>> good afternoon and welcome to the hudson institute. i myself am a visitor here. i'm the vice president of the east-west center and ssenior advisor to the center for naval analysis here 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 at the hudson institute and putting (speaking french) the head of the u.s. effort of the research foundation. my first met him almost 30 years ago in japan when you are

there. delighted to see how you have developed into a first class institute leader but a scholar on the region. i met today to senior at the institute what's great about what having odgaard here is that her work as i was doing background work picks up the u.s., china and europe thread. i think it's more salient as we look as opposed to brexit, uk and the role of france and other european states in the indo-pacific and look forward to hearing from her and our chair and leader satoru nagao. the format is very simple, three of our presenter's i have a power point presentation and will make their case and then we will go one through the

other hand will open it up for a cue and a. he each of them will speak for an allotted amount of time and i'll try to catch their attention to keep them on schedule so we can get maximum time to you to ask questions and make comments from the floor. with that, again, thank you for joining us and richard please. he is very high tech so he has a phone keeping track of his time. >> trying to be myself. thank you very much and it's a pleasure pleasure. i hope my usual energetic of myself, it's a pleasure to be here at 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 is speaking across the region is that i have to be always much more careful about my language, like

a sort of this was the aggression. you i feel like i free-flowing and a bit more myself. again imagine what i'm not very popular among some friends and southeast asia. i'm also very indebted to us institute because i just finished the book on indo-pacific. the first book on indo-pacific up around 400 pages based on ten years of writing and experience across the indo-pacific. my dad comes from the caspian region to my mom comes from southeast asia with some i didn't background so more or less i cover the indo-pacific and recent books and written a lot about regions. i tried to bring together under the us and china china competition under the trump administration and how we're going to before. we gave a presentation last year on indo-pacific and southeast asia place in the presentation we had here at the hudson will help me to put the final touches to the book. the band going to talk about what i call china's premature need for hegemony. the more politically correct term was as written for a number of things in the

station but premature hegemony pretty much puts it were i need it to be put. the question right now is how do we preserve peace and stability in the indo-pacific? this is not about confronting china per se or excluding china but how to make sure we manage the rise of china in ways it's mutually acceptable and beneficial. this is the book. sorry, i couldn't bring copies. a be early next year i can come back more proper book tour on that. when it comes understand what's happening in the pacific, particularly in the asia-pacific asia-pacific, i think there are two figures that helped me a lot to frame the question and possible answer. one is of course the late leader, he was not wide right in everything that he got china very much like any was a bridge between the west and east especially comes to engagement with china and the other one is my favorite philosopher walter. one of the observations li kwan made which

made a huge impression on me was the rise of china especially for is so dramatic that is 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 in the vision of china. and we feel that very much in southeast asia, that this is not just another rising power but this is going to change the rules of the game. we're beginning to feel that now as we enter what we can call a strategic inter-agency in east asia. walter talked about how after every fascism is a failure of revolution. i'm not saying china is a fascist but what i'm trying to say is the confrontation of the tensions we see today in east

asia is also very much a product of our inability to create a ghandian perpetual peace to strong institutions that preserve pacifists and interaction. this is where coming from asia i'm slightly more critical and i feel we could do much better job and ensuring we negotiate great power relationship with much more prerogative this and the willingness to take more, which were not doing. to defend the asean because i tend to get misunderstood on this issue has achieved a lot. if you with southeast asian geopolitics, in the 1960s, for instance, the name of the game. war among number of archaeological poor countries, asean was almost invisible in the eyes of some people. our member going one of the cable also something very interesting that the senior administration official in asia

asked it's 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 in not to invade malaysia. so in the late 1960s the question of war among southeast asia countries without much in the war. 50 years forward, the notion of war or even the threat of use of war and most southeast asia countries is almost unthinkable. that's a huge achievement. we have established what we call secured community among ourselves whereby this threat, despite impending and lingering territorial disputes is unthinkable. it's not we are short of conflicts, intentions but we're definitely not short of ways to manage dispute among celtic suspect is look at the austin was also able to finalize a free-trade agreement

way ahead of the time schedule the asean, brain-dead as you and it made it so ambitious without we could create an economic community but we missed the mark but nonetheless we move also forward quite quickly on that issue. asean countries have been effective in terms of pushing for nontraditional security cooperation whether anti-piracy counterterrorism and most recently after the indonesia malaysia and the philippines also been doing coordinated trilateral controls to ensure isis elements will not enter specially areas and also more intelligence sharing and cooperation among countries. a lot of achievements have happen but above all white asean has offered his power, bring deep hours to get some that is north korea pick up a a look at the asean countries, so they can talk. as winston churchill said this is where asean is aboard. as someone who spent time in middle east i can say i really prefer what we haven't

southeast asia in the game of thrones situation they have. even game of thrones doesn't capture what's happening down there in the persian gulf. as the playwright arthur miller said, basic allusions been exhausted. the asean, the effectiveness that we had integrated a security community among ourselves, smaller countries, will be also be able to be as effective in terms of socializing other great powers to internalize a a principle of how to do with our problems and interstate tensions. the reality is the asean i think has a fundamental misunderstanding of some of its own key principles. the two key principles are musyawarah and muafaghat but in the asean 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 unanimity means every country effectively has a veto power. and if you're an external power who doesn't want asean to be united, what, chair or whatnot, all you need to do is exit pressure and lean on one of members of the asean regardless of the degree of concern of the asean country and what does solve asean unity on this issue. let's say countries of no direct interest in south china sea i don't blame them if they are sometimes seen as saboteurs because from their point of view why should we risk off the chinese who are major source of the investments and, of course, the diplomatic support when repugnant nothing against south genesee discussed that i remember the prime minister in 2015 writer for the philippine arbitration came out, the hague, he said this is a political issue. we don't want to do anything about it. this is a problem whereby you have waited majority voting as in

the european council, you don't have majority voting. in this situation you are essentially asking for trouble. my term is what i call middle institutional trap. a middle age trip. the kind of decision-making process that allowed the asean to create peace among ourselves on the past 50 years is a longer effective in terms of creating peace among major powers and that is also affecting us very much. this is related to the discussion. now, this is where asean is moving from centrality to the realities that while asean struggle with the 30 it's centrality, china is change its facts on the ground. let's be very clear about that. over the past three years times approached the great wall of sands. electronic jamming equipment, bombers, the chinese

coast guard is the extension of the navy. we see more and more militia forces from china pushing the envelope and engaging in aggressive action to against countries across the region. the level of diplomatic dynamism of asean is not catching on with the facts of greater when my frustrations is, a code of conduct with china, china's changing facts on the ground under a daily bases. all wasting our time and negotiation which by the way we not even sure it will be legally fighting we are not going to be sure if it's can be legally binding, whose interpretation of international law? my message is one of cautious optimism. my message is there are three reasons to be skeptical about this whole conventional wisdom that asia is gone, china has wanted. i come from the philippines. if i'm going to use boxing as a metaphor think are just in round number and will go all the way to route the 12th if not more. one, the first reason is america's power and the resilience of its power and

influence in asia is underestimate. if you look at much more observant analysis of america's power, i see michael has done a good job in his latest book, he talks about net power. a lot of people mistakenly think china is taking over because their gdp size is so large but the country is not just sign here, the picture ecological resources, human capital, a living standard free people, how much are you can. the technology you can dispose of. if you look at the data over the past 20 years you are not noticing much convergence between china and the united states. u.s. has to go on a three or% to match china's seven, eight, 9% growth. if a look at technology, look at cutting edge technology u.s. is still way ahead. interesting observation by people that everyone is talking china crating wendling site to see you. but the question is quality of scientist. china has a lot of what is their citation

records quality matters when you talk about net power and competition. this is interesting. people were asked who do you still prefer to be the world leader? u.s. still comes on top despite the fact there have been some doubts about the trump administration, unpredictability of the new american president. still views the some of a lot of countries in the region trust to be the leader. and for more cynical people it's the devil we know. that's the perspective a have. interestingly, the survey in singapore people asked about china's belt and road initiative. actually majority were skeptical about this. behind this there's a lot of skepticism run government,

experts and people underground. the other thing is we have to put things into context. there's a lot of criticism about president trump ditching the tpp, weakening american position in this part of the world for a lot of countries, for actual a lot of countries on the frontline of china assertiveness or aggression the u.s. is even more reliable now that it was. for instance, if you look at the freedom navigation regular, much more expensive, extending to areas, u.s. double warships can using more advanced warships and a littoral combat ship. using more pushback. despite some dogmatic tensions with philippines and turn it over the past three years, actually the foreign military financing and just has increased more than double to the philippines. despite the tensions within philippines and u.s. this year alone there were 290 joint military activities between

united states and the philippines,, more than 80 indo-pacific country more than anytime in the history since the second world war. more interestingly also see more presence by the u.s. coast guard. i got to catch up with admiral scholz who was the head of u.s. coast guard and since last year we have to don't use coast guard is doing a great job of doing their own version in the taiwan chicken more china exercise with regional coast guard command and helping capacity building among countries in southeast asia. everyone talks about we have a dichotomy whereby china dominates the economy and us dominates security. it's way more complicated than that. look at the front to geopolitical competition which is infrastructure developer. especially south east asia,

china is the one leading. it's japan. if you look at data and this is why make this comment. china they get more bang out of imagining bok. better salesman than any of the democratic countries in this part of the world. this is an interesting data that came out and bloomberg made an interesting port of that. japan has more infrastructure developing projects. that's on top of the fact japan has been the leading source of infrastructure development and overseas development assistance in southeast asia. a lot of us are underestimating the predominance of japan in east asia although in terms of trade and investments, china has been taking over the past 15 years. more importantly if you look at key countries in southeast asia and countries with business like vietnam and like the philippines, by far japan is the top investor in infrastructure. in the philippines out of the ten big-ticket infrastructure

projects of china that a single one has cleared the preliminary phase. one owe two has done the project but i'm not sure $60 million is considered a big-ticket project. more, more than that a lot of projects would have negative ecological impact on indigenous people's and communities in the area. even though there's some project and is is not big-ticket it could be much more problematic and much more of a question of dead trap. vietnam si city. japan is way ahead of china in terms of overall investment. you have 74 projects by japan in vietnam versus 24 by japan. look at who was the rising part in southeast asia, without question that is vietnam and vietnam would be the asean chairman next year. they are leading the region, leading the loan fight in terms of drawing the line in southeast asia. you see clearly in vietnam and in the philippines, japan is well

ahead in terms of infrastructure development. it's also injured. drupal talk about this. he is interesting truth about this issue. the role of india and also australian in the region is underestimate people of the efforts of countries in terms of providing alternative avenues for racing infrastructure capital for development projects, if you look at australia helping the philippines encounter terrorism and with isis threats, a lot of things are happening which are not appreciative enough and that leads are experts on the ground. the third thing is this. a lot of people underestimate the struggle for autonomy strategic of smaller countries. i'll take issue with the word small. indonesia is 270 million people last time i checked. it's almost a concise in terms of demographics, and in turn the gdp indonesia is expected to be among the top five biggest economies in the

world and probably even number 3 or 4 before the end of the century. it's a huge country. it may be so big it will outgrow asean. philippines is more than 100 men, vietnam was when admitting in these countries will be trillion dollars gdp in the near to immediate term future. asean is not election small countries, really collection of highly dynamic middle powers who could be a force under their own terms although they're going through difficult times. if you look at countries in southeast asia plus taiwan, of course they are very much at the frontline, you see leaders of this country very engaging china but at the same time trying to preserve some room for maneuver. case in point is the prime minister, he's 94, very lucid, very much on the top of his portfolio. he took the fight to china on the belt and road issue of the debtor issue and managed to get $6 billion of renegotiation of the contract with them. on other issues of the non-he's pushing for a legally binding code of conduct looking for more pushback against china in the

south china sea or in the case of taiwan, for instance, very much aggressively highlighting sharp power operations. if you want to learn about china's sharp power operations i think taiwan are the best people to talk to. interested in pushing back and have been quite successful and most likely taiwan is going to pull off an election. i'm almost done. the thing is this, what is the way forward? the way forward is very clear. you have to make sure the whole discussion of the indo-pacific is not a euphemism for saint asean is no longer relevant. rather than talking about creating a comfort coalition or counter alliance against china it's much more important to focus on capacity building and strengthening smaller countries ability to defend themselves.

that's the best weight in order to do with the threat that is emerging from china but it's important america and key alis have more strategic presence in this part of the world. lastly, asean as much as a want to talk about multilateralism the reality is the contents consensus basis decision-making process is essentially unanimity based so the best way to serve multilateralism, best way to make asean were affected is multilateralism, engagement in key countries, in asean, and engagement of quad countries with key countries within the asean. we're talking a indonesia, philippines, vietnam,

malaysia and these countries. the quad countries can have effective institutionalized cooperation with these countries, on issues whereby we have concerns with china. i think that's more than enough. you don't need to get all ten asean countries on board. true multilateralism you can make asean much more relevant. it's a controversial issue but i will leave it there for question and answer and i'm one minute overtime. thank you very much. (applause) >> terrific. we will come back to that. congratulations on your book and look forward to more of that. let me invite dhruva jaishankar to make his comments. >> thank you. thank you to the hudson institute. it's a pleasure being here, thank you for inviting me to speak on this. 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 kuala lumpur, to honolulu to hanoi. most of the place i ran into richard somewhere along the way. but what of the things that struck me and all of these places is capitals,,egnaval bast hurt a very similar concerns about the rise of china. of course every country has its own priorities and so its own interests. but broadly speaking we could categorize them or we could compartmentalize them into four broad areas of shared concern. the first that had to do with the lack of transparency of decision-making. china is no longer an inward looking

country. it now has global interested in displaying a a very active economic and diplomatic and security role in many german parts of the world. but for the first time in a century we are seeing a truly global power perhaps with the exception of the soviet union, a truly global power that has a very close system of governance. even when decisions are made in beijing, they are viewed with a great deal of suspicion. a second broad areas concern had to do with the lack of economic reciprocity. there was a few that china was not a market economy. it is a mercantilists in some ways ascribes to more catalyst policies, and whether it was lack of market access, concerns about debt, whether it was issues related to contracts, this was another theme that was common in many different places. a third thing had to with territorial revisionism. by it was in the east china sea over the islands or in the south china sea, or indeed in

the himalayas between china and india, in all of these places you see china using non-civilian tools to advance in some ways it's territorial ambitions. and finally 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 indeed, whether in terms of the arctic and arctic treaty systems which have been a point of growing concern. india where i am from has certain specific concerns related to china's rise, and i should say in many ways what we are seeing has been advantages, not just to china's citizens in the sense of being a driver of

global economic growth, lifting millions tens the needs of people out of poverty, and, indeed, all of us in some ways have directly or indirectly benefit from china's rise over the last few years. but nevertheless, a country like india has certain specific concerns. one, there is a large bag or dispute between the countries. it's not make the news very much because it's been a largely peaceful about it since nobody has been, there has been a violent or lethal incident on the boundary for the last 40 years. nonetheless it's just to put in some perspective, this is bound dispute over territory the size of indiana,, effectively china claims the entire state of india come home to 2 million people. we have seen run-ins between chinese and indian patrols in 2017. the was, in fact, quite a tense standoff between indian and chinese forces at a very high altitude and territory dispute between

china and bouton, indian forces anything to prevent china from building road in the disputed territory. a second area of major terms between india and china has to do with massive trade deficit between the two. it's currently stands about $50 billion which has dropped from over $60 billion last year, but to put in perspective this is about the size of india's entire defense budget. effectively in the is paying china via the equivalent of it entire defense budget. there are many reasons for this trade deficit, lack of competitiveness has to do with some of it but we have seen a trend emerge were indiana 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. this has been, this is an issue that has been raised repeatedly by indian industry. a third has to do with belt and road initiative which india was in 2017 the first country to at least diplomatically boycott in april of 2017 china organized large

belt and road forum in beijing, invited several countries, many of them including japan and the united states sent delegations to the forum india opted not to participate in that and continues to at least officially boycott the belt and road initiative. in fact, india spelled out a series of concerns, which was not to do with chinese investment or china's 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 were concerned in the articulate in april 2017 and we have seen similar language, some of concerns by many of the countries. we see this also manifested, the concern some ways have played themselves out in countries like sri lanka. they are rising concerns about the sustainability of the

china-pakistan economic corridor and, of course, concerns about port facilities that china is investing in across the indian ocean and beyond. finally india has concerns related to global governance. ten years ago china, india, russia, brazil and others are working together to try and reform international institutions as part of what they saw as the surrey forms after the global financial crisis of 2008. in recent years we've seen under xi jinping china abandoned this rhetoric of rising powers, rising together and internets projecting china as a peer competitor of the united states. we are seeing for example, china blocked indian entry into international institutions where the nuclear suppliers group or the u.n. security council and also not be particularly helpful at the

other forums in which the two countries are both members. what is it you doing about this? i went through a few quick slice if you don't mind. i'm sorry. maybe i can get by without the slides. i don't have the clincher here. the first thing richard hijacked a few things i think that i think

are india's doing which are of import which of which is briefly outline, one is in the last two years since the end of 2017 or so we've seen a major stepping up in the indian ocean. that by the indian navy but also linked in some ways to you can see trends in india overseas assistance both lines of credit, and this includes amongst other things india establishing a fusion center, and information fusion center in india to monitor traffic in the indian ocean region, entering into a number of agreements with other countries across the indian ocean. in late 2017 2017 and maybe change this operational tempo. how conducts you rent operations in seven zones across the indian ocean including major chokepoints such as the gulf of aden, the straits of malacca and and in around the streets of madagascar. interoperability india conducts exercise with most significant navy's across the indian ocean. these are growing in sophistication and just to give you a few examples, india and the united states just conducted the first

tri-service exercise which was an amphibious landing for mentoring assistance and disaster relief. uacs the first tabletop exercises involving the quad countries, china, japan, india and australia and united states. a weeklong joint field in the south china sea here this is in some ways breaking new ground s. res. indian to carry posh is going. finally certain capacity building efforts. these are some of the areas in which india's investing either in sibling can most mostly civilian in some cases military infrastructure. a second broad objective is integration with south east asia, and india is diplomatic engagement form of the asean let institution including east asia summit which just took place, but you are seeing efforts of building roads and connectivity. at

trilateral friendship highway will be completed in the next year or two to connect india to the board and connector road that will go east to vietnam. you are seeing a number of security arrangements also. india and indonesia just till the first naval exercise in vietnam to not only exercise but also train submarine sailors and combat air pilots from vietnam. india and singapore have a time agreement, they get excesses on indian soil. you are seeing a growth of indian security partnerships also emerging. additionally india is developing deeper partnerships with other powers that share its concerns about china's rise and this includes the united states, japan and australia, the quad countries but also other such as france and even russia. just to give a few examples of this, we have the first these are trilateral exercises of the trendy, japan and india held every year. for the first time held under japan's leadership in east china sea a couple of months

ago. that's an example in some ways of this growing cooperation. india and australia held the first anti-submarine warfare exercise in april. you had the first india japan air force exercise and army exercises in 2018 as well. finally, like all countries in the region there's a velvet of managing relations with china commencing these differences and so you're seeing attempts at trying to shape a constructive engagement. to date the efforts have still been quite modest but this does remain a critical element and as such by mr. modi and president xi jinping until a couple of informal summits over couple of days come this last one in india, just a short while ago but also in 2018 in china. in conclusion what i would say is these efforts i spelled out to them by these two security a strategic

imperative on india's part align rather what with the united states free and open indo-pacific strategy as it is emerging under the trump administration. in fact, i would say the relationship between the united states and india is one of the few that is arguably improved under from the clinton administration to the bush administration, from the obama administration and now to the trump administration. we've seen in some ways while there have been bumps on the road it's been a largely positive trajectory into some ways in terms of security in the indo-pacific it is accelerated under the trump administration. in that sense i don't think there's a lot of unhappiness in new delhi about the trump administration calling out unfair trade practices on the part of china, in terms of the u.s. stepping up its 60 present in the region include in the south china sea, in terms of course meeting improved coordination with partners including japan, australia, india and some

countries in southeast asia. and just in terms of public opinion a survey taken in 2017 after the election of president trump, this is by the pew research center found in the was the least at the american country of 40 plus countries surveyed, only 9% of indians had an unfavorable view of the united states. the does seem to be continued public support in some ways for deepening the partnership in this context. i will leave on three issues i see as slightly complicating because it's in all fairness we should highlight these. one is there are some growing pains of u.s. and their partnership that is not a treaty alliance, of the kind the united states, security consultant and the united states has grown accustomed to. that has led revving too great a a number of india specific carpets where the legislative carpets but has led to certain other difficulties and these are being addressed slowly, for example, to mecca from seven fundraiser, one mutual logistics support agreement

which is been operationalized within u.s. and india, and also a communications agreement which is only just signed within the last year. these are emblematic of the kinds of developments taking place. but the fact india does not fit into a nato style of lalliance or traditional hub and spoke alliance system of the u.s. has enjoyed sometimes complicates the relationship is little bit. secondly there been some differences in the bilateral relationship. while strategic relationships seems to be growing quite healthy, there are some differences that have come i wouldn't say they have improved the strategic partnership but they complicated, particularly over trade issues. sometimes even though india and china have similar concerns about china, china's unfair trade practices, that hasn't automatically lead to the greater convergence

between the united states and india. finally i think there's some differences over approaching partners and most notably over russia. india has an older relationship with russia. russia remains the largest provider of defense equipment to india, united states is a distant second. but i think they do in india is 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 easy because india russia done at these intrinsic differences but it has been comforted by the fact the u.s. congress has a very stringent sanctions on russia and so that for example, india's acquisition of a major and anti-aircraft system from russia, the s-400, threatens the possibility of just sanctions on india. this shows

the complications that may arise from these different perspectives on the partnership. let me end on that note, and thank you for your time and attention. (applause) >> thank you very much, dhruva. we will return to some without, particularly how to manage a growing u.s.-india relationship with also managing the india, china relationship. liselote odgaard, senior fellow at hudson institute will now take about u.s.,, china, europe i believe primarily also the u.s. >> thank you. i will talk about whether europe has a role to play in between u.s. and chinese strategic competition in the indo-pacific, and i will argue that indeed europe does have a role to play. when i came here sometimes when europe was mentioned, people would say that europe just say us a couple of ships to the south

china sea and that doesn't really 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 often misunderstood here in d.c., in my opinion, either people see your as a sort of failed attempt to be a unitary state or idiosyncrasies as a multilateral institution. but in reality it probably is somewhere in between. also in washington currently there's a lot of talk about the frailty of europe and how it is disintegrating, when you come from europe, things look very differently and most people in europe has a sense of that, that europe has been renewed as an actor and that indeed it is been strengthened by recent challenges. regarding traditional european core issues such as trade, the european institution recently have demonstrated that they do

play a key role in devising common policies for the number states, and they 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 that one mandate to negotiate with others, if they want influence in the world. and that means even major states such as france accept 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 the indo-pacific, and also an issue like 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 allow europe to contribute in ways that we've not seen before, despite the formal weakness of the institutions. and the way that works is that what you do in practice is that you develop a division of labor between the eu institutions and groups of member states so that the eu assigns the general policy and then individual countries, groups of countries have the space to translate

these general policies into practical initiatives and that's a way of getting around the fact that when you have 27, 28 member states there will always be outliers that disagree with the general line. so that's a desirable division of labor because we have seen europe acting and not individual countries acting. and the groups that do, in fact, take action has have greater freedom to work out initiatives that are effective and that is to be followed up in practice. such efforts have allowed europe recently to demonstrate support for core values that are shared with the u.s. and its indo-pacific allies. however, this happens from independent decision that allows europe to online itself with other actors on the basis of european values and priorities. for example, by cooperating with multilateral institutions such as asean in the arab league, which not all of its partners agree with, and also by promoting european

initiatives such as the euro asian connectivity plan that was adopted by europe in october 2018. now let me turn to european security initiatives in the indo-pacific as we've heard from prior speakers, there's a growing strategic competition in this area between china and the u.s. and also some u.s. allies and partners. i guess essentially the concern is to try to prevent an area like the indian ocean turns into an area of conflict to the extent that the south china sea has already become. and there's a recognition that the indian ocean is linked to the other parts of the asia-pacific now using the term the

indo-pacific. in this region europe can only have very general policies. as mentioned, because the institutions not really have sovereignty to decide what the membership, member states should do beyond the trade issue. however, what the eu 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 eu and japan has entered into an economic partnership agreement in december 2017. that sends a powerful signal against protectionism, and in 2018 the entered a strategic partnership agreement that was signed and facilitated security cooperation between the two.

the eu also has a long-standing partnership, strategic partnership with india from 2004 and from 2019, this is being transformed into a more security oriented partnership with a focus on the indian ocean. the eu and singapore have agreed on closer economic and security cooperation in 2018, including a free trade agreement. and the eu sees singapore as a sort of 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 first joint summit in february 19 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 eu seeks closer relations with asian states that are considered compatible with the european liberal economic and political values, and that are also critical and concerned about china's growing assertiveness in the region. in terms of security and defense in practice, since 2016 there have been a french led effort to conduct naval diplomacy in the indo-pacific to complement the general policies of the european institutions. and since then an increasing number

of european countries have contacted maritime operations and naval diplomacy in the indo-pacific. of course, such an effort takes a long time to build up. there's all sorts of challenges to do this. there's working with your partners, for example, denmark said frigate as part of a french carrier group for region. in terms of security and defense in practice, since 2016 there have been a french led effort to conduct naval diplomacy in the indo-pacific to complement the general policies of the european institutions. and since then an increasing number of european countries have contacted maritime operations and naval diplomacy in the

indo-pacific. of course, such an effort takes a long time to build up. there's all sorts of challenges to do this. there's working with new partners, for example, denmark said frigate as part of a french carrier group for the first time this year. it has never performed in that function. so it takes time to integrate these sources. the french carrier has been eastern india since 2002 until this year, and so the environmental conditions, the wins, et cetera, is not known and they had to get acquainted with that and what it means for the operation. i was deployed for a month with the carrier group so i learned in person that it means a lot. so that all kinds of details that means that these things take time to build

up. but in the year of that i would say that they have come quite far in making an effort to complement the deployments of allies in the region. the carrier group this year sailed from the mediterranean by the suez canal across the indian ocean and via the maliki straight to singapore, rotating cast of allied ships was part of the carrier group. there was portugal, danish contribution, uk,, italy, australia and the u.s. also participated, and so transatlantic unity concerning the french initiative was demonstrated. during the deployment, the group

participated in maritime exercises with the indian, australian, japanese navy's and also with the egyptian navy on the way back when the u.s. had left the carrier group. this tour as mentioned ended in singapore, important part of of europe, it's a offertory and state but it is embedded in the u.s. online system. if an economically highly developed country and a country with links to both 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 somewhere in between, a competitor and a partner. so, this was an attempt to demonstrate that there is complementarity between the

work done by european institutions with respect to the indo-pacific, and then the work of groups 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 matters, but i think it's important not to see the european contribution in isolation, but it is part of the efforts of india, japan, australia and the u.s. to share bases, to work together as indicated by the joint exercises here that means that if you put all these efforts together, it's actually quite a formidable or impressive attempt to build as sort of quasi-alliance relationship with allies and

partners across the indo-pacific in an effort to sort of pushed back against chinese policies that are unpopular. in europe's case, as is the case with india as we could see from the explanation of india's partnerships, it does happen from an independent position. so europe is becoming more and more aware what is in europe's interest, and it was sort of 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 sale screws three was that are part of this tour, europe will not sale within 12 nautical miles of chinese occupied features, because in europe's view that is entering into a legal gray zone and europe doesn't wish to do that because they feel that that can make problems when arguing europe is for the rule of law and the rule of base order. that is different from u.s. policies but essentially europe also conducts the 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 these efforts. so this kind of division of labor that allows europe to have a footprint in the indo-pacific, i think we'll see more and more of in areas where the institutions do not have much formal sovereignty. for example, the eu commission, a robust

defense policy against unfair chinese trade and industrial policies, there you see the same kind of pattern where the european institutions divide member states with backing to adopt cross-border cooperation and industrial policies to deal with china's undermining of its intellectual copyrights, data security, et cetera. in making these efforts it is important i would argue to coordinate initiatives between allies 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 effort to demonstrate to china that there are common values and

interests across a wide range of indo-pacific resident powers and also external power that are willing to make an effort to push back against what is seen as an increasingly problematic chinese behavior in the indo-pacific. thank you! (applause) >> thank you very much for joining the event today. your participation is honorable.

from now, i will make this short presentation. therefore, if you need to go to a restroom, drink a coffee, you need to hurry. so the title of my presentation is this. u.s. exports to china, view from japan. so recently, united states has been putting pressure on china. the latest u.s. national security strategy published in 2017 stated explicitly that china and. the u.s. defense department in the pacific strategy also

forecasting on the challenge presented by china. vice president mike pence in october 2018, this is a picture taken by me, and secretary of state mike pompeo, mubarak of egypt, that man, also pointed to china threat. in january 2018, the u.s. imposed tariffs on china. in response, china imposed their own tariffs on the united states. which the u.s. imposed mortare tariffs on china in response. how should japan view this action? simply put, welcome. (laughs) recently, diplomatic relations between japan and china have been improving and president xi is scheduled to make visit to japan in may 2020. japan should

welcome to china but the natural response is why why. so there are three reasons. the historic environment has not changed. the japanese do not trust china. the environment has not changed. even through the china and japanese relations have been improving since 2017, china's military activities have not changed. for example, consider activities of china after

diplomatic relations began to improve, the jets scrambled against chinese military aircraft increased. however, in 2018, the scramble increased again for the 638th time in 365 days. so still, japan has too many chinese guests to deal with. so this is the environment. secondarily, the japanese do not trust china. according to since 2012, more than 80% of japanese have unfavorable view of china. you can see the line. this also indicates 85% of japanese have an unfavorable view of china. so imagine countries across the

world, you can compare, japan's distrust of china is very high. 80% to 90% is crazy by democratic country. so this is another one. japan does not view the current u.s. /china competition as only a short-term crisis but a long-time competition to decide world dominance. and japanese believe the u.s. will win. this is an example, u.s. spend more on research and development. research and development issue is related to the high tech

world. the u.s. still leads in gdp. this is related with trade war. u.s. spends more on defense, related to that war. so based on current technology economic strength and military might, it looks like the u.s. will win in its competition with china. in addition, the u.s. is choosing tactics, they are looking on making china poor again because the root of the china problem is money, at the cost of military

modernization. thus the trade war is the right way to deal with china. is there a reason for japan to be concerned? it is illogical to be on u.s. side for japan but 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 poor again, this could have an impact on japanese companies'ability to make money in china. thus, if japan is to avoid becoming a passenger on the sinking ship, it needs to reduce its economic dependence on china. they have already started to reduce dependence on china. for example, many japanese companies relocate their factories in china to southeast asia or south asia.

the number of japanese citizens living in china have been decreasing from 150,000 in 2012 to 124,000 in 2017. meanwhile, the number of japanese in the united states have increased from 410,000 in 2012 to 426,000 in 2017. blue line is japanese staying in the united states and red line is japanese staying in china. so therefore, given that for japan, china is threat, china is going to be loser, 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) >> thank you. i think you had

agree we had four terrific presentations. they ran a little bit over our targeted time but that's okay. as i understand this, we have until 1:30 at a minimum but maybe can slip over a few minutes if there are urgent questions or comments. ground rules are very simple. i would ask you if you have a comment, a question, to identify yourself and your affiliation, please, and to direct your comment or question to one or more of the panelists. who would like to open up? let me start over here, this young man over here. then i will come to the front. please. remember to identify yourself and your affiliation. >> i'm from the voice america and have two questions directed to the professor. it's a very critical moment when i'm wondering how can vietnam take advantage of this opportunity to rally its pushback against

china and the second question, i'm interested in your suggestion there and i'm wondering how that is a viable idea and is there any authority to apportioning voting rights based on each individual country. thank you very much. >> the second question is saying which coalitions do you foresee as having the most opportunity in southeast asia because the history of coalitional security activities in southeast asia is mixed at best. maybe you can address that. >> i think my jet lag is setting in. i'm not 20s anymore. first, it's very

interesting again at a very critical juncture. in 2010 when vietnam, we saw two famous things. secretary hillary clinton saying take freedom of navigation in south china sea is a u.s. national interest, then the chinese came back with the core interest debate. ten years ago we saw this critical juncture. there's dramatic difference between china's behavior in the south china sea in the 21st century, then after vietnam and we saw this. once again, vietnam is in that critical position. i'm very interested, i wrote something

for csi about the options for vietnam. i will be very brutally honest. in 2013,'14, '15,'16, we were constantly invited to vietnam as filipenos to give certain advice. we felt we were not we did not we felt there was an implicit message that we might do some parallel deals, right. a lot of senior officials in the previous administration would say the vietnamese made us feel they might do something. a lot of times we were taking notes when it went to compulsory arbitration. what i'm trying to say is there's a lot of bashing with president duterte taking a very china-leading position but where was this before? this answers your second question. by taking the unilateral position, the philippines have handed the whole region, huge leverage and benefit. for instance, vietnam is using the philippines'unilateral decision to take china to arbitration award to gain access and more importantly, your threat of legal warfare is now much more credible because the philippines has shown

compulsory arbitration actually can work. it is doable. you can take china to the court even if they don't want it. but of course, not on issues of sovereignty type of claims. that's very important, because when you talk about china's activities within your exclusive economic zone, you can credibly use compulsory arbitration to prove that china has no business to do there. this is a very important thing vietnam has to do. by putting the legal warfare on the table, you are strengthening the voice of reason and sanity and patriotism in the philippines to remind our president do what he's supposed to do. i remember very well in 2017, our foreign minister said something like it is our sovereign right not to assert our sovereign right with china. something along those lines. it's very important we remind the philippines the arbitration award is final and binding, it's an important issue. international community has to respect it. now you can also use that leverage to push the envelope. now, on the second question, the reality is that the multilateralism is

heating a wall. we are not doing the formula which worked very well in the case of economic negotiations. there is a deadlock there. in cases of institutional deadlock, you have to look for alternatives. the philippines'unilateral decision to go for arbitration award because we felt aseanis not doing its part. i raised this issue with your prime minister. why not have our own code of conduct? a real code of conduct? not the kind of fake code of conduct that has been negotiated. in fact, what is extremely troubling to me is that if you look at the draft of code of conduct, there are two elements that make me even worried. i don't want it to be legally binding because i used to say otherwise it's just a waste of time. now i'm actually worried because china was demanding for two things. one,

that china will exclusively share their resources in the area, oil and gas and trillions of dollars, only with the countries in the region meaning forget about ongc, shell, chevron. that's very important issue. second thing, china was asking for a veto on the ability of asean states to conduct joint exercises with other countries which is an intrusion on the prerogative of the philippines to be to do our regular exercise in the south china sea, among others. china had the audacity to push for that. thankfully, we have sane people in indonesia and

malaysia that are pushing back. but the fact that china was willing to push that argument or thought it could get away with it is a very troubling sign. in that situation of chinese audacity, right, in thinking they can essentially use asean as a shield to push out other great powers, it's very important that we look at innovative approaches. philippine unilateralism is now benefiting vietnam, malaysia, and protecting your interests and rights on for that matter, vietnam, philippines and malaysia have been discussing a code of conduct. even indonesia is playing an increasingly important role. if you saw, i don't know the new minister but the foreign minister did a good job blowing up both right and left, assert the claims of indonesia but he's kind of like mayor president like our president in the philippines but he said something interesting. he talked about why not non-claimant states do

joint patrols in certain tense areas of south china sea to bring down tensions. now, none of these ideas are new. none of these ideas are getting the political will they need. just by the fact we are throwing these ideas out, that matters, because china will listen to you ten times more if you are in indonesia rather than cambodia or laos. it will listen way more if you are in philippines even if you are just an analyst like me. we are supposed to be all equal. the reality is not everyone has an equal stake and not everyone has an equal weight. if countries in asean can hold their line, that's more than enough. asean is not only the south china sea issue. >> you were next. then this gentleman here, please. we will try to get to as many folks as we can. >> thank you. i follow up, then also all the panelists. to follow up with you, what do you think the u.s. and global

community can do to participate in making the presence through international water because south china sea belongs to global community so i would wonder if india, eu, japan, australia and everyone, have our own code of conduct but we should participate and keep it and hold it high value. my question is to the doctor about the cptpp. i would rather you see asean can fit into that, singapore, malaysia and hopefully indonesia, but the rules of it would help to build up vietnam and all the states involved in that area, and >> that's a lot of questions.

>> that is a question i want to ask about the geopolitics because it's more than just money. it's geopolitics. and wherever you see the i.t., the digital and also the space involved in asean and vietnam and the conquering of china. >> why don't you do quickly cptpp and richard do the specific question on what the u.s. could do and we will invite liselotte to talk about the geopolitics. >> cptpp is welcome. we can include china but it very intentionally excludes china because the chinese market so we need our own market to deal with china in most effective way. if possible, japan was included in that, because that is the most important part of

this economy, >> what can the u.s. do? >> maybe we can do another talk. that's a very comprehensive question. >> a couple of things the u.s. can do as we go up to the vietnam chairmanship year. >> we are seeing our vietnamese friends, which encourages me. for a long time the u.s. had what they called impossible trinity position which is on one hand, you have treaty alliances and obligations that come with it. on the other hand, you want to engage china and be friends with them and you have the other hand, the u.s. is claiming neutrality in the area. that is a very difficult triangle to square. now we are seeing some movement. we can debate whether this is right or wrong. we are seeing very

encouraging signs from the united states. as a filipeno, i'm encouraged that mike pompeo for the first time at a very high level came to the press conference in march of this year, march 1 of this year, where he said the philippine/u.s. defense mutual treaty covers any attack on your vessels, personnel and air traffic in the area. that level of clarification was nonexistent in the past. during the clinton and carter administration, we saw some

senior officials making the statement but they always mentioned pacific. you can always debate. secretary pompeo did a good thing. second, in june, when 22 folks were killed, not sure where my president was on that issue, but the ambassador to the u.s. made it very clear the mutual defense could also now apply to gray zone attacks by china. again, that's a dramatic way forward that we did not see in the previous administration. we are very glad we are seeing this. now, it's very important

because december last year, philippine defense secretary said maybe the mutual defense treaty is not useful anymore. now the conversation is very different. now maybe we are going to talk about revising the guidelines of the mutual defense treaty. this is a completely different positioning we are seeing right now. i think the assurance coming from the trump administration is important. going back to the issue of 12 nautical miles, it's very important that you move to the 12 nut kalautical miles and not call it the right of innocent passage. if you do that you are recognizing china has ownership there. you are passing through their space, say it's a fake island, it doesn't count for anything. our european friends want to play it safe. now we can talk about multi-level navigation. the philippines'quad is now just not the big boys. it is also middle powers, india, philippines, japan, u.s. i count that also now as axis of freedom. we are seeing this multi-layered. this is a great division of labor admiral harris was pushing for a long time. now we have this. we are really moving in the right direction. you see, the chinese strategy is this. they go across the region and keep on saying this is about u.s. and china, this is great power rival, it has nothing to do with international law. so when you have one, two, three, four, even single countries from europe coming out saying no, no, no, this is not u.s. /china competition, this is about international law and freedom of navigation so even sending one ship, even kind of a rudimentary axis operation counts a lot. china is not looking for coercive hegemony. they want authority. that comes with trust and respect. that's not what they are getting with everyone pushing back, no

matter how smart or humble. >> it came up in the context of the european approach and also, could you speak about the issue of geopolitics? >> as mentioned, i think the europeans have recognized their interest in the south china sea is central because it has global implications. when i meet the pla there now 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 they are for anyone else, because it will have global impact and this is why europe continues to conduct freedom of navigation operations, so far mainly led by france, the uk has also done it a lot, but in a very short time you will see the european institutions backing up this effort to put it on more solid institutional ground and to signal that indeed, it's the whole of the european union that is backing these efforts. i think that's good news. minor differences of

about 12 nautical miles should not be focused on us, the focus should be there are joint efforts that work toward the same objective. with regard to i.t. space and cyber, that's an important area we have neglected. one area is technical standards where i think china is already implementing its standards along with belt and road and i think europe, the u.s. and others should work together to preserve international standards that do not follow these. i think i will leave it at that. >> thank you. >> there's a big difference between vietnam and the philippines. philippines is an ally of the united states. vietnam, i sympathize with this because being from india, is not and that changes the dynamic. in 2016 when the

permanent code of arbitration ruling was made, it was interesting to observe the different reactions of different countries and i know there's a big debate about it in several capitals as to how you should respond to it. it was somewhat discouraging to see that australia, japan and to some degree, the united states actually made firmer statements in support of that than vietnam and some of the claimant states. the philippines was under going its own transition so it was slightly different. it made it hard for countries like india to say how can we be on this issue. i don't think anyone should be under illusions that others will fight their battles for them. it will have to be, you know, each country will have to take its own. but that being said, there's a lot that

all of these countries can do to support each other short of that, and i would say three things in particular. one is sharing information amongst each other, whether it's strategic assessments at the political level or day-to-day intelligence sharing on pertinent issues. the second is improving intra intraoperability and the third is actually capacity building. we know both vietnam and the philippines have a shortage of capable vessels to undertake some of the operations they would like to do, so you see, for example, india is providing some countries in the region including vietnam with offshore patrol vessels and the u.s. and japan is also providing vietnam and the philippines under the guise of law enforcement, providing them with patrol vessels. these are the things that can be done in the short term but i don't think anyone should be under the illusion another country, given everyone's domestic preoccupations, will be coming to their support during a time of crisis. >> thanks. we have three minutes and i saw at least seven hands. i'm going to take them in best as i can in the order i saw them. forgive me if i didn't see them perfectly.

this gentleman here, the gentleman in the lavender shirt and this gentleman up here. try those three all at once, please. just quickly. >> i'm a former diplomat. phone ops which are already hard enough to get volunteers to come along, are a weak response to the conquest of an area twice the size of australia. let's say we actually get a backbone, decide to ramp this up a bit. one excellent move would be for the overnight appearance of a joint philippine-american brigade showing up on scarborough shoal and the chinese ship looks and sees 5,000 personnel there, that weren't there last night, that's where you get a red line, where you get some backbone. what is the possibility of a post-duterte philippine government signing off on an operation to stop the conquest of the south china sea?

>> yeah. park that for a moment, including just how far philippines is willing to go on implementing on the five sites we are currently working with your government on and much less deconflicting claims among the three major claimants. >> david little, with the media. my question is, how are the respective nations viewing hong kong and the uyghurs and how does that affect that national country's opinion of china? >> great. thanks very much. that will apply to all folks. sir, you were the last question. for now. unless we can run over. yes, please. >> thank you. nathan ware, georgetown student. you mentioned mini didlateralism. what would that signal to other asean members? do you think that would actually weaken asean centrality or not?

>> okay. so you've got two specific questions, i think addressed to you, perhaps. then a general question about how china's behavior on the uyghurs and on hong kong is being refracted in the respective countries, regions. richard, very quickly, please. >> i will try to speak fast. i think i responded already on this. i think there is no mutual exclusivity between mini and multi lateralism. this is my position. honestly, i think a lot of people in the asean would believe we are in mission critical situation. you are asking an organization which actually has pathetic bare bones, a budget of $14 million with 200 folks, to tackle all of these fundamental issues. i would call asean a small or medium enterprise just pretending to be a regional

experience. asean, just to be clear, our european folks have billions in budget and thousands of bureaucrats and still they are getting something wrong. many in asean may be happy to outsource this issue, especially the burning issue of south china sea to the multi lateral level. there's a way to work around it whereby the asean can make general statements about the basic rules of the game and then at the multi lateral level, you have tactical and strategic questions how to deal with china on the south china sea. hong kong issue is very important. in taiwan, my understanding is i think the president has been also open. that will really help the case because the party's fundamental argument is engagement with china is the best way to secure the status quo for taiwan which is like a gray zone between independence and non-recognition, right. but what happened in hong kong has made it very easy for the ruling party to say that if hong kong is such a failure, what will happen to us if we go under the so-called two systems,

because clearly there is more one china than two systems, right. this is really helping the situation in taiwan. in the philippines, unfortunately, half the people say look at it, even the chinese don't like the chinese, right. then it really helps and more places, we were talking about this a while ago, the last election was really an identity politics issue. no one was talking much about economics. the issue was islam and the issue was china. the two are connected when you talk about ethnic cleansing that is happening, right. i think if you talk to folks from malaysia, one of the things they always emphasize that china doesn't understand islamic sensibilities. they are completely tone-deaf with their own muslims. they have to learn how to deal with it. of course the same thing applies to the united states but that's a different question all

together. lastly, on the issue of scarborough shoals, it's a red line if the chinese reclaim those so even for someone like duterte, that is the floor. this is too close to us, it's unacceptable. so for the philippines that's a red line. the question is how do you go beyond that. the de facto plan under the previous administration and any sane administration would be this. in an event that china wants to move in concrete materials, the philippine coast guard can block them, if they shoot at our coast guard we can activate the mutual defense treaty. i think the idea of doing this kind of special ops, et cetera, is a little too fancy for a lot of policy makers but there are some operational plans that were being seriously discussed and i think duterte essentially put that aside but these issues could be brought back. as i say, our politics is like a telenovella. who knows what's going to happen after president duterte. sometimes that's why

domestic politics are more exciting than foreign policy. >> it's getting a lot of benefit of coverage in the indian media. i'm not sure of the official position. in hong kong it's somewhat different. india has strong stakes in hong kong, large number of indian citizens there and you have a conflict there, several indian companies are based in hong kong that work across mainland china. it's a major hub. it's one of the largest trade partners, one of the top ten trade partners. so india has stakes there. they're watching what's happening quite carefully. they had been sort of understanding between beijing and new delhi they would not comment on each other's internal affairs. but we have seen in the last few months basically china walking back on that, particularly with what's going on in kashmir. i would expect we may see developments in that area.

>> briefly, on europe, again it's an example where you won't see very general institutional policies on specific issues, but for example, there has been 18 member states signing a declaration which criticizes china's treatment or behavior so i would say it's the same pattern. we have general human rights policies, then a group of countries which is 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. we are at 1:35. >> yeah. in the past, japan but currently japan has changed because japanese government are letting uighur people enter japan and they have been in public space recently. the foreign minister talked about

how important for hong kong so japan so this is the current situation. >> thank you very much. as always, with this group, we could go on and on because their expertise and knowledge of the region is so profound and detailed, and i'm sorry that we had to compress it towards the end but thank you for spending the afternoon here for this program at the hudson institute. it's been my honor and pleasure to moderate it and chair it at the request, and to all the panelists, please join me in thanking them and happy thanksgiving to everyone. (applause)

in stature of one of the gems of the american prudence. the