trump administration the Chinese were quite worried that President Trump said he was not going to reaffirm our one China policy which has to do with the fact that the People's Republic of China is the only representative government of China in the world but we still have a relationship with Taiwan and so the Chinese were very worried that he was using that as a bargaining chip to get something out of this so this idea of linkage across different categories I think is is relatively new in this administration okay David question for you you said that the trend in Asia is towards stability so what could that trend what are some of the factors that's a great question in fact we're looking at one right now which is North Korea right again if you go back say 50 years ago 100 years ago most of these countries didn't exist Singapore Malaysia 50 years ago most of them feared for their survival today there's really only two countries that fear for their survival and that's North Korea not South Korea anymore North Korea and Taiwan and even the Taiwan relationship has basically SourceTree some kind of a status quo that we all can sort of live with unless it's upset as bonnie pointed out but these are really the two flash points that I can see totally upsetting things and in many ways what makes Trump so interesting is not that the long-term trends were going in one direction and he's turned them around much of what you know was happening in the United States was happening before Trump there was a concern one reason Obama talked about a pivot or return was because there was a concern that America hadn't paid enough attention to Asia and so the Obama administration's gonna try in a way to pay more attention so Trump potentially upsetting things was not the first time that's happened but in many ways like that you know the thing that's going on with North Korea now is we have it linked in places we didn't know before we had a way of dealing with North Korea that at least we knew how to deal with it and we don't really know now on their side or on our side what's what's gonna happen kind of following up on that side in a way how does the impact of President Xi's staying in office and definitely do you think it helps or is it I think you know I mean you know it's it's it's a new dynasty right um you know it we all saw it coming I think all of us saw this coming that the plans were being put in place to to go through the the typical 10-year term that they had all agreed to take after a dong zhuo paying I mean you could see it coming over the last couple years and you know every summer I spent a month or so in Korea and China you can see these all these wall posters talking about moon young I don't know he departed Chinese as civilization and all you could see the propaganda coming along right but in many ways I think what's interesting about this is that reflects she's internal focus and one thing that we haven't talked a lot about is we talked about how China's being sort of aggressive externally but I think in many ways still she is focused on domestic stability first and I think if he if I you know if I was to guess about Xi I would say he wakes up in the morning he's probably more worried about what's going on within China than he is externally and that's where I think a lot of the focus is but I would I wouldn't defer to these guys so I think that the the charitable explanation that some people have tried to offer to Bruce Jones and me and others as we've travel through China is that China will face a convergence of challenges in the next decade declining economic growth aging society lack of social safety net increasing challenges from a declining United States against the rise in China and all these things will require a strong stable steady hand to guide China through that process that may be true that may not I don't know but what I do know is that or what I believe is that this decision is going to have the effect of exacerbating all the bad elements of Leninist top-down political structures it is going to create policy constipation whereby it's hard for good ideas to flow to the top it's going to create problems with local enforcement and implementation of central policies and because no one's going to want to do anything until they know that Xi Jinping himself has blessed it and it's going to create a lack of flow of information through the system no one's gonna want to report bad news to the top and it's going to create a winner-takes-all everyone for themselves dynamic amongst the top leadership is everyone fights for their survival to position themselves for the moment when she didn't think passes from the scene and so my expectation is that we're going to see more volatility in the Chinese political structure not less and that's the the risks a policy execution in China are going to bleed over an impact on the us-china relationship Bonnie so I agree that if too much power is concentrated in the hands of one person that that is bad many people I think in trying to don't want to give the top guy bad advice so that's the negative side but maybe in the short run there are some positive ramifications of see Jinping saying that or the the policy that there will be a elimination of the two presidential term limit and and that is that si Jinping gets things done so if President Trump says to him go ahead and shut down the smuggling along that border he can't do it a hundred percent with North Korea but he can do better he can do more than who Jintao did in the past he has better control over the military than who Jintao had and that was a problem for the United States because the the PLA was in in some ways and I don't want to say rogue but did things that you know the top guy really didn't know about and and and so I in the short run I think there some potential positives that said I think it's very negative for the Chinese people especially if this goes on for a third term and a fourth term and then we end up with a sort of you know a Putin type figure in China there are many negative implications over time okay and this is the last question in my section it's about human rights we had a little discussion backstage about this the question really is should it be factored into our economic policy during negotiations let's start with Eugene so I think we have to recognize the limits to our understanding of politics in other countries and the economy in other countries including in China so I'm a little uncomfortable with the discussion we've just had about thinking about what are the implications of you know she's in ping staying for more terms the ups and downs of politics we had a horrible record of understanding the details I mean sine ology is becoming a little like Kremlinology was our ability to predict in other countries you know what the results were we can't predict our own politics very well right do we really think whatever we don't understand things we're deeply familiar with so the idea that we can make fine-grained calculations in our economic relationship about the effects that tweaking trade policy in this way or putting this economic sanction in that way are gonna have on human rights behavior or other political issues that are quite important to the political leadership of another country that we don't understand very well it seems very challenging to me to think that we have the kind of information we need to make a positive difference now that doesn't say to me that we shouldn't complain all the time about bad human rights behavior we should make clear what we think is appropriate we shouldn't talk to people this is this is an important part of the relationship and of diplomacy with other countries but we need a pretty heavy dose of humility about our ability to manipulate other countries especially powerful countries like China anyone else okay thank you so much I'm gonna turn it back to Jacqueline oh great Thank You Mona so now I want to turn to a few questions on a different aspect of the us-china relationship that's been and used a lot lately and that's trade just last week top-level officials from both countries held a second round of talks in Washington to try it try to avert an all-out trade war amid you know rhetoric it's just getting more and more heightened so Ryan I want to start with you in reviewing the accomplishments of the us-china relationship you've previously pointed out several positive things that China's integration into the global economy has made it the leading contributor for global growth a source of profit for US firms and exports and that Chinese cooperation was crucial to preventing the worst of the 2008 financial crisis from happening yet despite all this we've seen growing skepticism of China as a trade partner why do you think that is well it's it's a good question I think that a few things are happening the United States is going through an intense period of change right now we went through the Industrial Revolution I would argue that we're going through the technological revolution right now and it is turning things upside down it's making people feel insecure and uncomfortable about their future and the future for their children and I think that's one element that's feeding into this discussion on China the other is China is big it's really big and when it moves we feel their movements and China is operating a state-led economic model that doesn't accord with the vision that we had for the way that the global economy would develop it doesn't accord with the rules that were established in the World Trade Organization that we helped to usher into existence and when China does things I'll just give one specific example to illustrate the point when it decides for example that it needs to dominate the solar industry what does it do it goes in and it pours billions and billions and billions of dollars into the solar industry collapses the solar industry until such time as the only real actors that are alive and in existence in the global industry or China and now it's has a nearly dominant position in in the solar industry so the fear is that China will replicate this with semiconductors with artificial intelligence with automation with other things in ways that will erode and hollow out the American economy and I think that's why there's so much intensity around this issue right now I would just add two points I agree with Ryan first I referred earlier to the made in China 2025 program and this is essentially 10 very strategic sectors where the Chinese are looking to be dominant so semi conductors electric cars AI robotics and B again we be fine if it was an even playing field that the Chinese government subsidizes these companies and so they really do have an unfair advantage the other point that I would make is that um the Chinese really like process they like to get you in a room and have meeting after meeting to talk about the same problem over and over again and some of these have gone on for 20 years it's really nice that in the us-china joint statement that was just released two days ago that the Chinese said that they would protect IPR and they would strengthen their laws I don't know we got Bob cap laughs in there yeah this has been going on a long time when the Chinese signed up for the World Trade Organization they said they would join the government procurement agreement at the earliest possible date that would provide equal opportunity you know for US and Chinese firms to bid for government contracts for you know federal state local governments the Chinese have laws that require government purchases of domestic goods so see Jinping gate of its speech at boyo and March and What did he say we're gonna accelerate our our accession so they go to the government procurement agreement so the Chinese really have tried I think to use process as a substitution for actually making progress and so I share the frustrations I think of many American businesses and certainly many people in Trump administration so this competition from China it is not only investing in technologies itself but it's also purchasing American technologies so Eugene I'm hoping you can weigh in on this gene think people are as concerned as they need to be or as aware as they as they need to be about China trying to pilfer us technology um so this is a good question and a complicated question so our people as aware as they need to be of things the Chinese do through foreign investment to allow them to get access to American technologies to allow them to gain advantages I think the answer is probably no there are lots of clever strategies they can use without following through on the kind of investment we hope for or or getting wrapping things up in process that allow them to see technologies that like in a due diligence process and in foreign investment they see the technology and then they don't follow through with the investment cuz they've already got what they wanted there are lots of tricks they can play the problem is that in an open capitalist economy is we have the kinds of regulatory solutions that have been proposed to address that are worse than the disease in the sense that if we do things that allow much greater government regulation of foreign investment into the United States or much greater government insight into proposed foreign investments to allow the kinds of blocking that people who are afraid of China might see that would really put a damper on lots of other economic activities in the United States that actually contribute a lot to our economy and given that the the security risks that we face with respect to China again in that hierarchy the prioritization of u.s. national interests having our prosperity continue due to a pretty free environment for foreign investment in other kinds of investment the United States is more important to the United States than the security risks because China is way down here and way far over there so we don't give up as much on the security side as we gain on the economic weird anyone like to respond to that or wait on that Bonnie's dying so Bonnie some I don't want to dominate this debate but now you come back to me go ahead so some critics of us strategy towards China have said that the u.s. the u.s. is focused on security objectives that they focus on security at the expense of trading economic goals um do you think that Washington has over prioritized security concerns in its relationship with China and if so is that a mistake well that has changed I think from President to president I do think that under President Obama there was not enough priority that was put on the problems in the economic relationship and I talked to many people in the Obama administration who look back and say they should have tried to put more pressure on China not gotten caught up and what I talked about was the sort of the process and the procedures that said you really have to do both I believe that China does pose military challenges opposes security challenges economic challenges diplomatic challenges the Chinese are now putting forward their economic model as an option for other developing countries I think that's actually a problem for the United States I'm sure you know maybe others on this panel might disagree but I think that there are there are challenges when you have a political and economic model in China that is not fair and abuses a lot of people and then puts it out there for other countries to learn from so I think you you can't part necessarily prioritize one over over another it does depend on the nature of the threat and if this government thinks North Korea is the biggest threat if it gets an ICBM meets a nuclear warhead with it then it should pursue that but I'd again I don't think it should be linking trade with that it should just be saying that our top priority and frankly when you tell a leader like si Jinping this is my number one issue you're more likely to get a positive response and if you say and the following 10 things are really top priorities I'll just offer a historical perspective that may provide a contrast to what we're experiencing now and the Trump administration's approach to China in the last administration I think Bonnie's right if if we had to do over we would have done some things differently but on the whole I think there was a theory of the case the idea was to have a three pronged approach to dealing with China on economic issues the first was to deal with the area around China so to have trans-pacific partnership that the the TTIP with EU countries which would establish new rules for high-standard trade in sixty five seventy percent of the global economy and it would create pressure on China to either move up and adhere to those rules or self-select and isolate itself from the emerging set of rules for governing global trade that was the first prime the second prong was to push for market opening with China through a bilateral investment treaty and other initiatives that we had in a direct bilateral sense to try to create more opportunities for American companies to export their goods and services to China and to increase competition within China and then the third effort was to work with China both to pressure it to live up to the existing rules of the road the Obama administration brought more cases that they beat you against China than any administration before it but also to work with China to establish new rules in areas where they were needed such as environmental goods and information technology areas that don't currently have had rules so there was a a coherent theory of the case that was multifaceted and was intended to push China down the path of reform written about a strategy of restraint which calls for reduced American military engagement abroad while maintaining trade and economic ties around the world does President Trump sawr do president Trump's concerns about the us-china trade imbalance trouble a strategy of restraint so presidents Trump's concerns about the us-china trade balance might be troubling for lots of reasons most people don't think of the trade balance as the sort of key indicator of whether trade is working out well or not working out well some of the rules and weather rules are followed whether a property is stolen they're a whole set of other things they have been discussed a little bit they you know we might want to try to improve our trade relationship I would say the overall arching trajectory has been incredibly positive in the sense that having China start to participate in the global economy has been positive for many people in global economy having China joined the WTO except some of the rulings and WTO cases as Ryan mentioned before like the trajectory is is not perfect yet but it is positive that's a separate question from the question of militarily should the United States have an aggressive forward presence around the world have peacetime alliances with a lot of countries that have the technological and financial resources to do a lot more defending on their own should we be continuing the trajectory of military investments that fight into the teeth of the technological trajectory of anti-access and area-denial capabilities they that we're doubling down on an ever increasing cost and an ever increasing risk set of military investments that we could get out of by adopting a policy of restraint by changing our military posture and our alliance relationships right so yes we should do things to make trade better and yes we should do things to make our military posture better so David I want to come to you you've advocated previously for an increase in diplomacy and economic engagement and a decreased reliance on military might so in the current political moment of these concerns about trade is is increasing the use of those even infeasible yeah I mean you know in some ways yes I totally think so and and what I want to do is add a little bit of historical aspect of this come up here which is when I talk about how the region is actually more stable TPP is not an American initiative and I think it's worth pointing that out we didn't come up with it this is not our thing the region came up with it as a way to manage and deal with and engage each other as well as China there's a lot that's going on in the region itself that we overlooked and and something Bob you probably know Joe Mansky I'm sure you know right um he actually I think a retired around here he used to teach at the talk Business School and I taught out there at Dartmouth and he was the USTR in the 1980s US Trade Representative for China and Japan and he used to say I'm the trade representative for the two largest socialist countries in the world because of course Japan totally intervened and they totally picked winners and losers and half the time they were failures and one thing I'd want to point out is I think in some ways the reason that we're not worried about Japan as much as we used to be 30 years ago is not because we pressure Japan Japan still doing the same things it's because fundamentally that model of interfering and picking winners and losers doesn't work as well as our model as bad as our model isn't as badly as we do it and so in many ways I think right um I would still I would still pick us 30 years from now to be a more dynamic innovative economy than a country that's trying to pick winners and losers within that kind of an environment and so the point is yes we need to keep the pressure on I'm not a Pollyanna about China but it says much realizing what the region is doing and what's actually gonna be a source of change within China which is probably more China in itself and we can sort of help to nudge it along but it's not ours to control so you talked about the trans-pacific partnership which I feel like we can't talk about China and trade without talking about TPP so I'm hoping to get your thoughts about how the trans-pacific partnership should fit into the US strategy and how China fits into that as well we want if you like to start hi I think that clearly the when the Obama administration came to TPP which was late I mean it was I think the president was and the idea that this was a strategic approach i know people who work at USTR still think there are problems with TPP after all the chapters were negotiated but it is more strategic and it's setting environmental standards labor standards ways of doing business there's a whole chapter on you know how to deal with state-owned economic enterprises and so I think the idea was that eventually China would be compelled to join because being outside of it would have been detrimental to Chinese interest but nobody expected that China would be able to join in a very short timeframe but I think that that was the dominant view in the in the Obama administration ok so now I think we're gonna leave trading move on to the final section of our debate we couldn't talk about China without looking at what that all means for North Korea next month president Trump is expected to meet with Kim jong-un the recent news at the summit could be scrapped shows just how delicate the situation is and since coming into office President Trump has expressed both optimism and pessimism at Beijing's willingness to intervene here so David as a prolific writer on North Korea I want to start with you the president has talked about really that there's no way to get a deal with North Korea and less time to get involved how critical it is for China to be involved here so I'm hoping you can talk a little bit about how much influence China really has over North Korea and whether China even has the same goals for the Korean Peninsula that America does yeah sure I mean you know we all think and we all agree that China is important to North Korea but the thing we overlook is that yeah China has more influence on North Korea than any other country in the world but it has less influence than we think it does the idea that somehow if we pressure high or if China will for whatever reason China decides to pressure North Korea and North Korea is gonna jump is totally false the Chinese of the North Koreans really don't get along that well and it's honor among thieves and so there is influence there and yes China could cause North Korea to collapse tomorrow if they really pulled the economic plug but they're not gonna do it cuz the costs are enormous Lehigh on their border that's where North Korea you knock over North Korea is right there the same reason yeah we could cause North Korea to disappear tomorrow if we started a war we're not going to do because the costs are too high and no North Koreans are many things but and one thing that they really aren't is very stubborn and so there's a this is this is not a relationship that is one that is built on an equal agreement on interests and Kim jong-un is clearly repairing his relationship with Xi Jinping but North China goes between denuclearization and stability and I'll defer to the other China specialists to know more than me but I as yet have not seen them really prioritized denuclearization over stability on the peninsula and as long as they until they really do that it will remain at the margins of influence fabulous I agree 100% so let's talk about China's goals China does not share u.s. goals on the peninsula China wants to essentially have the Korean Peninsula within China's sphere of influence so you know yeah we'd probably like to keep North Korea intact another socialist state falling isn't too good for si Jinping at this point but actually I think that reunification under certain terms would be acceptable to China and and what what are those terms that's no US forces on the peninsula a very different Alliance and probably some people up here we think might think that's okay but I think that the United States wants to see a united Korea that would be essentially a democracy and and under South Korea it's possible that there could be a confederation in which North Korea remains intact maybe China would would be willing to accept something like that but ultimately the Chinese really care about a United Korean Peninsula that is very closely aligned with the United States the potential for US forces being deployed north of the 38th parallel even listening posts on Chinese border so I think that ultimately our goals longer-term are quite different just trying to want to get rid of nuclear weapons sure they would but you know something they are getting rid of the one thing they worry about most and it's that testing site because what the Chinese care about is the potential for contamination of air water and soil in northeast China because that has been a danger to Chinese political stability not the presence of nuclear weapons so right I want to I'm hoping you can talk a little bit about how much the the personal relationship between Donald Trump and Xi Jingping actually matters in these negotiations and and whether Trump can you know be be friendly with him and and gain his support with these negotiations with North Korea while maintaining his hardline on trade I it's a great question and I'll draw from my experience being around Xi Jinping a handful of times he is one of the the least emotional most hard-nosed sort of brass tax calculator of his interest in China's interests that I've ever been around he is not someone swayed by charisma or dazzled by persuasion he's someone who clearly and thoughtfully thinks about what serves his interest best and so every time I see president Trump suggest that his great personal relationship with President Xi is going to deliver the day I cringe because I don't know what he's talking about but beyond that if North Korea is president Trump's top priority and I believe his sincerity when he says that it is I don't understand why the president would choose to launch an aggressive trade action six weeks before he starts a summit with it just betrays a lack of forethought or or planning and it mixes signals and then for the president as Bonnie suggested to come back and say well we can be a little lighter on trade if you can be a little nicer on North Korea well that sounds great in kindergarten it doesn't work in the role and so I just I I hope for the best I applaud President Trump for making the effort to engage Kim jong-un he's taking a risk in doing so and he deserves credit for that but we aren't yet at a point where I have a high degree of confidence that what happens on June 12th will lead to a little more into the relationship between these two men and come to you Bonnie you wrote in 2008 the some of the the key behind some of the successes on North Korea during the George W Bush administration was presidential communication and credit credibility that enabled Washington and Beijing to overcome divergences and approaches and mutual suspicions do you see that the two current leaders of the US and China approaching that same kind of relationship that was 10 years ago no I actually do continue to believe that that's true as I said earlier if you go to the Chinese and you make it very very clear what your top concern is your top priority and you're looking for China to help you have a much better opportunity of getting China to work with you if they won't work against their own interests and we shouldn't expect them to but the example of course of being more compliant with the UN Security Council sanctions of putting pressure on North Korea it is a good example that works two ways I believe that si Jinping also went to president Trump and said you know those the restrictions that you put on ZTE they put this company out of business you need to lift those restrictions so it does worth work both ways and not always to our advantage this is not unique in my view to the us-china relationship whenever two leaders sit down and have a conversation they have to have credibility more than anything else I don't know if this president has a lot of credibility with si Jinping I'll give you a very short anecdote when President Bush met with believe it was who Jintao you can correct me if I'm wrong and he said I am going to give the Dalai Lama the congressional matter of Medal of Honor and I'm going to the opening of the Olympics and he got was under a lot of pressure in the United States to not go but he did both and so the Chinese new gorge W Bush said something they could take it to the bank whether it was something bad for China or good for China and having that kind of predictability and credibility I believe makes has greater potential for two leaders to work together effectively so I want to talk a little bit about the US military presence on the peninsula and in Eugene I want to start with you as we've as we've approached this upcoming summit next month several commentators have expressed concerns that President Trump might agree to a North Korean suggestion to remove us from u.s. troops from the peninsula in exchange for denuclearization but you've previously argued for the voluntary gradual removal of US troops from South Korea so is there a danger in withdrawing US forces from South Korea and what message would that send to China well if you want to use the US forces in South Korea some kind of bargaining chip with North Korea unilaterally withdrawing them first is not going to be helpful the question you might ask or I might ask is whether the US forces being in South Korea are constructive for American interests or constructive for stability in the world so South Korea is an eminently capable country it's a country that's technologically sophisticated has a well-functioning government has quite a lot of money it's it's you know it's its GDP is more than 30 times bigger than the north its population is more than twice as big as the north right this is a country that has tremendous capability to defend itself if it chooses to do so right it doesn't actually need if given time to prepare the u.s. left tomorrow they would be in the lurch right but they have the resources that they can replace the US effort to defend South Korea it's not the situation that existed when we first went to South Korea you know 65 years ago whatever it was so I think strategically we could pull back it would be better for the United States it would be better for things on the Korean Peninsula now I don't expect denuclearization to be a likely outcome even treating this as a bargaining chip I don't know what's gonna happen in the future but it also strikes me that in terms of tensions on the Korean Peninsula anything we could do whether it's through a joint agreement or through a unilateral action to reduce tensions on the Korean Peninsula things that walk us back from the brink of war are a good idea and we should take those actions I want to respond to the summit I'll offer a few very brief thoughts I think that the idea that is the threat recedes US presence should should narrow or lower I think there's a logic to that that makes sense but there are a couple flaws with the ways that it has been done to date and I think Eugenia's pointed them out it's rather effectively the first is that President Trump with the cart before the horse signaling that he's willing to withdraw troops before getting anything in return from it from North Korea the second is that it will feed into a narrative in Asia and around the world of u.s. withdrawal and this may be an area that there's a bit of divergence amongst the four of us but it's TPP the Iran deal the Paris deal Iran deal there's a there's enough data points to draw a pattern here and if we withdraw from the Korean Peninsula it will further harden those perceptions that the United States is withdrawing and retreating and the effect of that is it will put incredible stress on Japan as the last country that has a significant American troop presence in Asia and if Japan feels so much pressure that it can't that it strains its political system and the United States is forced to withdraw then we're back to the situation that we were discussing earlier where countries are now faced with a choice between accommodating China or taking drastic measures including going nuclear to defend themselves against China and that in my mind leads us to the worst-case outcome of the increased risk of catastrophic conflict Indonesia great we are unfortunately out of time so thank you to all of our debaters for tonight's before we all run out of here for the night we want to ask each of our debaters for a brief 92nd closing thoughts with final takeaways from the event tonight and potentially any advice for the audience about how they can continue to engage with these topics so Ryan we'll start with you well first of all I just want to thank you all it's an incredible tribute to Seattle that so many of you would stay for this entire discussion to listen to us wrestle over China issues so thank you for for being a participant in this exercise the only thought that I would leave you with is the the one thing that I hope that we tried to highlight is that we need to demand more from our leaders we need to demand a serious strategy for dealing with the most consequential relationship in the United States faces and this isn't a partisan issue this isn't a 20-18 issue this is a long-term issue this is an issue that will have a significant bearing upon our lives lives of our children and I think that we must demand informs thoughtful strategic thinking about yeah no I'm delighted to be here I want to leave you with something which is more about the future because it's easy to talk about what's going to happen and predict us as Eugene said it's very hard but the point I want to I want to say is the future is being decided now in the decisions that we make and the decisions they make and that is in you make right there is no other way to do it and when I have a relatively optimistic view of what's going on I think we're way better than we were 50 years ago in the region my father came left Korea two years after the end of the Korean War we're so much better off but that doesn't mean that we don't have to continually keep up a relationship both diplomatic you know this is what's happening and the future we is going to depend on the decisions we make today and so that I think that hopefully the futures in good hands Bonnie so if you look over the history of the United States I think you find there's always been a lot of tension between being more engaged overseas or being isolationist being more of a free trader being protectionist or being more of a continental power of maritime power and I think that we will face these challenges going forward we should not look at anything as black and white and China's rise in how we how we deal with China also is just should not be black and white in my view China is it's not in the rival enemy word is not the best term to use China isn't is a competitor and that can be good for us but we have to make sure that there is a level playing field and I think it's really important for people in Washington to listen more to people who are outside the Beltway I think you should be up there and I should be out in the audience that we really need to listen to what the concerns of Americans are and I hope that that the American people will make the people in Washington more responsive to their concerns and listen going forward so thank you for having me so I also would like to thank you all for coming and saying through this and thank the organizers of this I think the Brookings Charles Koch Institute series bringing debates like this around the countries in tremendously valuable and I hope we'll continue on us-china relations the key thing I'd like to leave you with is something which I mentioned briefly before is the results of the of the trajectory of military technology I think actually Jacqueline asked David earlier are there threats to stability what are what are the threats actually maybe Mona asked that what are that what are the threats he says things are more stable now than they have been in 150 years what threatens that and I think the answer is the u.s. failure to react to the changing military technology like understand that it's harder to project power into the region and that's good for us because it makes it easier to defend for the allies to defend themselves and it's bad for us because the way that we've been trying to defend our allies is getting harder riskier and more costly and is leading us to spend a lot of money on pretty aggressive R&D systems that we're trying to invest in to develop to threaten China and promising to attack the Chinese homeland in the case of a military conflict because we need to stop their a2/ad capability right that military technology if we keep doing what we've been doing we become the threat to stability in the region we make conflicts more likely and we should adapt to that and and we can we can achieve our goals of security prosperity and liberty through a different mechanism that would make us all much safer great this has been such an interesting conversation I hope everyone in our audience enjoy it as well please continue to follow this series for the final debate of the season on June 13th in Detroit which is about globalization and the American worker and please let us know how we did tonight on Twitter using the hashtag America in the world thank you so much all for joining us and good night thanks for watching be sure to LIKE and subscribe for more videos from Brookings [Music]

Channel: Brookings Institution

Views: 22,351

Rating: 4.2138729 out of 5

Keywords: Brookings Institution, World Affairs Council of Seattle, Sino-American relations, America, China, U.S. foreign policy, Chinese foreign policy, President Donald Trump, Xi Jinping

Id: RM1GuLXmLfU

Length: 97min 50sec (5870 seconds)

Published: Tue May 29 2018