rally in florida. c-span see that live on at 7:00. and look at china's global influence. discussion is hosted by the hudson institute. it is about 90 minutes. >> good >> good afternoon, everyone. i'm a visitor here. i'm the vice president of the east-west center and senior advisor to the center for naval analysis. i'm delighted to have been asked to moderate this panel with this distinguished group of experts on the indo pacific region. a real mover and shaker in his energy and enthusiasm while here

in putting together first-class programs looking at the region and particularly china's role in it and today's program countering china in the indo pacific is very much in keeping with his -- the thrust of his work here at the hudson institute. so congratulations on bringing this to fruition. and he's also assembled an absolutely first-rate gripe of -- group of experts. starting immediately from my left in the order they will in , richard, currently taiwan, has just completed a new book and he'll touch a bit on that. he's one of the foremost authorities on southeast asia and the philippines and particularly the philippine-china relationship. to his left, just returned to washington to become the head of the u.s. effort of the observer research foundation.

i first met him almost 30 years ago in japan. delighted to see how you've developed into an absolute first-class institute leader, but also a scholar and analyst on the region. and i met today lisolette, a senior fellow here at the institute. what's terrific about having her here is her work, as i was doing the background work, is really -- icks up the u.s.-china u.s., china and europe threat. i think it's more salient as we look at post-brexit u.k. and we look atle the role of france and other -- at the role of france and other european states in the indo pacific and look forward to hearing from her. and of course our chair and leader of this effort. so, format is very simple. three of our presenters have a

power point presentation. they'll make their case. and then we'll go one rep through the other and then open it up for a qy and a and each of them will speak for an allotted amount of time. i'll try to catch their attention to keep them on schedule so that we can give maximum time to you to ask questions and make comments from the floor. with that, again, thank you for joining us. richard, may i invite you, please. yes. he's very high-tech so he has a phone keeping track of his time. >> i'll try to behave myself. thank you very much. good morning. it's a pleasure. i hope i'm my usual energetic version. i'm still halfway into a five or six country speaking tour right now. it's a pleasure to be here in hudson institute. it's one of the places i love because i feel i don't need to be very politically correct when it comes to discussions of china. my experience in speaking across the region is that i have to be always much more careful about

my language, sometimes you use assertiveness rather than aggression. here i feel i can be more free flowing and more myself. you can imagine why i'm not very popular amongst some friends in southeast airborne yafment i'm also very indebted to hudson institute. i just finished a book on indo pacific. i think it's the first book. it's around 400 pages based on 10 years of writing and experience across the indo pacific. my dad comes from the caspian region. my mom comes from southeast asia . more or less ethnically i covered the indo pacific. i've written books and written a lot about the regions. , try to bring them together particularly under the trump administration and how we're going move forward. we gave a presentation last year on indo pacific and southeast asia's place in that and that presentation we had here really helped me to put the final touches to the book.

the more politically correct term was china's -- [indiscernible] -- to germany. i think premature pretty much puts it where i need it to be put. the question also right now is how do we preserve peace and stability in the indo pacific and this is not about confronting china per se or excluding china but how to make sure that we manage the rise of china in ways that is mutually acceptable and mutually beneficial. this is the book, sorry, it was too fresh, i couldn't bring copies. maybe early next year i can come back for a proper book tour on that. when it comes tonding what's happening in the pacific, particularly in the asia-pacific, i think there are two figures that help me a lot to frame the question and possible answer. one is, of course, the late singaporian leader. he was not right on everything but i think he got china very much right and he was the bridge between the west and the east, especially when it comes to engagement with china and the other one, is of course, one of

my favorite philosophers, walter. these are the two that are think are very important for us to keep in mind. one of the observations made that made a huge impression on me was that the rise of china, especially for us in southeast asia, is so dramatic that it's not going to only require tactical balance of power adjustment. it's going to change the system itself. because of the sheer size and influence and ambition of china. this is going to change the game and we're starting to feel that right now. walter also talked about how behind every fascism there's a failed revolution. now, i'm not saying that china is a fascist. but what i'm trying to say here is that i think the

confrontation and the tensions that we see today in east asia is also very much a product of our inability to create perpetual peace to strong institutions that will preserve pacifist and dialogue-based intersection. this is where coming from southeast asia, i'm also slightly critical of us aian. i feel we could do a much better job in ensuring we negotiate a great power relationship with much more prerogativeness and willingness which we're not doing. to defend, because i tend to get misunderstood on this issue, it has achieved a lot. if you're familiar with southeast asian geopolitics, in the 1960's, for instance, controversy was the name of the game. ar among core countries was almost inevitable in the eyes of some people. i remember going to the wikileaks cable and in one of

the cables i saw something interesting that a senior administration in malaysia asked a foreign minister to talk to britain for britain to talk to kissinger, for kissinger to talk to nixon, for nixon to talk to marcus, the dictator of the philippines back then, not to invade malaysia over this issue. so in the late 1960's the question of war was very much in the air. 50 years forward, the notion of war or even the threat of use of war among southeast asiaia -- asian countries is almost unthinkable. that's a huge achievement itself. we have established a kind of security community among ourselves. whereby even the threat of war, despite impending and lingering territorial disputes, is unthinkable. it's not that we're short of conflicts, intention, but we're -- and tensions, but we're definitely not short on ways to manth disputes ourselves. it was also able to finalize a free trade agreement way ahead of time, of schedule.

bringing down -- [indiscernible] -- to zoreo and it made us so ambitious we thought we could make an economic community by 2015. we missed the mark but we move forward quite quickly on that issue. asian countries have also been effective in pushing for nontraditional security cooperation, whether anti-piracy, counterterrorism and most recently, after the southern philippines and others have been doing coordinated trilateral patrols to make sure that isis elements will not enter especially philippines areas and we're having more intelligence sharing and cooperation among chris. a lot has happened here but above all what it has to offer is convening power. the ability to bring big powers together, including sometimes north korea. if you look at the asian regional forum skgs discussions. so they can talk. better jaw-jaw than war-war. as someone who has spent time in the middle east, i could say that i really prefer what we

have in southeast asia than the "game of thrones" situation they have there. i think even "game of thrones" doesn't capture what's happening there in the persian gulf. i think the illusions here is that the asian, the effectiveness that we had in creating a security community among ourselves, smaller countries, will also be able to be as effective in terms of socializing other great powers to internalize our principles of how to deal with our problems and interstate tensions. the reality, though, is that the asian i think has a fundamental misunderstanding of some of its own key principles. the two key principles are -- [indiscernible] -- consultation and consensus, but in the asian, our understanding of consensus is unanimity. if you look at it particularly on questions of security, politics and human rights. unanimity is a very problematic way of understanding it because,

a, unanimity means every country effectively has a veto power. and b, if you're an external power whodunit want us aian to be united on an issue, all you need to do is to exert pressure and lean on one of members of the asean regardless of the degree of concern that asean country in order to sabotage ewe unity. i don't blame them if there's sometimes seen as saab tours. because from their point of view, -- saab tours. because from their point of view, why should we risk pistonsing off the chinese who are a major source of investment and diplomatic support when we have nothing in the south china sea disputes. i remember well the prime minister in 2015 right before the philippine arbitration award against china came out, he said, this is a political issue. we don't want to do anything about it.

so this is a problem whereby you don't have weighted majority voting, you don't have majority voting. you have unanimity decision making. you're asking for trouble. my term for that is middle income trout or a middle aged trout. the kind of decision making process that allows the asean to create peace among ourselves over the past 50 years is no longer effective in terms of creating peace among major powers. that is also today affecting us very much. this is very much related to the indo pacific discussion. and this is where asean is increasingly moving from centrality to something else. the reality is that while the asean is struggling, china is changing facts on the ground. let's be clear about that. over the past two or three years, china's deployed surface missiles, admiral davidson calls it a great wall of sams. electronic jam equipment, nuclear capable bombers, the

chinese coast guard now is the extension of the p.l.a. navy. we see more military forces from china pushing the envelope and engaging in aggressive action against countries across the region. so, the level of diplomatic dine mitchell of asean is not catching up with the facts on the ground. while we're talking about a code of conduct with china, china is changing fast on the ground on a daily basis. so while we're wasting our time in negotiations, which by the way we're not even sure it's going to be legally binding, we're not going to be sure if it's going to be legally binding, whose interpretation of international law, facts on the ground are changing. nonetheless, my message here is one of cautious optimism. my message is that there are reasons to be skeptical. i come from the philippines, one of our icons -- if i'm going to use boxing as a metaphor, i think we're in round four and he's going to do to round 12, if not more.

why? the first reason is i think america's power and the resilience of its power and influence in asia has been underestimated. if you look at much more observant analysis of america's power, for instance, i think michael bigly has done a good -- beckley has done a good job. talking about net power. a lot of people think china is take over because their g.d.p. size is so large but the country's power is not just the growth size of your economy. it's your net power and ecological resources and human capital. the living standard of your people. how much power you can deploy. the technology you dispose of. if you look at the data over the past 20 years, you're not seeing much convergence between china and the united states. u.s. has to grow only 3% or 4% to match china's 10% growth because the base of america's economy is much larger. if you look at cutting edge technology, u.s. is still way ahead. there is a very interesting

observation by people including -- that everyone is panicking about china creating one million scientists per year but the question is the quality of scientists. a lot of people have vocational training. what is their citation rate? quality very much matters where you talk about net power and competition. this is very interesting. people were asked across asia-pacific, who do you still prefer to be the world's leader? u.s. still comes on top. it despite the fact that there have been some doubts about the trump administration, the unprohibit county of the new american president, -- unpredictability of the new american president, the u.s. is still someone they trust to be the leader. for more cynical people, it's the devil we know, that's the perspective they have. when this is a survey, people were asked about china's initiative. actually majority were skeptical about this. so while -- [indiscernible] -- welcome china's investment, with the exception perhaps of the

prime minister and we'll talk about that later on, the reality is that behind this there's a lot of skepticism among experts, governing officials and people underground. the other thing is we also have to put things into context. there's a lot of criticism about president trump's supposedly ditching the t.p.p., weakening american position in this part of the world. on for a lot of countries the front line of china's assertiveness or aggression, the u.s. is even more reliable than the obama administration. for instance, if you look at the freedom of navigation operation, they're much more regular and expansive and extending to areas like the scarborough shore. u.s. is using more advanced warships. you're seeing more pushback. despite diplomatic tensions between the countries like the philippines and united states er the past three years, the foreign military fanning from the u.s. has more than doubled

o the philippines. more than any indo pacific country, more than any time in the history of philippine-u.s. military cooperation since the second world war. more interestingly, you also see more presence by the u.s. coast guard. we were just in halifax the other day and i got to catch up with the admiral who is the head of the u.s. coast guard. since last year, you know, we have to acknowledge that the u.s. coast guard is doing a great job of doing their own version of joint exercises with regional coast guard commands and helping capacity building among countries in southeast asia. these are very important things. but the second thing i have to emphasize is that everyone talks about, we have a dichotomy whereby china dominates economy and u.s. dominates security. it's way more complicated. let's look at the frontier of geopolitical competition which is infrastructure development. if you look at infrastructure development, especially in southeast asia, china is not the one leading.

it's japan. if you look at data. and this is where i always make this comment. china get more bang out of imaginary bucks sometimes. they're better salesmen than any other countries in this part of the world. this is an interesting data that came out and bloomberg made a very interesting report on that. if you look at southeast asia, japan has more infrastructure development projects. that's on top of the fact that japan has already been the leading source of infrastructure development and overseas development assistance in southeast asia. i think a lot of us are underestimating the predominance, the economic predominance of japan in east asia, although of course in terms of trade and investment flows china has been taking over over the past 15 years. more importantly, if you look at key countries in southeast asia and countries in the south china sea like vietnam and the philippines, by far japan is the top investor in infrastructure. in the philippines, for instance, out of the top big ticket infrastructure projects

of china, not a single one has cleared the preliminary phases. one or two has done it but i'm not sure $60 million is considered a big ticket project. more than that, a lot of these prongs could have immensely negative economic impacts on age didge news to peoples and communities in the area -- on indigenous peoples and communities in the area. it's much more problematic. if you look at vietnam, it's fascinating that japan is way ahead of china, in terms of overall investment. so you have 74 projects by japan in vietnam versus 24 by japan. if you look at who is the rising power in southeast asia, without question that is vietnam. they're leading the fight in terms of drawing the line in the south china sea. here again you see clearly in vietnam and in the philippines, china -- japan is well ahead in terms of infrastructure development.

but it's not only them. it's also india. i think the role of india and also australia in terms of capacity building in the region is underestimated. if you look at efforts of quad countries in terms of providing alternative avenues for raising infrastructure capital for developing projects in southeast asia, if you look at australia helping the philippines in counterterrorism and dealing with the isis threat, a lot of things are happening which are not appreciated enough. i'll leave that to our experts here on the ground. a lot of people underestimate the struggle for autonomy and strategic astuteness of smaller countries in southeast asia. i'll take an issue with the word small. indonesia is 270 million people last time i checked. it's almost american sized in terms of demographics. in terms of g.d.p., indonesia is expected to be among the top five biggest economies in the world in the next two decades and probably even number three or four before the end of the century. it's a huge country.

at some point it may be so big that they'll outgrow asean. but philippines is more than 100 million and so is vietnam. these countries are going to be trillion-dollar g.d.p.'s in the near to medium future. asean is not a collection of small chris, it's a collection of highly -- countries, it's a collection of highly dynamic middle powers that could be a force on their own terms. although they're going through difficult times. if you look at countries in southeast asia, plus taiwan also, of course we're -- they're very much at the front line, you see actually leaders of this country very astutely, you know, engaging china, but at the same time trying to preserve some room for maneuver. case in point is the prime minister. he's 94, going to turn 95 soon. very lose i had. top of his for the -- lucid. top of his portfolio. he took the fight to china and managed to get $6 billion of renegotiation of the contracts

with them. on other issues, vietnam is pushing for a legally binding code of conduct and pushing for more pushback against china in the south china sea or in the case of taiwan, for instance, very much aggressively highlighting power operations which is a different topic. but if you want to learn about their influence operations, i think the taiwanese are the best people to talk to. in fairness to them, they've been pushing back and quite successful in that and taiwan is going to pull off a hurried election. i'm almost done. the thing is this. what is the way forward? i think the way forward is very clear. first of all, you have to make sure that the whole discussion of the indo pacific is not a euphemism for saying asean is no longer relevant. that's why the asean had to come up with its own outlook on the indo pacific to ensure that it still has a space. the asean point of view, this is the average point of view, is that we have to be aware of

threats from china, but at the same time we have to recognize that china is a player and china is, whether we like it or not, part of the game. engagement with china is inevitable. but how do we engage in ways that make china more responsive to the needs and sensitivities of smaller countries? as for quad countries, rather than talking about creating a countercoalition or counteralliance against china, i think it's much more important to focus on capacity building and strengthening smaller countries' ability to actually defend themselves. i think that's the best way in order to deal with the threats that is emerging from china. but at the same time it's important that america and its key allies have more of a strategic presence in this part of the world. lastly, in the asean, as much as we want to talk about multilateralism, the reality is that the consensus decision making process is unanimity-based decision making process. the best way to serve multilateralism, the best way to make asean more effective is

mini lateralism. engagement among key countries in asean and engagement of quad countries with key countries within the asean. we're talking about indonesia, we're talking about the philippines and vietnam, malaysia and theseky countries. if the quad countries can have effective and institutionalized quoopings these countries on issues whereby we have concerns with china, i think that's more than enough. you don't need to get all 10 asean countries onboard. true mini lateralism, you can make asean much more rel vanlt. it's a controversial issue but i'll leave it there until the question and answer. thank you very much. [applause] >> terrific. we'll come back to that. congratulations on your book. look forward to more on that.

thank you. over the last three years i spent a lot of time crisscrossing what we now call the indo pacific region. from tokyo to taipei, from qual lamb pure to colombo and from perth toport blair. in most of those places i ran into richard at some point along the way. one of the things that struck me in all of these places is capital -- capitals, these regional centers, is i heard very similar concerns about the rise of china. every country had its own priorities and interesting but we could categorize them or compartmentalize them into four broad areas. of shared concern. the first had to do with the lack of transparency of decision making. china's no longer an inward looking country. it has global interests.

it's playing in very active economic and diplomatic and security roles in many different parts of the world. but for the first time in a century, we're seeing a truly global power, perhaps with the exception of the soviet union, a truly global power that has a closed system of governance. even when decisions are made in beijing, they're viewed with a great deal of suspicion. a second broad area of concern had to do with the lack of economic reciprocity. there was a view that china was not a market economy. policy.mercantile whether it was a lack of market access, whether it was concerns about debt, whether it was issues related to contracts, this was another theme that was common in many different places. a third theme had to do with territorial revisionism. whether it was in the east china sea over the islands, or in the

south china sea, or in the himly aias between china and india, we -- in all of these places you see china using nominally civilian tools to advance sfp in some ways its territorial ambitions. finally, we saw -- we see quite consistently, although not in all areas, a certain disrespect for international norms. whether in terms of freedom of navigation, whether in terms of cybersecurity and internet governance, or whether in terms of the arctic and antarctic treaty systems which have been a point of great concern. india has certain specific concerns related to china's rise. i should say that in many ways what we are seeing has been advantages, not just to chinese citizens in the sense of being a driver of global economic growth, lifting tens of millions

of people out of poverty, and indeed all of us in some ways have directly or indirectly benefited from china's rise over the last few years. but nevertheless, a country like india has certain specific concerns. one, there is a large boundary dispute between the two countries. it's not made the news very much because it's been a largely peaceful boundary in the sense that nobody has been -- there hasn't been a violent or lethal incident on the boundary for the last 40 years. but nonetheless, just to put in perspective, this is a boubdry dispute over territory the size of indiana, effectively china claims the entire state of india, home to two million people. we have seen run-s in -- run-ins in 2007. there was quite a tense standoff for two months between chinese and indian forces at a very high altitude in territory dispute between china and bhutan. indians forces intervened to

prevent china from building a road in this disputed territory. a secondary major difference has to do with the massive trade deficit between the two. it currently stands about $50 billion, that's dropped from over $60 billion last year. this is about the size of india's entire defense budget. so effectively, india has taken china every year the equivalent of its entire defense budget. there are many reasons for this trade deficit. lack of indian competitiveness has to do with some of it. we have seen a trend emerge where indian companies, which are competitive in the united states and in europe and in southeast asia, and the middle east, are not able to compete in the chinese marketplace. and this has been -- this is an issue that has been raised repeatedly by indian industry. a third concern has to do with the road initiative which india was in 2007 the first country to

at least diplomatically boycott. in april of 2020 china organized a large forum in beijing, invited several countries, many of whom, including japan and the united states, sent delegations to this forum. india opted not to participate in that and continues to at least officially boycott the road initiative. in fact, india spelled out a series of concerns which was not to do with chinese investment or chinese infrastructure per se, but rather that such investment in infrastructure was not sustainable, was not transparent in terms of its contracting, did not respect local skills and labor or environmental concerns, and did not always respect sovereignty. these are concerns that india articulated in april of 2017 and we've seen similar language, certain concerns echoed by many other countries subsequently. we've seen these manifested -- the concerns in some ways have

played themselves out in countries like sri lanka. there are rising concerns about the sustainability of the china-pakistan economic corridor and of course concerns about port facilities that china's investing in across the indian ocean and beyond. . india has concerns regarding global governance. there were people working to reform financial institutions as what they saw as a global financial crisis. in recent years we have seen china abandon this rhetoric of rising powers rising together nd we are seeing now china block indian entry into international institutions whether the nuclear suppliers' group or u.n. security council

and not particularly helpful as other forums in which the two countries are both members. what i'm trying -- if there is one takeaway, we are seeing a competitive relationship between india and china emerging. and this is unlikely to change barring radical confirmations on the part of china which have very little to do with india. what is india doing about it? i'll run through a few quick slides. maybe i can get by without the slides. a few things g -- that i think are -- india is doing which is of importance, which i will briefly outline.

we have seen a major stepping up in the indian ocean led by the indian navy and you can see in trends of overseas assistance. and this includes india establishing a fusion center in india to monitor traffic in the indian ocean region and entering into a number of agreements with china, japan and others. late 2017, the indian navy changed this tempo and now conducts year-round operations in seven zones including the gulf of aiden and the straits and mad gas car. you see increasing interoperability and conducts operations across the indian ocean. these are growing in sophistication.

just conducted its amphibious landing for disaster relief. you have seen the first table topic sorkts involving the quad countries, united states, japan, india and australia. and there was a along with the united states and philippines in the south china sea. this isn't breaking new ground. and we are seeing some capacity building efforts and some of the efforts in which india is investing in military infrastructure. second broad objective is integration with southeast asian india is engaged in the form of the east asian summit and you are seeing efforts at building roads. and indian friendship highway

will connect independent yeah to the thai and then go east to vietnam. you are seeing security arrangements. indonesian held its exercises in vietnam and air pilots from. india and singapore have a maritime agreement. so you see in some ways a growth of partnerships emerging here. additionally, india is developing deeper partnerships with other powers that shares concerns about china and that includes the united states, japan and australia and france and even russia. and just to give a few other examples of this. we had the the first trilateral exercises involving the united

states japan and india. they were held in the east china sea. so that is an example of the growing cooperation, india-australia held their first submarine exercises and first india-japan air force exercises in 2018 as well. finally, like all countries, there is an element of managing relations with china, managing these differences and you are seeing attempts of trying to construct a constructive engagement. to date, the efforts have been modest and this is a critical element and the prime minister india and president xi held sum myths. the last one in india just a short while ago but in 2018 in china. in conclusion, what i would say is these efforts that i spelled out driven by the new security

imperatives align rather well with the united states free and open pacific. in fact, i would say the relationship between the united states and india is one of the few that has improved from the clinton administration to the bush administration, from the obama administration and onto the obama administration and trump administration. we have seen in some ways there have been bumps in the road it has been positive. and in terms of security in the independento-pacific, it has accelerated under the trump administration. there isn't unhappiness of the trump administration calling out unfair trade practices and the u.s. stepping up its security presence including in the south china sea and in terms of improved coordination with partners including japan

australia and richard spoke about that. and just in terms of public opinion, a survey taken in 2017 after the election of president trump found that india was the least anti-american country of he 40-plus countries surveyed. 90% didn't have an unfavorable support. there is support. i leave on three issues that i see that are slightly complicating. we should highlight these. there are some growing pains of indo s.-independento -- partnership. the security in the united states has grown accustomed to and creating carveouts. and there are certain others. and these are being addressed slowly. in two agreements that have been

signed, one logistics support agreement which is between u.s. and india and secure communications agreement which was signed in the last year and these are emblem attic of the developments taking place but it doesn't go in a hub and spoke alliance that the u.s. has enjoyed sometimes complicates the relationship a little bit. there have been differences in the bilateral relationships. while the strategic relationship is growing, there are some differences that have -- i wouldn't say it is imperiled but complicated particularly over trade issues. even though the united states has similar concerns about china, china's unfair trade practices, that hasn't led to a greater convergens between the united states and india. there are some differences over

approaching partners and most notely over russia. russia remains the largest provider of defense equipment to india. the united states a distant second, but i think the view in india there are growing concerns about the russia-china partnership that is emerging and the way to address that is to continue to engage with russia. it's easier because india and russia don't have intrinsic differences but complicated that the u.s. congress has applied stringent sanctions on russia. dia's acquisition of a major anti-aircraft system from russia threatens the possibility of u.s. sanctions on india for this. this shows in some ways the complications that may arise from the different perspectives on the partnership. let me end on that note and

thank you for your time and attention. [applause] >> thank you very much. and we will return to some of that, particularly how the growing u.s.-india relationship and managing the india-china relationship. senior fellow here at the hudson institute will talk about china and europe and also the u.s. >> i will talk about whether europe has a role to play in between u.s.-chinese strategic competition in the indo-pacific and you both have a role to play. when i came here sometime when europe was mentioned, people uld say that europe just sailed a couple of ships through the south china sea and doesn't make a difference to anyone.

and i would like to explain why i think it makes a difference in the indo-pacific. to do that, i need to explain how europe works because that is also misunderstood here in my opinion, either people see europe as the sort of failed attempt to be a unitary state or a multi lateral institution, but in reality it is probably somewhere in between. in washington, there is a lot of talk about the frailty of europe and how diss integ rating. when you come from europe, things look very differently and most people in europe has a sense that europe has been renewed and that indeed it has been strengthened by recent hallenges.

institutions do play a key role in devising for the member states and cannot be bypassed without severe repercussions in terms of losing influence. all the member states recognize they need to back up on these issues and have one mandate to negotiate with others if they want influence in the world and that means even major states such as france accepts a mandate that they are not always happy with on the issue of trade. but on that issue, the european institutions have a lot of power. there are other issue areas where the european union has not traditionally played such a big role and that would include

security and defense issues in e ind omp pacific and how to counter chinese industrial and investment policies that are seen as detrimental to europe. but in these areas, new initiatives and partnerships are emerging that allows europe to contribute in ways that we have not seen before despite the formal weakness of the institutions. and the way that that works is that what you do in practice is that you develop a division of labor between the e.u. institutions and groups of member states so that the e.u. decides a general policy and then individual countries, groups of countries have the space to translate these general policies into practical

initiatives and away getting around the fact when you have 27 member states, there will be outliars that disagree with the general line. that is a desirable division of labor because it is seen as europe acting and not individual countries and the groups that take action have greater freedom and that will be followed up in practice. such efforts have allowed europe recently to demonstrate support for core values with the u.s. thisndo-pacific allies but is from an independent decision that allows europe to align itself with other actors on the basis of european values and priorities. for example, by cooperating with multi lateral institutions such

as the arab league, which not all of its partners agree with and also by promoting initiatives such as the euro-asian connectivity plan that was adopted by europe in october of 2018. let me turn to european security initiatives in the ido pacific. there is a growing competition in this area between china and the u.s. and also some u.s. allies and partners. d i guessesly the concern is to try to prevent an area like e indian ocean turns into an area of conflict to the extent that the south china sea has already become. and there is a recognition that the indian ocean is linked to

the other parts of the asia pacific and now using the term the indo pacific. in this region, europe can only have general policies because as mentioned because the institutions don't have sonchts to decide what the member states should do beyond the trade issue. however, what the e.u. has done is to initiate a number of economic and strategic partnerships with key partners that are also allies of the united states. so, for example, the e.u. and japan has entered into an economic partnership agreement in december, 2017, that sended a powerful signal against protectionism. and in 2018, they entered a

strategic partnership agreement that was signed and facilitated security cooperation between the two. the e.u. has a long standing partnership, strategic partnership with india since 2004 and from 2019, this is eing transformed into a more security-oriented partnership with a focus on the indian ocean. india and singapore have security cooperation in 2018 including a free trade agreement. and the e.u. sees singapore as a link to have wider and closer economic and security relationships with the rest of southeast asia. europe has also linked up with the arab league having their

fifth joint summit in february, 2019 in egypt. this was seen as an opportunity for europe to protect against growing chinese-russian influence with an organization that the u.s. does not wish to address or work with. so the e.u. seeks closer relations with asian states that are considered compatible with european liberal economic and political values and that are also critical and concerned about china's growing asertiveness in the region. in terms of security, defense and practice, since 2016, there has been a french-led effort to conduct naval diplomacy in the indo pacific to complement the general policies of the european

institution and since then, a number of european countries have conducted maritime operations and naval diplomacy in the indo pacific. of course, such an effort takes a long time to buildup. there are all sorts of challenges to do this. working with new partners. denmark is part of a french carrier group for the first time this year and never performed in that function, so it takes time to integrate these forces. the french carrier has been east of india since 2002 until this year. and so the environmental conditions, the winds, et cetera, is not known and they have to get acquainted with that and what it means for their operation. i was deployed for months with the carrier group and it means a

lot. details means that these things take time to buildup. but in view of that, i would say they have come quite far in king an effort to complement the deployment of other allies in the region. the carrier group this year sailed from the mediterranean to the suez canal and singapore, rotating cast of allied ships was part of the carrier group. there was portugal, danish contributions, italy and the u.s. also participated. and so transatlantic unity concerning the french initiative was demonstrated. during the deployment, the group participated in maritime

ercises with the indian-australian-japanese neafs and with the egyptian navy on the way back when the u.s. had left the carrier group. this tour as mentioned as evidenced, singapore another important partner of europe, it's an authoritarian state but embedded in the alliance system. it is a highly economic country and linchinged with china and the u.s. and this is the kind of policy line that europe also adopts not seeing china as a wholesale enemy, but as some where in between a competitor and a partner. so this was an attempt to

demonstrate that there is complement between the work done n european institutions in the indo pacific and group of countries that happens on the ground and that is intended to emphasize and to strengthen and to secure that europe has an actual footprint in the indo pacific. you could say does this matter? but i think it's important not to see the european contribution and isolation, but see it as part of the efforts of india, japan, australia and the u.s. to share a basis to work together as indicated by all the joint exercises. that means that if you put all these efforts together, it's actually quite a formidable or

impressive attempt to build a sort of quasialliance relationship with allies and partners across the indo effort in an effort to push back against chinese policies that are unpopular. in europe's case, as is the case with india, as we could see from india's partnership, it does happen from an independent position. so europe is becoming more and more aware of what is in europe's interest and it will make these efforts under that heading that europe may see certain things differently from its allies and partners. so for example, in the south china sea sail-throughs that are part of this tour, europe will not sail within 12 nautical miles of china's because in

europe's views that is entering into a legal grave zone and europe doesn't wish to do that because they feel that could give problems when arguing that europe is for the rule of law and rule of face order. that is different than u.s. policies but essentially europe conducts freedom of navigation operations that is supportive of the efforts of the u.s. and other countries. so while there are differences, i would say they are minor compared to the similarities in terms of objectives of the efforts. so this kind of division of labor that allows europe to have a footprint in the indo pacific, i think we will see more and more of in areas where the

institutions do not have as much formal sovereignty. for example, the e.u. of robust defense policies against unfair chinese trade and industrial policies, there you see the same kind of pattern whereas the european institution prepare to cross border cooperation and industrial policies to deal with china's undermining of intellectual property rights, data security, et cetera. in making these efforts, it is important, i would argue, to coordinate initiatives between lies and partners to avoid that we work across purposes. for example, u.s. participation in european naval diplomacy is a good thing, allied coordination of infrastructure projects in

asia is also important, but provided that this takes place and i believe it does, then i think this is quite a strong fort to demonstrate to china that there are common values and interests across a wide range of indo pacific resident powers and also external powers that are willing to make an effort to push back what is seen as an increasingly problematic chinese behavior in the indo pacific. thank you. [applause] >> final speaker is up next.

>> thank you very much for joining the event today and your participation is honorable and thank you. from now, i will make this a short presentation. therefore, if you need to go to rest room or taking a coffee, you need to hurry. so the title of my presentation is u.s. policy towards china, view from china. i'm japanese. recently, united states has been pushing pressure on china. since 2017 states explicitly, china and american power. the u.s. defense department in the pacific strategy also orecasting presented by china.

vice president mike pence has issued in october, 2018, this is the picture and secretary of state mike pompeo have some interests last month, also pointed to the china threat. chinauary, 2018, u.s. had and in response, china imports their own tariffs on the united states. the u.s. imports more tariffs on china. so how should japan view this u.s. action? [indiscernible] recently diplomat attic relations have been improving

and president trump will go to japan in april, 2020. japan should welcome this. as the national responsibility. why? [indiscernible] the strategic environment has not changed. .he japanese do not trust china and the u.s. will win. first is the strategic environment has not changed. japan-china the relations have been improving, china's military activities have not changed. for example, the activities of china after the diplomatic relations begin to improve, the number of scrambles against

japanese military aircraft decreased. however, in 2018, the number of scrambles increased again. many, japan has too deal with.do to this is a strategic environment. secondary, the japanese do not trust china. , sinceng to the survey 2012, more than 80% of japanese have unfavorable views of china. you can see the red line. 019 survey by the pew

research center also indicated that 85% of japanese have an unfavorable view of china. among the countries across the world -- you can compare it in this case -- japan's distrust of china is very high. a crazy number in a democratic country, you know. another one. the u.s. will win. japan does not view the current u.s.-china competition as only a short-term crisis, but a long-term competition to decide world dominance. and the japanese belief the u.s. will win. this is the first example.

u.s. spends more on research and development. research and development issue is related to the high-tech war. the u.s. still leads in gdp. this is related with the trademark. -- trade war. u.s. spends more on defense. related to the trade war. based on current technology, economic strength, and military balance, it looks like the u.s. will win in its competition with china. in addition, the was is using effective tactics -- u.s. is using effective tactics. it is focusing on making china poor again. the root of the problem is money, such as the cost of military mobilization. waytrade war is the right to deal with china.

a reason for japan to be concerned? for japan, it is logical to be on the u.s. side. if the u.s.-china competition escalates is there a point at which japan should become concerned? for example, if the u.s. makes china poorer again, this could have a negative impact on japanese company's ability to make money in china. f japan wishes to avoid becoming a passenger on the sinking ship, it needs to reduce its economic dependence on beijing. japan has already started to reduce its dependence on china. for example, many japanese companies have relocated their factories in china to southeast asia. the number of japanese citizens living in china has been

n 2012sing from 150,000 i 2017.,000 in meanwhile, the number of japanese in the united states has increased from 410,000 in 2017.o 426,000 in is the japanese staying in the united states. -- blue line is the japanese staying in the united states. red line is the japanese staying in china. loser.s going to be for japan, strong u.s. policy toward china is welcome. japan is right to be on the side of the united states. thank you very much. [applause]

>> i think you will agree we had four terrific presentations. they ran a little bit over our targeted time, but that is ok. as i understand, we have until 1:30 as a minimum, but maybe could slip over if there are urgent comments. ground rules are simple. if you have a comment, i ask you to identify yourself and your affiliation and to direct your comment to one or more analyst. -- panelist. i would like to open up. this young man here, then we will go to the front. questions.wo vietnam is assuming chairmanship next year at a critical moment, when china is fast-changing the

status quo in the south china sea. i'm wondering, how can vietnam take advantage of this and pushty to rally back against china? the second -- i'm quite interested in your ticket that there should be multilateralism -- your suggestion that there should be multilateralism. how is that a viable idea? is there a need of utility to the consensus-based mechanism, voting based on the person of each individual country? >> which coalitions do you foresee as having the most opportunity in southeast asia? the history of coalitional security activities in southeast asia is mixed at best. think my jet lag is finally second in.

on the question of vietnam, it is very interesting. in 2010, when vietnam was the chairman, we saw two things. we are big and you are small to their singaporean friends. sayingry clinton also freedom of navigation in the south china sea is a u.s. national interest. 10 years ago, we saw this critical juncture. there is a dramatic qualitative difference between china's behavior in the south china sea in the 21st century and after vietnam. in thatin, vietnam is critical position. i wrote something for csi. about the option of legal warfare for vietnam. i will be brutally honest.

we were constantly invited to vietnam as filipinos to give our thoughts about the arbitration award. felt there was an implicit message that we might do some parallel deal. a lot of senior officials in the previous administration said vietnam might do something. we were taking notes when we went to the nitty-gritty compulsory arbitration. there is a lot of philippine bashing right now with president duterte taking the chinese position. this kind of answers your second question. by taking the unilateral decision of taking china's national court, the philippines have handed the whole region. vietnam is right now using the philippines in a lateral decision to take china to arbitration. threat oftantly, your legal warfare is much more

credible. the philippines has shown compulsory arbitration under article three can work. you can take china to the court, even if they don't want it. not on issues of sovereignty title claims, but marginal zones. when you talk about chinese activities within your exclusive economic zone, you can compulsory -- can use compulsory arbitration. this is the important thing vietnam has to do. by putting legal warfare on the table, you are strengthening the voice of reason and patriotism in the philippines to provide our president -- remind our president to do what he is supposed to do. in 2017, our foreign minister said it is our sovereign right to not assert our sovereign right with china. it is important we remind the philippines the arbitration award is final. the international committee has

to respect it. you can use that leverage to push the envelope. the realities that multilateralism is heating a w ar. we are not doing weighted majority voting with europeans. we are not doing our formula that worked well in the case of economic negotiations. there is a deadlock there. in the cases of institutional deadlock, you have to look for alternatives. the philippines unilateral decision to go for an arbitration award is now something a lot of other countries. multilateralism is the way forward. i spoke to senior officials. i raised this issue with your prime minister office. why do states have their own code of conduct? not the fake code of conduct being negotiated. what is troubling is if you look at the code of conduct the chinese were trying to negotiate, i don't want it to be legally binding.

i used to say, let's push for legally binding, otherwise this is a waste of time. now i am worried. china was demanding two things. one, china will exclusively share their resources in the area for trillions of dollars, only with the countries in the reason -- the region. forget about shell and chevron for future contracts. the second thing, china was asking for a veto on the ability of claimant states, which is a prerogative of the philippines to do our regular exercise in the south china sea, not to mention with our friends in japan and others. china had the audacity to push for that. thankfully we have sane people pushing back. the fact that china thought it could get away with it is a troubling sign. in that situation of chinese

and push our other great powers, it is important that we look at other approaches. philippine multilateralism is protecting vietnam. for that matter, multilateralism -- philippines, vietnam, malaysia discussing. malaysia is playing an increasingly important role. if you saw the foreign minister, she did a good job asserting the claims of indonesia. mayor president of the philippines talked about, why not claimant states do patrols in certain tense areas of the south china sea to bring down tensions. none of these ideas are new.

just by the fact that we are throwing those ideas out, that matters. china will listen to you 10 times more if you are in indonesia rather than cambodia or laos. even if you are not the president, even if you are an analyst like me. the reality is not everyone has weight. -- has equal weight. it is not only the south china sea issue. we will try to get to as many folks as we can. octor,low up with the dco and then the list. and do you think the u.s.

the global community can do to presencete in making a in the international water? the south china sea belongs to global community. japan,r -- india, eu, australia, and everyone have our own code of conduct. we should participate and hold it at high-value. cptpp.tion is about the where do you think vietnam, singapore, and indonesia would be? up rules would help to build

vietnam and the states involved in that area. >> that is a load of questions. >> that is a question i want to ask about geopolitics. the i.t.,her you see in digital, and the space vietnam in countering china. >> the specific question on what the u.s. can do, then we will invite others to do geopolitics. cptpp is welcome. their intention is to exclude china. china's market is very big. we need our own big market to deal with china. this means tpp is an effective way. if possible, japan wants to

include the united states. the united states is the most important part. thank you. do?hat can the u.s. >> maybe we can do another talk. [laughter] that is a complicated question. >> give me a couple things the u.s. can do. >> we are seeing are vietnamese friends very profitable. the u.s. had what is called this impossible trinity position. on the one hand, you have alliances and obligations. on the other hand, you want to befriend china. on the other, the u.s. is cleaning neutrality on this land. that is a difficult triangle to square. now we are seeing some movement. we are seeing encouraging signs from the united states. i am syndicated that secretary

of state -- excited that secretary of state mike pompeo in march this year said the philippine mutual defense treaty covers the south china sea and any attack on your vessels, personnel, and aircraft in the area. that clarification was nonexistent in the past. in the clinton and carter administration, officials made statements like that, but did not mention specifics. secretary of state mike pompeo did a good thing/. . in june, after the incident , the 22 folks were killed ambassador of the u.s. made it clear the mutual defense treaty -- can apply to gray zones.

we are glad we are seeing this. it is important to us. december last year, the philippine defense secretary said the treaty is not useful anymore. now it is much different. maybe we talk about revising the guidelines of the mutual defense treaty. it is a complete different positioning. going back to the issue of 12 nautical miles, it is important you move to 12 nautical miles and not call it right of innocent passage. by calling it right of innocent passage, you are acknowledging china has a right there. that is fake island, it doesn't account for anything. now we can talk about stratified multilayered navigational operations. i was attacked by some of our chinese friends for saying the philippines -- the quad is not

just the big boys, it is middle powers, india, philippines, japan. freedom, access of operations. this is a great division of labor that admiral harris was pushing for. now we have that. i think we are moving in the right direction. the chinese strategy is this -- they go across the region and say this is about the u.s. and china, it has nothing to do with international law. when you have two countries from europe saying this is not u.s. -china edition, this is about international law and freedom of navigation. sending a rudimentary operation counts a lot. china is not looking for coercive hegemony, they want trust and respect. that is not what they are getting with everyone pushing back, no matter how small.

up in the context of the european approach. speak about geopolitics. , i think the europeans recognize their interest in the south china sea is essential -- is central, because it has global implications. talking about renegotiating the law of the sea and it changing the rules for innocent passage. these developments are a concern for europeans as much as anyone else, because it will have global impact. this is why europe continues to conduct freedom of navigation operations so far. the u.k. has done it a lot. in a short time, you will see the european institutions back on moreeffort to put it

solid institutional ground, and signal it is the whole of the european union backing these efforts. that is good news. a minor difference of 12 nautical miles should not be focused on. the focus should be there are joint efforts that work toward the same objective. is anegard to cyber, that extremely important focus area we have neglected. one area is technical standouts, where china is already implementing its standard with belt and road. the u.s. and others should work to preserve international standards that do not follow these. i will leave it at that. >> there is a big difference between the philippines and vietnam.

vietnam is not. that changes the dynamic. when the code of arbitration ruling was made, it was interesting to observe the different reactions of different countries. there was a debate as to how to respond to it. it was discouraging to see australia, japan, and the united states took from our statements than vietnam. i think the philippines was slightly different in the context. it made it hard for countries like indiat o say how can we be -- village of the under illusions that others will fight their bat tles for them. that said, there is a lot that all of these countries can do to support each other short of that. one thing is sharing information

amongst each other or day-to-day intelligence sharing on pertinent issues. the second is improving interoperability, increasing habits of cooperation amongst militaries. the third is capacity building. we know both economic and philippines have a shortage of capable vessels to undertake some of the operations they would like to do. you see india is providing some countries in the region with offshore patrol vessels. and japan is providing philippines with smaller patrol vessels. these things can be done in the short term. i don't think anyone should be under the illusion that another country will be coming to their support during a time of crisis. >> we have three minutes, and i

saw at least seven hands. i will take them as best as i can the order i saw them. this gentleman in the lavender shirt, then up here. let's try all at once. >> i am a former diplomat. photo ops are an incredibly weak response to the conquest of an area twice the size of australia. let's say we decide to ramp this up. one excellent move would be for the overnight appearance of a joint philippine american great -- american brigade showing up. when a chinese ship looks to the beach and sees 500 personnel that weren't there last night, that is where you get some backbone. what is the stability of a post-dutere philippine

government signing off to stop the conquest of the south china sea? that for a moment, including how far the philippines is willing to go on the sites we are currently working on with your government, the conflicting claims amongst the three claimants. >> my question is, how are the respective nations viewing hong kong? how does that affect that national country's opinion of china? folks. will apply to all >> sir, you are the last question for now. >> thank you. georgetown student. you mentioned multilateralism. what would that signal to other members, considering the consensus would mean they are

left out? >> you have two specific questions addressed to you, then the general question about how behavior on the uighurs and those in respective countries. alreadynk i responded on this. exclusivitye is no between unilateral and multilateral. many in the accident we believe we are in a mission-critical situations. an organization with a budget of $40 million and folks to tackle these fundamental issues. i would call it a small medium

enterprise pretending to be a regional experience. have aopean folks presence. outsource some of these issues, especially in the burning issues in the south china sea. there are ways to work around it to make general statements about the basic rules of the game. on the multilateral level, you focus more on tactical and strategic questions about the south china sea. the homecoming issue is important. istaiwan, my understanding the president has been open about it. the communist party's fundamental argument is engagement in china is the best way to secure the status quo for taiwan, which is a gray zone between independence and nonrecognition. what happened in hong kong is

making it easy for the ruling party to say if hong kong is such a failure, god, what will happen to us if we go under this two system? this is more one china than two systems. this is helping the situation in taiwan. in the philippines, some xena phobic people say, look, even the chinese don't like the chinese. it really helps. more worrying cases like indonesia -- the last election was an identity politics issue. the issue was islam and the issue was china. the two are connected when you talk about the ethnic cleansing happening up there. if you talk to folks from malaysia and indonesia, one of the things they emphasize is china does not understand islamic sensibilities. they are tone deaf with their own muslims.

the same thing applies to the united states, but that is a different question altogether. lastly, i think president duterte himself claims it is a redline if the chinese reclaim the shores. even for someone like duterte, that is the floor. the secretary of the philippines made it clear, this is to close, it is unacceptable. the de facto plan under the previous administration -- in an event china wants to move in concrete materials, the philippine coast guard can block them. we can activate the mutual defense the mutual defense treaty. i think the idea of doing this kind of special ops is a little too fancy for most policymakers. but there are some plans that were being seriously discussed and i think the dutere .dministration put that aside

but our policy is like a latin telenovela. who knows what is going to happen after president duterte? that's why sometimes domestic politics is more exciting than foreign policy. >> i won't say much except that much about chin jong except it's getting a lot of coverage in the media. in hong kong, there are several indian companies based out of hong kong that work across mainland china. hong kong is one of the largest top 10 trade partners. watching what is happening quite carefully. there has been an agreement not to comment on each other's internal affairs, but in the last few months, we have seen

china walking back on that, particularly with what's going on in kashmir. so i would expect to see some developments on that. >> again, it's an example where see policy on specific issues, but 18 member have criticized the behavior. i would say it's the same pattern. general human rights policies and a group of countries that's fairly large take action on a specific issue to give europe a concrete footprint. >> i think you have the last word on the last set of questions. >> in the past, japan has

intervened on hong kong. but the japanese government allows people to say their opinion and public space. minister, the prime reiterated how important it is to have a free and open hong kong. so, this is the current situation. >> well, thank you very much. as always with this group we could go on and on because the expertise is so profound and detailed and i'm sorry we had to thankl it to the end, but you for spending your afternoon here at the hudson institute. it has been my honor and pleasure to moderate and share -- chair.

thank you panelists, for joining me. thank you and happy thanksgiving to everyone. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] announcer: president trump holds a campaign rally in sunrise, order, his first there since changing his residence from new york to florida. you can see that live on c-span. legal x roots are asked acted to -- experts