Can America and China Avoid a Collision?

Good evening, I am John Cotesworth, Chancellor of the University, and it is my pleasure to welcome you to George W Ball's lecture to be presented this afternoon by Professor Kishore Milani on what may be the crucial question for the future of our fragile planet. and China

avoid

a

collision

a topic on which some naïve publications have appeared in the last year we expect a correction first the word on George Ball George Ball, as you may recall, served as US Under Secretary of State from 1961 to 1968 and briefly as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, his service in these positions was marked by a vigorous and solitary descent that he did not make public until well after the Johnson administration's escalation of U.S. military involvement in Vietnam.

He also dissented from both Kennedy and Johnson. stewardship of under-considered aspects of US policy towards the Soviet Union and the Middle East through the generosity of an anonymous and forward-thinking donor the George W Ball Adjunct Professorship was created at Sefa in 2009 the Ball Professorship enables the We seek and recruit outstanding and forward-thinking individuals who combined experience as leading international professionals and innovative thinkers on international issues. It is the ball teacher's responsibility to teach each year. I can't think of anyone whose views on relations between us and Asia should be heard more in this country. than this year's George W, Professor Kishore mobile Bonnie and so it gives me great pleasure to hand over the microphone to Cephas Dean Merritt Jane to introduce him.

Good evening everyone and thank you all for joining us for this important George Ball. It is probably one of our most important conferences here at Seba and, as the provost mentioned, it was established in 2009 to support an adjunct faculty member who had demonstrated truly remarkable leadership and innovative contributions. George Ball's farsighted and principled dissenters from Cold War orthodoxies, especially the early stages of us. Participation in Vietnam truly established him as an example of reasoned and loyal opposition during a period when the pressures of conformity were upon him and, as his obituary in the New York Times noted, he was perhaps best known as one of the first and consistent opponents of American involvement in Vietnam.

In fact, I was looking at the George Ball album and one of our students had written a very good book about him and produced a 67-page single-spaced memo questioning American politics. policy in Vietnam that he presented to National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy in the hope of influencing President Johnson and his lucid and rigorous analysis was not taken into account, it was not an Asian standard when he wrote those words and, of course, Vietnam was not the end of their influence or impact on us. In fact, foreign policy was not his main focus, his real focus, in fact, he thought Asia was a distraction to a better US focus on Europe in an interesting, I think, symmetry with tonight's focus on the US. and China.

George Balch argued that communist China was overrated as a threat and its existence should be openly accepted. In fact, he was favored to expand trade with China and become a member of the UN, so it is an interesting collection of thoughts from George Paul himself. Previous holders of this appointment have included Mari Pangestu, former Minister of Trade and Creative Industries of Indonesia. Jorge Castaneda Minister of Foreign Affairs of Mexico Les Gelb and others and tonight we had a great honor to have with us Ambassador Professor Kishore Ma Bhavani to give this lecture and be with us this semester as noted, he is simply one of the main thinkers and academics. on contemporary Asia and Asia's relations with the world with notable and distinguished service as a diplomat, academic and author, he had an extraordinary career in the Singapore Foreign Service from 1971 to 2004 as a diplomat in Cambodia, Malaysia, Washington, New York and In fact, two terms as Singapore's ambassador to the United Nations and, in fact, as president of the UN Security Council for one term, he was also permanent secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and founding dean of the School of Public Policy Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore, where I am from I am pleased to note that SEPA has had, as part of our network of public policy schools, a partnership with the Lee Kuan Yew school and we have a wonderful flow of students coming and going.

Currently, Ambassador Ma Blue Bani serves as a senior advisor and teacher in practice. She teaches public policy at the National University and at the same time she is part of several boards and councils around the world. Her books and articles have appeared in numerous publications. foreign affairs foreign policy Washington quarterly one of her first books. I especially like the title. Ken's agents believe it was very provocative and his most recent book that is about to be published is titled Has the West Lost Him? So I think he's not afraid to challenge us on his way of thinking.

He has received many recognitions and is listed as one of the most important intellectuals in the world. He has received numerous honorary degrees. and tonight he will talk to us about relations between the United States and China. Please join me in welcoming Kishore mah Blue Bunny. Thanks Jon. Thank you Meryt for these generous introductions and let me tell you that it is truly a great pleasure to be here in Colombia among so many young people. old friends in the room, as you know, I lived in New York for ten and a half years and New York City is probably my second home, so it is with great pleasure that after leaving my position as dean I received this invitation from Colombia to be The George Ball Associate Professor here and of course I have chosen quite a challenging topic as John said, but in doing so I want to mention that I am going to try to observe the spirit of George Ball in my comments, as you said. was a big dissenter, so I may also be crossing some red lines, maybe I'll comment today, but I hope you'll forgive me for doing so in the spirit of George Ball.

Now, of course, the question I have chosen to address this as As John said, the most important question of our time is what will be the relationship between the world's number one power, the United States, and the world's number one emerging power, China? , and, as I will describe later, there is growing pessimism about what is going to happen. I think the conventional wisdom now is that there is more likely to be a

collision

than not, so the point of my comments today, which I hope to develop into a book that I hope will have a similarly widespread title, and hence what I'm going to share with you basically or some preliminary thoughts my ideas that I'm working on and I would, of course, since I see so many good friends, yes, I hope that all of you will send me some comments, but that's how I propose something like that.

Organize my comments. I will give a three-part answer to the question: Can China and the United States

avoid

a collision? In part 1, I will talk about the global context in which we operate because the global context obviously influences the relationship within China and the United States and then I will talk about the impact of this global context on China and the United States and I would like to conclude by giving some kind of practical advice to both China and the United States on how to avoid the impending collision, so let me begin. speaking of the global context and yes, I'm going to take the perspective in the sense of a future historian, someone in the year 2100, looking back to 2018, and what they would see in our world today and, frankly, what they would see in the future historian. exactly the opposite of what is contemporary wisdom, especially in the West and, as you know, in the West there is an enormous amount of pessimism about the world we are heading towards, etc., but really from the perspective of a future historian, he or she We will clearly see that the human condition has actually never been better and in fact in this book which, by the way, technically hasn't been released yet, will be released in London in April and it's called: Has the West Lost It?

This is what I say in it and This actually describes how wonderful our world has progressed. I mean, imagine a world where virtually no human being goes to bed hungry or where absolute poverty has almost disappeared where every child is fascinated and goes to school where every home has electricity where every human being carries some kind of smartphone that gives you access to an unlimited amount of information. Such a world will be considered one that borders on utopia, but that is where we are today, study after study will show you that we have made a much greater effort. work for better work reducing violence Steven Pinker documented it from Arvin when he said that we have gone from 65 thousand deaths per year in the 1950s to less than 2000 per year today and others have noted that in 1800 there were 120 million people in In the world who can read and write today there are 6.2 billion people with the same ability and let me quote and we only want the code of Johan Novick from the Cato Institute.

He said that if someone had told you in 1990 that over the next 25 years world hunger would be reduced by 40% child mortality would be extreme poverty would be reduced by 3/4 so you would have told them they were naive fools but the fools The naive people were right and I want to emphasize that by 2030 global poverty will disappear to practically zero, which is why there has been a tremendous improvement in the human condition and why this has happened. I can say very, very simply that at the end of the day the Western project has been successful because one of the objectives of the West was always to share best practices, wisdom with the rest of the world and they have spread and I and I have said that there are seven pillars of Western wisdom that explain the rise of Asia, I mean seven more things, such as the free market economy, the mastery of science and technology, culture. of pragmatism culture peace rule of law education all these things are spreading throughout the world and then the net result is that the human condition is improving and a large part of its courses are due to the performance of the two most important. most populated countries in the world China and India and here again a future historian would say well, that is not surprising from the year one to the year 1820 the two largest economies in the world were always those of China and India, only in the last two hundred years. that China and India fell, so it's perfectly natural to go back to a world where China and India become number one and number two, and that will happen in 2050 and the latest and the United States will be number three and people say, hey, that's normal. world that has returned clearly we should be celebrating but as you all know we are not and the question is why not, there are many reasons for that but one of them of course is that as a result of China's tremendous outstanding performance , the balance of power between China and the United States has changed dramatically and I can tell you this, the future historian will be very surprised at how quickly this has happened.

In fact, he was thinking about putting up some slides. I thought it would be better if I just gave you two. statistics that you should remember to show you how fast the relative equilibrium has changed a statistic is in PPP terms, purchasing power parity terms a statistic in what they call nominal market economy terms, so in PPP terms in 1980 China's share of world GDP was 2.2 percent in 1980 United States The share of states was 25 percent, more than ten times that of China, but in 2014, and even the few people who notice it in terms of PPP, China became number one.

The United States became number two and no one paid attention because everyone was paying attention to the nominal GNP numbers. But in reality the even greater change in nominal GNP figures is even more surprising and is much more recent: in 2000, in market economy terms, China's GNP in the United States was eight times greater than China's. in 2000, by 2015 it was 1.6 times from eight times to 1.6 times in 15 years and by 2025 or even earlier, possibly China's GNP in nominal terms will also be higher and of course this changes everything. China will no longer behave in the same way as it did with the United States when it had a larger economy, one thing is when your economy is 10% or 15% and another thing is when your economy is larger and, of course , this has clearly set off a lot of alarm bells and I must say that I am truly amazed by the number of high-level American figures. who continue to speak in louder and louder voices saying that China is becoming a threat, the word threat is used too often.

Let me just give you three or four examples from September of last year. B CNN says top U.S. military officials Gen. Joseph Dunford told Congress and I quote I think China will likely pose the biggest threat to our nation around 2025, and says China's military modernizationChina is targeting capabilities with the potential to degrade key US military technological advantages and of course you have heard of General Mattis' statement that he built in the US Department of Defense report in January 2018 the month last and said that we said that Russia and China, our rivals, are actively seeking to cooperate or replace the free and open order that has enabled global security and prosperity since World War II and General Mattis had a great competition for power , not terrorism, is now the primary focus of American policy. national security and then there was CIA chief Mike Pompeo saying 18 days ago, 21 days ago, they don't exist.

In January he told the BBC that Chinese efforts to exert covert influence on the West are as worrying as Russian subversion and then the FBI director. said on February 13 eight days ago, he said one of the things we're trying to do is look at the threat from China, it's not just a threat to the entire government, but a threat to the entire society on their part, and I think that we are going to take a society-wide response in the United States to deal with China, these are all very important figures and then of course there is the economists who came out a few weeks ago predicted that there will be war and of course we have the best-selling book by Graham Allison that says war is most likely between the United States and China, so the question is what is driving this pessimism about China because If you look at Chinese behavior, the Chinese have given no indication that By gathering large forces to conquer other nations or even trying to replace the American role in so many parts of the world, China is still fundamentally concerned with what is happening in China and, as far as I know, does not want to put itself in the shoes of the United States or in the Middle East nor in Eastern Europe nor anywhere else, but even though China is perceived as a threat, the question is why and this is a key point.

I want to make it clear that the fundamental reason why people in the United States and many tragic thinkers in the West see China as a threat, whether consciously or unconsciously, is because China is succeeding even though it is not a democracy. China is succeeding even though it is not a democracy. is run by the Chinese Communist Party and I think the core from which this fundamental distrust arises is you, so the question we need to ask ourselves is: is there something fundamentally wrong with China not becoming a democracy in the event that China become a democracy? that this is something that is very much in the subtext of people's minds, but that question is never fully discussed, so this is what I hope to do as a central part of my comments to try to dig deeper and find the There are deeper sources of mistrust, but let me start by emphasizing that what I am not arguing is whether democracy is better than Chinese Communist Party rule.

It is very clear that democracy is obviously a better system, no one will stand up here and argue that Oh, democracy is an inferior political system, that is not a question, the question is whether China today would be better off if it gave up Communist Party rule and become a democracy overnight, which is in one way or another a kind of hidden desire of many people and here maybe this is where I am invoking the spirit of George Bowl. I can say that if you try to look at this issue objectively and rationally, it is not clear that China will be better off;

In fact, in many ways, China will be much worse off, right? and this is how I think Chinese leaders would view this question, if asked frankly in private, they would point out several reasons why it would be a disaster for China to change its political system today. I'm not talking about that in 30 years I'll win a lot today. Of the countries that made a sudden transition to democracy in recent decades have suffered a lot and can have many examples on display: Yugoslavia, that country collapsed, everyone knows how many people were killed, how democracy led to demagogues being chosen.

Nationalism. and the violence and conflict the Chinese saw that the activity was even more important for the Chinese they saw what happened to Russia Russia went overnight from Communist Party rule to democracy and you know when I described it to you a while ago moment how global conditions in the world are improving infant mortality. Life expectancy decreased, infant mortality increased, the economy imploded, and people suffered enormous things. Lee and I know that the Chinese have studied in great detail what happened in Russia because they said Hey, this could happen to us too, so they've seen it and they know what could happen to China.

The second point is whether the Chinese look at their history objectively and look at what has happened in the last, say, 40 years since Deng Xiaoping launched his four modernizations exactly 40 years ago in 1978, if you look at it in the context of the last 3000 years. of Chinese history, the last 40 years are clearly the best 40 years in the last 200 years since the Opium War of 1842, but even more surprisingly if you objectively view the human condition of the Chinese people from top to bottom, it has never been best in 4,000 years, so in the last 40 years a human condition has been created that the Chinese people have never experienced, where practically everyone goes to school, where everyone has a meal and we can make an incredible amount of things.

I can tell you when I went in 1980 for the first time to China, people in Beijing couldn't choose what to wear, they all wore Maoist outfits, right, they couldn't choose where to go. live where to work where to study none of these options would be available to them today, the same Beijing that usually only has bicycles and does not have massive traffic jams used to have low buildings not just like skyscrapers and has an incredible booming middle class that is large that today it is already the largest middle class in the world, so in the last 40 years China has produced the largest middle class population in the world and, of course, they do not enjoy many of the political freedoms that the Americans, but I can tell you that 40 years ago, no young Chinese student could go to study at any Ivy League or any other American university, today more than three hundred thousand do and most return, but let me offer an even more surprising statistic : In 1980 there were no Chinese. tourists traveling abroad zero only government officials travel it was impossible for an ordinary Chinese season to travel today one hundred and twenty million Chinese go abroad freely one hundred and twenty million Chinese return to China freely, so I want to return to the former Soviet Union analogy, this was a nation of gulags, they repress an oppressive state, why would a hundred and twenty million Chinese be right again?

So clearly, something fundamental has changed in the Chinese condition even though it has been under the rule of the Communist Party, so what the United States says is seen as a completely static image of China still remaining under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party. It is a China that has been completely transformed in the last 40 years, but there are even other things that are even more surprising about contemporary China now, as you know, that theory is very clear if there is no democracy if you do not have freedom of expression If you don't have freedom of the press, people can't think that they can't innovate and that they can't become owners of global industries right now.

I can tell you that the Chinese people do not have the right to vote. they don't have freedom of speech they have freedom of the press but they are developing the most innovative economy in the world in theory it's not supposed to happen in practice it's happening and I can tell you that someone like me goes to China regularly it's amazing how China keeps changing year after year year and I discover that I come from Singapore, one of the most successful states in Asia. We always thought we would be ahead of China and I discovered, to my shame, that Singapore is far behind. the cost we still carry cash no one in China carries cash everyone carries a smartphone they look at me very strange when I take out cash what is this? you do not know? and when I went to give some lectures at Peking University, the guy accompanying me simply took the phone from him and put it on two bicycles.

I cycled to my destination just because of the phone. You can do anything in China with a phone. And if you want a hot fried egg for breakfast at your doorstep, you can get it in China. The quality of innovation they are doing is amazing and this doesn't just apply to consumer areas. I mean, I don't know enough about artificial intelligence. I don't know enough about supercomputers. I don't know enough about space exploration, but I do know. that they made great progress in those areas, so what in theory should not happen is happening, but at the same time the American perception has not changed and here let me read you something that is a literal quote from the national security strategy of the United States from 2002 george w bush administration thank you Andy Andy Nevin was my source I saw him in his class I said wow I must use this fight he is and this is what the statement says we welcome the rise of a strong, peaceful and prosperous China The China's democratic development is crucial for the future, but a quarter of a century into the process of shedding the worst features of the communist legacy, China's leaders have not yet made the next set of fundamental decisions about the character of the state and if they say they will.

If they are in China, eventually China will discover that social and political freedom is the only way China can become great, but China is becoming great and this statement seems so strange. This is what the theory is supposed to be, but the practice is completely different. So, returning to the perspective of a future historian who analyzes American perceptions of China and insists that China must follow the American path, the future historian scratches his head and says that this is a civilization that has existed for 4,000 years and that It has had its ups and downs. Downs, ups, downs, it's now rising with great ferocity in the last 40 years, in the best 40 years in Chinese history, and just at a time when it's doing incredibly well, a young 250-year-old nation is telling you to the 4,000 year old civilization that you don't know. what is good for you we know what is good for you if you do not become democratic if you do not have human rights if you do not have them you will not go anywhere again a future historian would be very, very baffled by this statement just by looking long term, what China has done is so clear that what I am trying to suggest to you very gently is that it is time for the United States to change the language and the concepts that it uses to understand China and, obviously, what is happening in China it doesn't.

It doesn't fit Western political theory, so you have the choice of sticking to the theory or paying attention to the facts, and the facts don't fit the theory, so we have to adjust and deal with it, because if not you do it, then clearly the cost of the collision will come because China I am almost 99.9% sure will not change its political system on the advice of the United States of America, it will not, it simply will not, it will continue to do so. what he thinks is right for himself and therefore the question is: can the United States accept this right?

And here I want to add an important historical footnote that, actually, I must confess that I just read Grandma Allison's book, Thucydides' Trap, and he says that many in America wish China could be like America in some ways as it was growing up and Grandma's listeners be careful what they wish for because she says in 1897, shortly after Teddy Roosevelt arrived in Washington DC, ten years after Teddy Roosevelt arrived in Washington DC and will stay. as far as you know, he was so sure that the American century was on its way so sure that history was on his side and he moved on and this is what he did.

The United States declared war on Spain, expelling it and acquiring Peto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. threatened Germany and Britain with war supported the insurrection in Colombia to create Panama declared itself police of the Western Hemisphere and asserted its right to intervene anyway United States as a rising power, so Grandma Allison gives very good advice, for Please don't ask China to be like America is growing because if you do that you are giving China the wrong advice, so the question is what is the right advice to give China and how do we handle a situation that clearly isn't fits into any of these perspectives and I think there is actually a three-part solution to this question of how to manage and create a sustainable positive relationship with China between China and the United States there are two things that the United States can do and one thing that China can do in the United States and this is an idea that does not come from me, it comes fromBill Clinton and I actually discuss it in one of my books, the great convergence, and I heard it, I heard it said recently at dinner at Gareth's Michele's house.

Evans Gareth Evans, the former Australian foreign minister was on a panel with Bill Clinton and Bill Clinton's advice to his fellow Americans, as far as I can tell, was clearly that the United States has two options today, or it continues to strive for be the leader forever and be number one. forever or if you think you can't be number one forever, why don't you try to create a world where you feel comfortable when you are no longer more than a born and therefore regret? I must say that a sensible advice was why not create a rule.

In the space world we have more associations of international law, multilateralism and the reason for doing it, the reason for creating a multilateral world is that the United States, by putting the handcuffs of multilateralism on itself, will then pass the handcuffs on to the next number one power , which is China. Bill Clinton's advice and I completely agree with him, why doesn't the United States do it? Why is this still number one create a world that will feel comfortable where it is no longer number one and the good news? I have given you so much bad news is that I believe China can accept a rules-based multilateral order, the reason is that the Chinese do not have a global plan or a global vision to shape global change.

In reality, they are quite happy with the world. that exists today China is today the biggest beneficiary of the rules-based order that the United States gifted the world at the end of World War II, so why should China want to change it? I can tell you that I was in Davos last year, in January 2017. Listening to Xi Jinping talk about how China wanted to create a rules-based order and I think he meant it with all sincerity because China is everything and, as you know, I mean that this is a topic of long discussion, but the attitude of the United States towards multilateralism has always been ambivalent, on the one hand many institutions have been created, IMF, World Bank, WTO, etc., on the other hand, they have been We have weakened many of these multilateral institutions, so why not move from a policy of weakening multilateralism to strengthening multilateralism and if we can create a spatial order of rules, that spatial order of rules will lubricate the relationship between China and the United States and prevent a coalition.

I say this by the way because someone who, like Josh Ball, was also an ambassador to the UN. for 10 years and I can tell you that multilateralism works when you bring people together in a room, make them negotiate, make them agree, they reach agreements, they rule, they reach conventions and then the conventions remain like the Convention of Nations United. law of the sea that fundamentally stands and is still there even though the United States has not ratified it yet, so that is something that the United States can do the second thing that the United States. What we can do is demonstrate the power of democracy not through preaching but through its internal behavior, showing that if you have a democratic society you surpass all others, it produces the most dynamic economy in the world, it produces the best research and it produces the best political leaders. because at the end of the day the reason I have to emphasize is that I admire the United States.

I grew up as a child under the control of the United States because this incredible society has done things that no other human society has done before, but it was within it. performance that inspired everyone when you send someone to the moon. Wow, that's amazing, it inspires everyone, so the best way to show the power of democracy is not by talking about it, it's not by saying like George W. Bush saying that if you don't become a democracy, you've failed, just show it. to the world that a successful democracy can surpass all others and, by the way, if it leads to competition between China and the United States in the economic sphere, right between your industries and Chinese industries, that is good for global economic competition.

It's not a zero-sum game, economic competition at the end of the day produces, as we know, better outcomes for everyone, so more economic competition between the US and China in a rules-based world is a good thing and that It's what America can do. We can do it better than you, it can be done, you can still do it, but of course I would say don't underestimate the competition from China because if you see how much they have achieved in the last 40 years, buckle up for the next 30. years will be even more surprising, so do not underestimate Chinese economic competition and, thirdly, as I said, what China must do is that China must understand very deeply that its rise, its rapid rise has created concerns throughout the world. world, not just in the United States, even in your own neighborhood in Southeast Asia, where I come from, there is a lot of concern and it is a natural concern.

Imagine that we are all together in this room right now like a little mouse in the corner and suddenly, while you are sitting in the room that the Mouse turns into an elephant, in the same room you will surely be worried, right, that's how we all China's neighbors feel it's perfectly natural and the Chinese are sometimes baffled by it, he said: "we haven't done anything to you." We didn't send an army to invade you, we haven't taken things from you, we haven't done what Teddy Roosevelt did in 1897, why are you so worried about us? Well, sighs and China, of course, and this is no secret, has made some. mistakes, he has become quite assertive in his foreign policy, at the same time he had a qualification, he has become assertive but not aggressive and this is something that future historians will compare again and look back, say, that he dipped into the 28 years since the Cold.

The war finished. China has not bombed any country. How many countries has the United States been bombed? Now behavior matters, so if we want to make sure China continues without bombing countries, we have to re-create the logic so that doesn't happen, but I think we can persuade the Chinese that because you get so big everything you do has a mega effect so please be more careful with what you do and my feeling is that the Chinese are starting to understand that they have to be more careful in how they handle the rest of the world. because they can feel the pushback coming, so at the end of the day, to conclude, I would say clearly that we face a huge challenge in ensuring that there is no coalition within China and the United States, but if we all make the right strategic adjustments and this It is a critical step. point, the United States perhaps in the last 150 years has never had to make strategic adjustments to another power, never now has to learn the art of making strategic adjustments, it can be done and I hope it will be done, thank you, let me start with the first question, but then open it up, we have enormous experience in this room, but I guess the question I would like to ask you is: I completely understand the feeling that we need to give China more space, if you like, in the multilateral institutions to express themselves to influence those institutions, but how could you possibly imagine that those institutions would somehow better align China's own economic ambitions and practices with those multilateral norms?

I mean, I guess what evidence do you have? I mean, they've joined the WTO. I've done a lot of reforms and I've done that, but having taken these steps, what you see is the efficacy, the effectiveness of those institutions and actually playing a role in the future in bringing China deeper into a system based in rules. In fact, we are seeing a There are many pressures in the United States and globally against those institutions that delve into creating binding frameworks that bind us together. Well, let me give you a concrete example of how multilateral institutions and processes have fundamentally changed Chinese behavior and this, of course, in the area that is of great global importance today which is global warming and look at the two conferences that were took place, the Copenhagen conference which was a disaster and the Paris conference which led to agreements, what was the difference between the two now until Copenhagen?

China took the initiative. The correct view, by the way, is that global warming is occurring today not only because of new flows of greenhouse gas emissions from China and India, but it is also occurring because of the cessation of greenhouse gas emissions. greenhouse that have been put into the atmosphere since the arrival of Western industry. The revolution, so the Chinese point of view, the Indian point of view and China, India, as you know, completely agreed on this issue was that, if they want us to pay an economic price to reduce emissions flows of greenhouse gases, the West must be a price for the shares and if you don't pay a price for the shares, I won't pay a price for the flows and I was hoping that the Chinese would honor that agreement because there is a legitimate argument to be made and they could just have endured but some are others the Chinese number one did their own studies their own study showed that China would suffer a lot from global warming number two they looked at the global opinions that were being formed about it in that area and said okay, why not do we position ourselves? in a more reasonable position and then BOOM they said okay, we will assume our obligations and we commit to joining the Paris agreements and these are hard commitments, they are bad, I mean, you know, in terms of the economic cost that they have to reduce . the number of power plants they have to change energy use and the things that are there, they do, it took a lot, so this is a concrete example of how, in a sense, global opinion changes China's behavior in a fundamental global challenge and I have an opinion.

Ambassador to the UN. In fact, I've observed that people come into the room with very rigid national positions, but after listening to all the voices in the room, human beings know that they say, "Okay, that guy's right, well, he's right." ". One point, maybe you should listen to that kind of thing, so I think the process is very important and I think the Chinese clearly want to be seen. I mean, as you know, Bob Zoellick famously called on China to be a responsible stakeholder. The Chinese want to be a responsible stakeholder because they are big beneficiaries of it, but what they want some changes to give us the obvious example is that since the IMF and the World Bank were founded in the 1940s, there is a rule that says to become The head of the IMF must be European to become the head of the World Bank he must be American and that rule has not changed as it did almost 70 years ago, right now those rules surely achieved an objective among the population of 7.3 billion people in the world you can find one or two, maybe smart Asians or Africans, to become heads of the IMF and the World Bank, you know, it can be done, but there are some institutions where the West has a sense of ownership over them and refuses to accept them. share power in them, I think the best thing the West could do is allow non-Western people to run these organizations and then you will get a different multilateral order, okay, very good, I think we will have it.

I know Professor Nathan is going to give how the question was asked now I'm terrified and then we'll actually open it up. I disagree with two parts. I want Jerry to talk about one of those parts, I won't, which is whether China is better off, Jerry, I admit it. but I want to ask you about the sources of American distrust of China. I agree with you that we should correct the size of the threat from China, they are not invading us, etc., but it seems to me that there really is an important strategic factor. area of ​​friction with China that has to do with Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific and the fact that the United States has been militarily dominant there for all these years and China doesn't like that and wants to change it and I think that's an important step Maybe not a source of world war but of a real conflict and you have not mentioned that you act as if it is simply the so-called question of values, but in reality there are some strategic games and we do not really know the extent of the strategic ambition of China. the Belton road will be what the port will be in Djibouti, how much they will need to feel safe, we don't have a good idea of ​​that, so I wanted you to talk about the kind of hard material aspects of the security issue, thank you.

I'm actually very surprised that Andy doesn't disagree that much with that, no, but you're right, I mean, there are a lot of areas of contention and, in fact, you could also give a lecture on the military. cut economics or cut and other cultural cuts competition and so on, but on the military cut, Andy, my answer is that the Chinese have a very nuanced view of the American military presence in the region, for example, I don't. I don't think the Chinese want you to abandon your defense alliancewith Japan because an independent Japan will become a nuclear Japan and they don't want that, so they really value the United States being a nuclear country. alliance with Japan and, by the way, you know that if you and I were discussing Kissinger's book about China and how Mao Zedong actually tolerated Kissinger, you should spend more time in Japan, you should take care of Japan, I mean, that's amazing, you know, Mao Zedong says you know.

Isn't Japan an important country? You have to take care of it so that the Chinese have a very nuanced view of these countries, but at the same time I know that the only thing that the Chinese are very angry about the assistance effect is the aggressiveness. The naval patrol conducted by American warships twelve miles from China shows that it really bothers them because you know that as long as you know, any country will do this, by the way, whichever one is right, so, and, and, and I, Rexy, I believe that what you do today, China will do.

Tomorrow then you will aggressively carry out naval patrols twelve miles off the coast of China, they have already begun. I think of Hawaii second to Guam, but they all come to California. The Chinese Navy will carry out a toilet check of California and I think that is not necessary either. The side benefits from it and of course the US Navy's rationale for doing it is that we are protecting freedom of navigation and ironically the country that needs freedom of navigation more than the United States is the number one exporter in the world , which is China. China really wants it. so the United States does it, the Chinese would be happy to work with you in that area, but when it comes to aggressive naval patrols or, as you know, in the case of planes flying close to Chinese corners, that's what they really It bothers them and we have to reach an understanding there, you know, the South China Sea is another issue.

Well, now the issue of the South China Sea is a complicated issue, since you know that several countries are claiming reefs and rocks and there are four of them. ASEAN countries Philippines Brunei Malaysia Vietnam and then Taiwan and China are claiming their and it is true that the Chinese have been claiming a lot of land in the South China Sea but the Chinese did not start this game by the way unfortunately, I mean, unfortunately. because the Malaysians and the Filipinos had no idea what would happen, they claimed two acres, three acres, the sign said, "Okay, you claim that I claim that for the Chinese came 2000 acres, why is it a game that they unfortunately started and now they're stuck in it." This is how the Chinese are being assertive now, if they want to be aggressive, the Chinese can eliminate the Malay soldiers, Filipino soldiers, Brunei soldiers, Malaysian soldiers or Vietnamese soldiers from those islands in 24 hours, they can do it if they really want to be aggressive and By the way, that's how it is. what the United States would have done in 1897 but China in 2018 will not do it and and and and that to some extent shows some degree of restraint now how the South China Sea issue will be resolved I can tell you that it will eventually be resolved through various types of bilateral negotiations and this has been documented and studied and in fact it is in one of the readings that I saw that also the Chinese have been very generous in their border agreements, except for the other three that are not yet resolved, but most of the time they resolved the border issues, they were quite generous and said, "Okay, you take more, I took miss" so that that is part of the negotiations that will continue, but again, a lot depends on whether you are dealing with an angry China. that feels like it's being pushed around or a China that says "okay, treat me with respect, I treat you with respect, we could work together, I think that's what's going to happen, but I can bet any of you that it won't." there will be war". in the South China Sea in 2018 come see me after 2018 is a short period of time let me invite Jerry Cohen to add his voice and I know he won't agree with the courage and coming back here and telling us how we should fix things and I I think you would be surprised to know the extent to which many of us agree with your message, certainly the burden.

I'm not an economist, we have many distinguished economists here. I would love to hear you address the question of whether the next 40 years will be As promising as the last 40 years have been for China's economy and development, as you rightly point out, I would love for you to also talk about what you lightly mentioned: there is no freedom of expression in China. I think you need to acknowledge the reality of what has been happening. in recent years there is increasing repression if things were so good for the growing middle class that economic development has generated why the need to increase repression arbitrary arrests anarchy partisan domination of judicial institutions and why is that necessary but that's my real My real question is that no one has mentioned Taiwan yet.

Could you give us your analysis of the Taiwan situation in the same way that you just gave us your analysis of the South China Sea situation because I think the Taiwan issue will be more difficult to address? deal with this and we may not have to deal with it forever. The decision to come here was a difficult question, but let me answer them as honestly as possible. In fact, Taiwan's problems are very easy to answer because, you know, there's something I didn't have time for. they say this the Chinese this is actually this is all that if you read immediately you read Kissinger's book on China and everywhere else they describe you when the Chinese look at a problem they always have a long-term view they don't have the American expectation that you you can solve problems within one presidential term in four years four years is just a drop in the bucket, they often have a 10 year, 20 year, 50 year perspective and I am absolutely sure they have a 50 year perspective on Taiwan and I think they are Understanding that they are going to develop a level of interconnectivity between Taiwan and China that would be phenomenal.

Rody is already there in terms of Taiwan's economic dependence on China in terms of people traveling from Taiwan to China, China to Taiwan, as you know, millions. travel etc, by the time Taiwan is so interconnected with China the idea of ​​independence will disappear and of course they will feel uncomfortable if a leader other than the KMT emerges, but now they are confident enough to know. I guarantee you that it is not a country. in the world today no country is going to recognize Taiwan as an independent country, it will not happen, in fact the few countries that still recognize the ROC are there because China wants to allow Taiwan to save face and are still allowed to keep some countries. but those countries, if the Chinese wanted them to flip the switch overnight, okay, then the Taiwan issue is not a problem, in that sense, they will be handled and they will be there too, by the way, there will be no conflict on the Taiwan question and I think The Taiwanese themselves also understand that the correlation of forces is working against them and they have to adapt and adjust even after a fraction.

Some of you may know him, you must know him, Taiwan's former foreign minister told me at a lecture at Harvard in 1991. Now, this was 27 years ago, Kishore said, all the Chinese have to do is announce a blockade from Taiwan, the insurance costs of each boat I want to be so high will disappear as an economy, so they want, they can, they can. Shut down the Taiwanese economy as long as it is, Taiwan is not the problem. I think they want to make sure it doesn't become independent, but that's not what they're worried about. Your first question is more difficult: why is repression increasing?

And the honest answer. What I can tell you is that at the end of the day the Chinese say that in order for the 1.4 billion people to continue doing well it is necessary to have a very high degree of political order and stability and Chinese history teaches you that when the center weakens you I know the Chinese word for chaos, I think it's luan or something, chaos returns, so they actually believe, as a principle of China's government, that strong central control is always necessary now, when you're talking about, let's say, higher levels of repression, the question is what is the benchmark that you are using, I mean, certainly, if you use the mouse times, things are obviously much better if you look in terms of I don't have the data, I think the you have, about the number of political prisoners, etc., etc.

I would say that if you go to China on a daily basis you don't see that in front of you, you know it and you know it. I would say that even I used to go to China and the In the early 1980s there was still a feeling of fear, it was there just today that feeling of fear has diminished and you're right, it's a complex story, but if you give any Chinese government the choice between stability and order or allowing dissent and chaos, they will choose stability in order and that is what they will do.

I would say the situation in Taiwan and you have a very optimistic view of the internal situation in China. He goes on to say that if the Chinese are one leader and the people around him now. There are great members of the elite who are very dissatisfied. Xi Jinping's father after 16 years and the Maoist wilderness returned in the early 1980s and preached to the party that we will never achieve our goals unless we allow differences of opinion. Buitoni Jim despite his preference. for Confucianism, which makes filial piety so crucial Xi Jinping has gone against his father's advice, he was also Chinese and there are many Chinese in the elite who are against the current repression, that is why the repression exists So I think China is in a more unstable place that Xi Jinping knows better than the rest of us in terms of corruption, poverty and environmental problems.

He knows that China is a cat on a hot tin roof that has a great global PR system right now, so I think. We have to be realistic and look at what is happening in China, let me tell you where I agree and disagree with you and Jerry. I agree with you that Xi Jinping is very aware of the tensions within China. I agree with you that let me tell you. Where I disagree with you, I have heard statements like yours consistently over the last 30 years. People have been making these statements about China about a tin roof about to collapse, etc., and so on, and I would say for 20 years.

I've been writing that that won't happen, that you can go back to my first book and the Nations thing is very clear, if down there you say you were wrong, that's fine, so no, no, I thought China will continue to grow. it will become stronger it will remain stable it will have a bigger economy it will educate more people it will send more young people abroad the younger the horses will return to the repressive country it will continue to send not 120 million but two years from not 200 great Chinese abroad and 200 in written Chinese abroad to the repressive society you talk about, so that's the data I give you first and also from your answers to the professor about Taiwan, I have to say from my experience in China extensively in regular meetings with Chinese business leaders .

I agree with your forward thinking in this regard: in the end there is an ethnicity and political differences will evaporate as cultural and economic ties grow, especially for the younger generation, and thank you for saying it so eloquently. but there is another elephant in the room and I would love to hear your opinions on the problem that I think is potentially worse, that is, the Korean problem, how we are going to deal with North Korea and how there is any hope then for the US and China. to get us closer in trying to resolve that thorny issue, please give us your opinion, the issue is very complicated, okay, but let me suggest to you that I am once again optimistic that there will be no war on the Korean Peninsula and I will tell you why what, because none of the great powers want to win the Korean Peninsula.

I see that the United States and China have not agreed on many things, but if you look at the remains of the diplomatic record of the last 20 or 30 years, it is paradoxical that the North Korea issue has often brought up American negotiators and Chinese move around the same table to continue talking and that is an issue on which they both agree and, as you know, China, to my surprise, I never thought that if you had asked me 20 years ago if China would have voted for favor of UN Security Council Sanctions on North Korea. I would have said that there was no way China would veto them.

I am surprised by China's water for various Security Council sanctions on North Korea and that is a big problem and it is important to emphasize that if the United States is frustrated with North Korea Korea China is even more frustrated with North Korea very deeply and they are very angry and if you want to know how angry it is something unusual, the recession xi Jinping became president, he never met the North Korean leader, that is a very powerful signal that is being sent there. is very unusual and that is why the Chinese realize that a war on the Korean PeninsulaIt would be disastrous and they would be trapped in a war they don't want, like the one in the first Korean WAPA, it is their solution and I think there is A solution has been written about it and it is based on an idea by Harvard professor Roderick MacFarquhar, who said that if the United States wants to give an incentive to China to encourage the reunification of the peninsula, the United States should declare that in the event that North and South Korea reunified all US forces would abandon the Korean Peninsula.

Korea would no longer be an ally of the United States and therefore an ally that the United States planted against China as an independent neutral country and then of course the Chinese would have invested interests in the sea, okay, maybe. a reunified Korea that is not an ally of the United States would not be something you can live with, but let me add something else, something more naughty that I put in my book, it's in the book, I put it in print so I can tell you. What I'm adding is that a neutral and independent race would be a much bigger problem for China than a Korea that is an ally of the United States, because the Koreans and the Chinese have had friction for 2,000 years and that friction is not going to end like this even .

If North Korea leaves and there is a united Korea, United Korea will assert its independence from China fiercely and as fiercely as the Vietnamese are doing and this is our history, so in that sense, a little more diplomatic flexibility on the part of USA. might make a difference on the issue, let me follow up on what you know, other than a reunified Korean Peninsula, what do you think it is? I mean, we have very bad behavior from North Korea and sanctions. The joint sanctions were a really important event. but I think you know we're in a situation where we expect China to do more hmm and have more influence in the north than any other country, so what do you think we can reasonably expect them to do in their own interest? to reduce tensions and produce better behavior from the North because you know it looks like an escalation, but over the last few weeks, well, the sad thing is, like I said on the North Korea thing, there are no good options, yeah. they're just bad choices and for example if you're right it's absolutely wrong for North Korea to have nuclear capability we need to stop it how do you stop it?

You start a war, you start a war tomorrow, you know, I don't. I don't know what the estimates are: between half a million and a million citizens of Seoul will die in 24 hours not from a nuclear bomb but from artillery bombardment. The North Koreans have a few thousand, several hundred thousand artillery positioned to launch thousands and thousands of projectiles. In Seoul, as you know, which is within artillery range for you, there is no option, so in a war you have to be prepared to accept 1 million dead on the first day. None of us want to accept threats.

We don't want to see one. people die on the first day, so there is no military option, so again, what do you do? You go back to a diplomatic option and you have to try to continue the process of squeezing North Korea, but yeah, the only radical idea I have is that you know. diplomacy was created about 2,000 years ago, not for Nabal, to talk to your friends, they got you a new envoy, an ambassador to a friendly capital, he returns with his head set on the old days, you sent an ambassador to an enemy capital , the king would behead the ambassador if he said something he didn't like it is a fact that happened then you created the concept of diplomatic immunity the concept of diplomatic immunity is the core of what diplomacy is it means you can send ambassadors to enemy capitals United States The United States is the only country that has reversed 2,000 years of diplomatic norms to say that when I send an ambassador to a country it is an act of approval but everything is wrong diplomacy means that when I send you an ambassador with diplomatic immunity I don't trust you , that is Why am I sending you diplomatic immunity but the United States believes that establishing relations with North Korea is an act of approval?

If establishing relations with Iran is an act of approval if they were established in Cuba and the approval of ekam is the opposite, then why not? The United States returns to a two thousand year old norm and immediately establishes an embassy in North Korea, what do you have to lose? Well, here's a former diplomat, let me ask Danny Russel to offer you some comments or questions, if I may. problem well thank you Kishore you covered a lot of ground and there are many areas where I could comment many things which I agree with as others have said that you asked for feedback and constructive criticism and one point I would like to make is that I think you are offering a bit of a red herring when you frame the question in terms of whether China should transition to democracy tomorrow.

I don't think that's the issue or question that arises from the statement you created about China's amazing economic growth, etc. I think the real question is whether he is right to raise the conundrum of whether assumptions about China and about the correlation between the engagement and behavior of economic growth and the emergence of democratic institutions are validated or not. not in the case of China, of course, the story did not end with their conference and I think these are questions that we will have to look at to find the answer, but the question is not whether China, quote, is ready for democracy there.

There are a thousand and one excuses why democracy is inconvenient for any authoritarian government. The question is whether China has the legitimacy of the institutions. Yes, China has the processes that will allow it to sustain social stability and economic development over time. So that's one question and the second. I think you are tremendously benign and your interpretation of China's behavior (the big mistake commonly made in Washington and elsewhere) is to conflate China's rise with China's actions, and the actions that are generating so much distrust include not only land reclamation in the South China Sea, but threats and interference with shipping and the activities of rival claimants and smaller powers, so the principle here is not the freedom of navigation operations of the 7th Fleet The US Navy threatens China, the point is that unless little Brunei has the ability to sail along the South China Sea in international waters without being threatened by the Chinese, then the global principle of freedom of navigation and freedom of the seas, which you rightly point out.

China should appreciate that it is subject to the China exception and I think that is a manifestation of the behavior that generates so much anxiety regarding the rise of China. Thanks Alma, those constructive comments are very useful because I'm actually looking for points like this that I can address in the book one the three key words you use, one is about democracy, is you, what you said is a red herring, So I would say that it is possible to persuade the United States to stop saying in its public statements like this. I quoted George W. Bush saying that China should become a democracy, why do we let the Chinese decide if they want to become a democracy?

Why does the United States have to tell China that it must become a democracy? I mean, like I said, one of the few in the future historian, why is this young nation giving advice to all civilizations? I would say if you can do that then it will stop being a problem, but if you continue to use it regularly, actually what it does is you know if I'm in this army, I don't want to, I was going to mention it in passing, okay, but there's a enormous cultural dimension to this problem and there is also a fear of what is called the Yellow Peril, deeply rooted in the subconscious of Western history and that is.

It's a big issue, but when you keep using democracy it's part of a weapon to try to maintain that distrust, that's why I say let the Chinese decide how they are going to become a democracy, then I would say the problem will go away. being such a big bomb the second big question uses a very critical word is legitimacy, so the question I want to ask very simply is: how many countries in the world see the Chinese government as a legitimate government of the Chinese people and how many Countries in the world saw the Chinese government as an illegitimate government as ambassador to the UN.

I can tell you that the vast majority of governments in the world see the Chinese government as a legitimate government and the sources of legitimacy in the West come from the process. of the elections to power, the sources of legitimacy and I can refer you to a TED talk by someone. Take a proper look at the competence of the Chinese government. Look what he has done for the Chinese people. Surely many other governments wish that they could do as much for their people in terms of improving the human condition of the population and that, I would say, is the fundamental source of their legitimacy now, thirdly and lastly, in the South China Sea, where, as you know, the United States has become a key player in the South China Sea issue, but what the Chinese say is that the Chinese and the United States are always arguing that China must comply with the rules of the Convention of the United Nations on the law of the sea in the South China Sea and say why the United States would ratify the Convention because I think that once you do it, if you don't do it, you have no moral that you haven't seen to advise others If you don't respect a convention, how can you ask others to respect the convention?

I can tell you about the South China Sea, just to also add to that in my conversations with Chinese officials many other ways to be fair. Retired officials privately admit they have made mistakes in the South China Sea, and the more thoughtful among them agree. With the argument that I present to you, I say that you know that China is a global power today. China needs freedom of navigation globally. If you claim the South China Sea within the nine-dash line as your territorial waters, you can get three percent of the world ocean. Losing ninety-seven percent of the world's oceans is not in their interest, creating a set of rules in the South China Sea that violate their global interests and I think they are starting to understand that and that is why, as you know , we surveyed ASEAN countries. the temperature is not like you know 2012 2014, you know it has dropped significantly and hopefully progress will be made on that code of conduct and it is a result, I think on the part of the Chinese understanding they have also been assertive in the Sea of South China and it has cost them something.

I think we're almost out of time. We have one. Could you put together two last quick questions and let him have the last word? Press or in French and then I'll decide. I'm going to try to be. Quick, this is pressure, I want to raise the possibility that there have been, first of all, many things to admire and among your comments, but I want to raise the possibility that you possibly have, I don't think you're from here, sir. Fraley, let me put it a different way, maybe one of them looking back and the other looking forward, so you've put a lot of emphasis on the United States lecturing China about democracy.

I guarantee you that the trend over time has actually been the opposite. direction in which it places American diplomacy, public diplomacy places much less emphasis on democracy in general over time and especially in discussions with or around China, and can be combined with the explicit term democracy a variety of related terms, such as human rights, etc., that the United States follows the trend if you were able to plan this through news articles or State Department accounts is to actually be more crude about it. More face to China on this issue. However, the bigger question when I asked him, looking back, is whether he has failed to give enough credit to the United States for adapting to China in terms of its economic rise;

In other words, I'm not saying this is protectionist at all; However, the United States has made possible China's rise by absorbing its surpluses by helping to incorporate it into the World Trade Organization and Since these things have happened at arguably considerable cost to the United States, what we have seen on the Chinese side is , in fact, a language that does not recognize these things before its own public and the fact that this fact I want to ask you, I want to ask you whether or not this fact creates the possibility that there are reasons for distrust in the United States about the socialization of Chinese public opinion and attitudes towards globalization, towards multilateralism and towards the United States, and specify the second question that I will ask more quickly, what is this about the future, a great question and a lot for him to talk about in the last 40 years and the next 40 years economic prospects for the Chinese economy in the next 40 years in the 1990s 1980s 1990s the economy grew if you analyze the Chinese figures to believe it, GDP growth rate of 10%, rate ofcurrent GDP growth of sorts of 7% annually, okay, at the same time a huge labor shortage has been created, wages have increased and that is creating problems for policy makers, which is affecting the growth rate of the economy and now they say people have two children instead of one like before, I mean, or they would allow immigrants to come to China from I don't know from Vietnam.

What do you think are the economic prospects for this very high-wage, labor-scarce economy? I know your time is short, yes, let me answer your question in the first part. If I talk to you about Chinese management of the economy, you are right, I am talking about the one-child policy and they have demographic problems coming up, etc. and so on, but I would say the only thing the Chinese are good at is looking at a problem twenty years from now, thirty years from now, and working backwards and saying, well, what are the implications for current policy and As you know, they have moved from the one-child policy to encouraging children to obtain all kinds of qualifications, but more or less most people can have two children, but the surprising thing about the Chinese economy is that already It is not ceasing to depend on cheap labor and I believe that today China has the largest robot army of any economy in the world.

They obviously anticipated that there will be labor shortages, so China will be ahead of the curve in terms of moving away from cheap labor. Yes, yes, the robot. they have, they have, they have invested massively in robots, etc., so they are ahead of the curve in terms of addressing that problem and by the way, China doesn't have to grow at ten percent, it doesn't have to. grow at seven percent, all you need to do is grow at five percent, you will double your seventy-two law economy in 14 years, so can you imagine that in the next 30 years it will double and by then the Chinese economy will it be maybe double?

The size is okay, possibly the United States and I always say you know when you have two armies, if your army is twice the size of the army opposing you you have a strategy, but when your army becomes half the size of the army that deals with you. change of strategy and that's the fundamental thing that I think the United States is going to have to do, it's going to have to deal with a much bigger elephant than in the past and I think that's what I mean is that 5% growth is all that is needed do and can deliver 5% quite easily now, what will it be like?

Your question is very complex, but I completely agree with you that the United States has been exceptionally generous to us, China. I mean, I'm sure this is another question that future historians will scratch their heads and say: did you notice? So China is emerging as a great power competitor, why did it shut down its economy and prevent Chinese exports to the United States? And I'm sure the Chinese themselves are a little baffled. Wow, America is still so generous. to China and it is a fact and it is an important fact because it also explains why at the end of the day the Chinese are also very careful in the way they treat the United States on both sides and I must say this in passing as I foresee problems arising .

So far, both Washington DC and Beijing have handled this relationship incredibly well. I give credit to both capitals. Diplomats on both sides have done a very good job. There have been ups and downs. You know, it's been trouble and all, but. I have achieved this so far and I would say that they can continue with this level of management. I mean your dialogue, your strategic economic dialogue every year, those things make a difference and those things should continue and of course if you continue to increase the level of economy. commitment that will also be something extremely important and I must say to the United States that it is surprising how generous they have been to China.

Well, I think we've unfortunately come to the end of our time, I've noticed. I think we've had very few questions from students, but I think the Lepton news comes up and I ask you a few questions for a moment or two afterwards, please join me in thanking you.